Officers & Board of Directors

Koichi Tagawa, Chairman, NFC Forum, has been with the organization since its founding in 2004. Initially serving as the Vice Chairman, Mr. Tagawa was elected as Chairman in 2008. During his leadership tenure, he has been an advocate for NFC market expansion, and has overseen the development of over 20 standards-based specifications which are the foundation for interoperable NFC-based solutions worldwide. Mr. Tagawa is the General Manager of Global Standards and Industry Relations at the C&I Center in Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP). DNP is the largest printing company, and the largest NFC solution provider, in Japan. Prior to DNP, Tagawa worked in the consumer electronics industry at Sony for 41 years. He now is devoted to promoting the expansion of NFC solution businesses worldwide by fusing his consumer-oriented background with his passion for NFC technology.

Frank Dawidowsky is Principal Engineer at the European Technology Center of Sony Corporation, located in Stuttgart, Germany. Frank has been active in the NFC Forum since its inception. He has more than 14 years of experience in standardization and has been an active contributor in a number of specification organizations and industry associations, including ETSI and the Wi-Fi Alliance.

Laurent Sourgen is the Director of Strategic R&D Programs for Microcontrollers and Digital ICs Group within STMicroelectronics, and he is also involved in strategic partnerships. After graduating in Electronic Engineering, he started working with silicon integrated circuits. Over the past 20 years, he has been in charge of the team developing smartcard and other secured integrated circuits, where he designed and supervised work for different secure contact and contactless product generations. With good knowledge in related technologies and architectures, he is also involved in various cooperative R&D programs as project leader and expert. He represents STMicroelectronics in different professional organizations such as NFC Forum and Eurosmart.

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Bjoern has more than 20 years of experience in the electronic components industry and is currently holding the position of Senior Director, heading the Product Line Payment and Wearables at Infineon Technologies. He assumes worldwide responsibility for the P&L of security controllers and
solutions used in Payment & Wearables applications.

Prior to this role he worked for over 15 years in various positions within the Marketing team of the Security & Chip Card ICs division for Payment. Transport and Communication.

Before joining Infineon in 2000, he started his professional career in 1997 with the Ceramic Components Division at Epcos AG as Product Marketing Engineer for automotive, industrial and consumer applications.

He holds a degree (Dipl. Wirt.-Ing.) in Industrial Engineering and Management from the Munich university of applied Science

Eddy Van de Velde represents Mastercard on the Board of Directors of the NFC Forum. Eddy works for the EMV & Digital devices department in Mastercard. He has more than 20 years’ experience in smartcard payment technology and is currently in charge of the team specifying solutions for digital payment devices based on EMV technology. He has been involved from the first smart card applications up to the HCE-based payment applications in smart phones. As part of his responsibilities, he has contributed to different EMV workgroups and other standardization initiatives.

Neeraj Bhatia is a Product Manager at Qualcomm, where he has been since 2011. Previously, he has worked as a Private Equity Consultant at Kurt Salmon Associates, in Investment Banking at Cappello Capital, and as a Product Line Manager at Marvell. He has an MS in Computer Networking from the University of Southern California, and an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Jack Lee is Senior Engineer at the Standards and Technology Enabling Team of DMC R&D Center, Samsung Electronics which serves as the central standards coordination body of Samsung Electronics. His current focus is on convergence connectivity standards and related industry initiatives. As part of his current responsibilities he has worked on the areas of Connectivity, IoT, Automotive and Smart Home. Prior to his current work he has collaborated with industry partners to create new industry alliances for IoT and Mobile Printing. His previous experiences include regulatory affairs, digital broadcasting and connected healthcare. He has represented Samsung on the Board of Directors of NFC Forum since 2014 and has also held leadership roles in OMA and Wi-Fi Alliance.

Yo Tabayashi works for the Global Standards and Industry Relations Department in the FeliCa Business Division of Sony Corporation. He has more than 6 years experience in Sony FeliCa Contactless technology from market planning to strategic alliance activities, and also has over 10 years experience in the smart card industry. Yo joined the NFC Forum activities in 2006 in San Diego, and has held key NFC strategy roles in Sony.

Laurent Sourgen is currently director of Strategic R&D programs for Microcontrollers, Memories & Secure Group within STMicroelectronics, and he is also involved in strategic partnerships. After graduating in Electronic Engineering, he started working with silicon integrated circuits. Over the past 20 years, he has been in charge of the team developing smartcard and other secured integrated circuits, where he designed and supervised work for different secure contact and contactless product generations. With good knowledge in related technologies and architectures, he is also involved in various cooperative R&D programs as project leader and expert. He represents STMicroelectronics in different professional organizations such as NFC Forum and Eurosmart.

Giampaolo Marino serves as Thinfilm’s Executive Vice President of Hardware Solutions. With nearly 20 years of product leadership and go-to-market experience in the areas of mobile, IoT, consumer, and industrial applications, he is responsible for overseeing product management, engineering, corporate quality, and ecosystem strategic partnerships. Prior to Thinfilm, Giampaolo held leadership positions at NXP Semiconductors, Monolithic Power Systems, Texas Instruments, Intersil, and Analog Devices. He holds an MBA degree from the Franklin W. Olin School of Business at Babson College and a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from San Jose State University.

Barbara Patterson is a Vice President at VISA with extensive experience in developing groundbreaking payments and processing products. She is an expert in driving critical strategic initiatives, accelerating revenue growth, reducing costs, and creating competitive advantage. Having held a range of management roles at Visa, her experience includes providing business and technical direction for credit, debit, commercial, and prepaid solutions for the US and Global payments industry. Barbara has been leading various activities within digital payments solutions focused on tokenization and secure remote commerce. She leads the Digital Standards and Strategic Projects organization that oversees digital payment standards with a focus on new and emerging technologies, payment methods and security solutions.

A recognized Payment Industry and Visa expert, she is frequently called upon for understanding and designing creative solutions that solve complex business issues and address customer needs to drive competitive advantage for all aspects of the payment ecosystem.

Barbara has been granted a number of patents and has filed several more that are in review which support innovative development initiatives in the Payments Industry. She is an active participant in number of EMVCo working groups, including Tokenisation Working Group (TWG) and Secure Remote Commerce Working Group (SRCWG). Prior to joining Visa, held a number of positions at Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco.