Bill Ready
CEO , Braintree
Bill Ready is the CEO of Braintree, one of the most innovative and influential startups in the payments industry. With its emphasis on mobile-first experiences, elegant tools for developers, and incredible customer support, Braintree developed industry-leading payment solutions that power many of the world’s most disruptive new businesses, including Uber, Airbnb, OpenTable, and Rovio/Angry Birds. Braintree was acquired by eBay for $800 million in 2013.
At PayPal, Bill continues to lead Braintree, which operates as a separate service within PayPal, and sits on the company’s executive staff reporting to David Marcus. His focus is on scaling the Braintree platform and guiding efforts to push the boundaries of payment innovation for consumers, merchants and developers around the world.
Before joining Braintree in 2011, Bill was executive in residence at Accel Partners, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital and growth equity firm. A veteran of the payments industry, Bill served as president of iPay Technologies beginning in 2008, guiding the company through a period of rapid revenue and earnings growth, and its sale to Jack Henry & Associates for $300 million in 2010. He also worked as a strategy consultant for McKinsey & Company, where he advised leading financial technology companies, and was an early engineer at two other successful start-ups: emphesys (merged with Humana in 2001) and Netzee (IPO November 1999). Bill holds an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was an honors recipient and a bachelor’s degree in information systems and finance from the University of Louisville.