Rafael Calvo

Business Development Director  ·  AI Transformation  ·  Fintech & Payments  ·  New York, NY

AI Transformation Agentic Systems 30+ Years Experience Fintech & Crypto Digital Wallets · BNPL Strategic Partnerships EU & US Markets
30+
Years Experience
12+
Years at Visa
5
Multi-Million $ Deals
7
AI Systems in Prod
Professional Summary
Strategic leader and hands-on AI practitioner with 30+ years at the intersection of technology and business development in fintech and payments. At Visa NA, drives BD partnerships with leading fintechs while independently designing and executing an AI transformation program for the NA Fintech team — building production AI systems, pitching a comprehensive adoption framework to leadership, and fostering AI fluency through bi-weekly office hours and GenAI Ambassador work.

Deep technical fluency in agentic systems, LLM inference, and AI application development — combined with executive-level stakeholder management and a proven track record closing multi-million dollar strategic deals. Brings the rare profile of a builder who can sell, and a strategist who can ship.
Career Timeline — click any role to expand
Partnerships & BD Director ▾
Visa — Strategic Enablers & Fintechs
Oct 2023 – Present 📍 New York, NY
  • Lead strategic partnerships with Block Inc. (Square, Cash App, Afterpay), driving growth across BNPL, embedded finance, and digital wallets in the U.S. market.
  • AI Transformation: Designed & pitched an AI adoption framework for Visa NA Fintech: 6-capability program (operating model, data architecture, success metrics, 90-day roadmap). Currently self-executing: building production systems + running bi-weekly office hours.
  • AI-Augmented BD: Built client analysis and relationship intelligence tools for global deal preparation; deployed Copilot agent suite for portfolio management (daily/weekly summaries, open items tracker) across 15+ active accounts.
Digital Partnerships Sr. Manager ▾
Visa — Digital Partners EU
Jan 2022 – Oct 2023 📍 Madrid & London
  • Managed strategic relationships with Google and Samsung across multiple EU markets — wallet expansion, device binding, and digital authentication.
  • Contributed to wallet launches in 6 new countries; closed deals with 3 major EU banks (Barclays, Santander, Caixa).
Key Account Senior Sales Manager ▾
Visa — Spanish Issuers
Oct 2015 – Dec 2021 📍 Madrid, Spain
  • BBVA: Closed multi-million dollar 7Y portfolio recovery from Mastercard; Visa share 73%→>90% (+1.4M cards). Launched Visa Aqua — Spain's leading digital-first card.
  • Executed agreements with Ibercaja (10Y) & Abanca (7Y), full portfolio migration 45%→>95% and 55%→>95%.
  • Closed Spain's first Visa processing deal with UniversalPay.
Product Sales Delivery Manager ▾
Visa — Ecommerce Products (V.me / Click to Pay)
Sep 2013 – Oct 2015 📍 Madrid & London
  • Led sales delivery of V.me by Visa (predecessor of Click to Pay) in Spain — 7 issuer wallet contracts.
  • Signed the #1 V.me merchant in Europe.
IT Director ▾
ANECA — Public Sector Agency
Mar 2010 – Aug 2013 📍 Madrid, Spain
  • Led IT strategy, infrastructure modernization, and digital transformation for a national public sector agency.
  • Managed Dev, Systems, and Helpdesk teams; oversaw technology vendor relationships.
Sr. Technical Support Engineer ▾
Symantec Corporation
Dec 2006 – Mar 2010 📍 Madrid, Spain
  • Senior technical support for the Veritas/Backup Exec product suite — large enterprise clients across the EU.
Windows Systems Engineer
HP — Carrefour Spain  ·  Airis Computers
2002 – 2006
Founder & CPO 🚀 ▾
PIC — Plataforma Interactiva de Comunicación
2000 – 2002 📍 Spain · Successful Exit
  • Co-founded one of Spain's first interactive media startups — pioneered SMS-based audience participation for live TV across major Spanish broadcasters. A world-first in 1997.
  • Built and commercialised the product; achieved successful exit through acquisition.
Product Manager ▾
TYVE Technologies
1997 – 2002 📍 Spain
  • Led product management for interactive television and digital media solutions — developed early SMS-based interactivity products that became the foundation for PIC.
Education, Certifications & Skills

