René Pelegero is senior director of industry relations & strategy for the financial services department at PayPal, an eBay company. In this role, he is responsible for managing PayPal's relations with the financial services industry, and defining the strategies that will maximize the benefits provided by these financial networks. PayPal enables any individual or business with an email address to securely, easily and quickly send and receive payments online.

Prior to joining PayPal, Pelegero was president and managing director at RPGC Group LLC, an e-commerce consultancy practice. In this role, he provided advice to some of the largest and most recognized Internet merchants in the world in areas such as strategic planning, payment process optimization, and launching global payments acceptance.

Previously Pelegero served as director of global payments at Amazon.com. He was responsible for all aspects of payments processing for more than 30 million customers and managed relationships with banks, processors, credit card companies and associations.

Pelegero has also held senior management positions at Electronic Payment Services, Inc., a leading electronic funds transfer (EFT) processor; GE Capital, an international consumer lending group; and CardSystems, Inc., a credit card information technology consulting company.

Pelegero has also served as board member of the Direct Response Forum (DRF), co-chaired the e-commerce purchasing council of the Electronic Funds Transfer Association (EFTA), serves as a member of the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA) Payments Institute Board of Regents, and is a member of the advisory board for ISO&Agent Weekly and of an advisory panel for The Economist. He received his bachelor’s degree in business administration and his masters of business administration from San Francisco State University.