Global Payments Executive David Yates Joins Siris as Executive Partner

New York, July 15, 2019 – Siris, a leading private equity firm focused on investing and driving value creation in technology and telecommunications companies, today announced that David Yates has joined the firm as an Executive Partner. Mr. Yates most recently served as President of Mastercard’s New Payment Platforms and Executive Chairman of VocaLink, a Mastercard company. Mr. Yates will collaborate with the firm’s investment team and its other Executive Partners to help evaluate potential investment opportunities for Siris as well as help oversee the operations of its portfolio companies.

Mr. Yates developed a passion for building payments businesses around the world throughout his 35-year career. Prior to Mastercard acquiring VocaLink in June of 2017, Mr. Yates served as its Chief Executive Officer for six years, where he focused on powering innovation to increase the company’s competitiveness in the provision of payment solutions globally.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Yates served as president of Western Union, where he drove value creation by diversifying Western Union’s business into online money transfer and business payments. Before Western Union, Mr. Yates spent six years as president of First Data International, where he was responsible for building First Data’s activities outside of the United States, including the merchant acquiring, merchant transaction processing, issuer processing and ATM network solutions businesses. Mr. Yates also previously served on the board of directors of WorldPay, through its successful initial public offering.

Frank Baker, Co-Founder of Siris, commented, “David is a highly accomplished leader and boasts an exceptional track record of advancing strategic and operational initiatives and generating value for payments businesses. With more than three decades of experience in building businesses globally, we are confident that David will drive operational excellence at our portfolio companies and contribute valuable investment insights to our firm as we source potential opportunities.”

Mr. Yates earned a master’s degree in law from Oxford University.

Mr. Yates will join 13 experienced operating executives on the Siris Executive Partner team. Executive Partners are not employees of Siris, but provide invaluable sourcing and due diligence assistance to the Siris team and help direct strategic and operational improvements post-investment.

About Siris

Siris is a leading private equity firm that invests primarily in mature technology and telecommunications companies with mission-critical products and services, facing industry changes or other significant transitions. Siris’ development of proprietary research to identify opportunities and its extensive collaboration with its Executive Partners are integral to its approach. Siris’ Executive Partners are experienced senior operating executives that actively participate in key aspects of the transaction lifecycle to help identify opportunities and drive strategic and operational value. Siris is based in New York and Silicon Valley and has raised nearly $6 billion in cumulative capital commitments. www.siris.com

Media Contact:

Dana Gorman or Blair Hennessy
Abernathy MacGregor
(212) 371-5999
dtg@abmac.com / bth@abmac.com