Education & Certifications

Computer Science
Cibernos
2002 – 2005
Certifications
ITIL V3 Service Manager · Sep 2012
MCITP: Enterprise Administrator · 2008
MCSA: Windows Server 2003 · 2006
Languages:  Spanish — Native  ·  English — Full Professional Proficiency

Key Skills

AI & Technology
AI Transformation Agentic Systems Prompt Engineering LLM Inference RAG MCP GenAI Leadership Local AI Infra
Business & Strategy
Fintech Strategy Crypto & Stablecoins Digital Wallets BNPL Strategic Partnerships Business Development Strategic Initiatives Embedded Finance EU & US Markets
AI & Agentic Systems — built inside and outside corporate environments
⚙️
Foundational
Technical Fluency
  • Transformer architecture · quantization (GGUF/GPTQ) · RAG · MCP · agentic systems · tool use · prompt engineering · local inference
  • Daily tools: Claude Code · GitHub Copilot · Codex · Perplexity
  • Local inference (cost optimization): LM Studio · Ollama · Models: Gemma · Qwen · Mistral · Claude API
Claude Code GitHub Copilot Codex Perplexity LM Studio Ollama MCP RAG Prompt Engineering FastAPI Docker SQLite AgentMail
🟢
Practitioner
Applied AI Workflows
  • Copilot agent suite for Visa BD — daily/weekly/project summaries, open items tracker across 15+ active accounts
  • AI-enhanced client analysis & relationship intelligence tool for global deal preparation
  • CRM lead intelligence workflow — LLM prospect classification + Hunter.io enrichment → Relaticle CRM
  • Fintech Intelligence Engine — agentic monitoring of fintech media, X/Twitter, press & video → configurable daily digests
🔵
Builder
Production AI Systems
  • GTD + Copilot Cowork — AI productivity platform (SQLite / Node.js / Claude Code) capturing project memory & rolling summaries
  • TripTyk CRM Intelligence Agent — end-to-end lead generation pipeline (Laravel / PostgreSQL / Redis) with LLM-based prospect classification (Gemma / LM Studio), external enrichment (Hunter.io / Google Places / AgentMail), and structured ingestion into Relaticle CRM for a design & construction business
  • Portfolio Intelligence Tracker — full-stack investment platform (FastAPI / IBKR API / Claude) with AI trade setup generation and multi-turn agent analysis
  • YouTube Summaries Pipeline — local AI ingestion (faster-whisper / Gemma / LM Studio) transcribing & publishing bilingual content to WordPress
  • Openclaw / Hermes Agent — personal AI OS with persistent memory, email/WhatsApp, cron scheduling, and orchestration across local & cloud services
  • Self-hosted LLM infrastructure — NVIDIA GPU + WSL2 + Docker + Tailscale running Google Gemma, Qwen, Mistral, and Deepseek for cost control
🔶
Transformer
Organizational AI Adoption
  • Designed & pitched "Fintech NA as Visa's AI Adoption Standard" — SD-level framework, 6 capability areas, 90-day roadmap
  • Self-executing: building production systems, establishing proof points, presenting results to leadership
  • Bi-weekly AI office hours for Visa NA Fintech team — structured knowledge-sharing across the group
  • Active Visa GenAI Ambassador — AI fluency support across NY office and field teams
CliftonStrengths® Top 5 Gallup · Assessed May 2025
#1
Ideation
Strategic Thinking
Fascinated by ideas — finds connections between disparate phenomena and generates original solutions.
#2
Maximizer
Influencing
Focuses on strengths to stimulate excellence — transforms something strong into something superb.
#3
Strategic
Strategic Thinking
Creates alternative ways to proceed — quickly spots patterns and crafts the best path forward.
#4
Positivity
Relationship Building
Brings contagious enthusiasm — energizes teams and sees the best in people and every situation.
#5
Developer
Relationship Building
Recognises and cultivates the potential in others — draws satisfaction from coaching and growth.