Carmela Mesquita has an extensive career in cross-border payments, finance partnerships, and business strategy. After completing her degree in Economics in Brazil, she started her professional journey with multinational and large local banks, working in Trade Finance and Correspondent Banking. Her passion for expanding her knowledge led her to pursue a Masters degree in Business Strategy at the prestigious London Business School, where she graduated in 1999.

Seeking new challenges, Carmela transitioned into the software industry, joining a company that was later acquired by Lucent Technologies, where she led the Market Intelligence team. She then moved to Convergys, a software billing company, overseeing Market Strategy in Europe. In 2004, American Express invited Carmela to lead their Pan-European Pre-Sales team in Business Travel, a role that sparked her interest in the payments industry. Later, she joined American Express as a Global Account Manager for large corporate clients, before moving to Visa Europe, where she spent nearly a decade launching new products and collaborating with banks to optimize their portfolios.

In 2009, Carmela joined Mastercard Europe, where she built and led a Partnerships team, working with global partners such as Amazon, Facebook, SAP, and Oracle. Her work involved expanding Mastercard’s solution acceptance and go-to-market strategy across various regions. Observing the evolution of the payments industry, Carmela took on a new challenge in 2024 as part of Dandelion Payments, a leading provider of cross-border payment solutions, now part of the Euronet group.

Fluent in Portuguese, Italian, English, and Spanish, Carmela’s multicultural background has been invaluable throughout her career. In addition to her professional achievements, she is passionate about photography, traveling, and experiencing different cultures. Carmela also enjoys playing piano, film editing, cooking for friends, and following English football and Formula 1 with her partner.

In her current role as Financial & Strategic Advisor for the Social Entrepreneurship Research Institute (SERI), Carmela brings her wealth of expertise in finance and strategic partnerships to help social entrepreneurs access funding, scale their ventures, and create meaningful impact. Her guidance and advisory services are pivotal in supporting innovative business growth and advancing the goals of socially responsible organizations.