BRION BONKOWSKI

Brion Bonkowski is a seasoned leader in enterprise software and payments. He began his entrepreneurial career in San Francisco during the dot-com boom and later co-founded a successful Microsoft enterprise software integrator in New York City, which became an Inc. 500 company. In 2010, Brion shifted focus from services to scalable ventures, launching both an enterprise payment processing firm and a Microsoft-based grant management platform.

In 2015, he entered the banking-as-a-service space by acquiring a virtual cross-border prepaid program and launching Tern, where he now serves as CEO, driving global innovation in embedded finance.

Brion currently serves on the boards of Tern, GrantVantage, NYPAY, and the Kilimanjaro Initiative. At NYPAY, he supports thought leadership in payments and commerce, while as Chairman of the Kilimanjaro Initiative, he empowers inner-city youth from New York and East Africa through life-changing climbs—having summited Mt. Kilimanjaro five times himself.