Talking Payments

Anticipating risks and understanding how the money flows makes your organization more successful.  The Crossway Group, LLC, offers strategic consulting and professional training and education in Enterprise Risk Management and in Payment Systems -- addressing end-to-end risk management and payment system topics, from infrastructure and regulatory issues through operational implementation.  Expertise in central bank and corporate treasury management.  Experienced in payments training; risk analysis for innovations; emerging and legacy (check, ACH, wire) payments and securities transfers; consumer, business and large-value payments, clearinghouses, and CCPs.  Skilled in Design Thinking and interdisciplinary approach to problem solving, complex topics and metrics (for example tri-party repo and HR analytics) presented in plain English, not jargon.

As Managing Executive of The Crossway Group, LLC, Michele Braun trains and advises for-profit and not-for-profit enterprises on payments and on risk management.  

Michele moved from corporate treasury management to managing check and ACH services and developing national policy for Reserve Bank Operations at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, where she also wrote speeches for Governors, and explored regulatory changes to support appropriate payment innovations. 

At the New York Fed, as Payments Policy Officer, she served as secretary to the Fed-sponsored, industry-led Payments Risk Committee and the post-financial-crisis Tri-party Repo Infrastructure Reform Task Force. There, she worked closely with policy makers and industry to reduce risk associated with large-value payments, securities transfers, CCPs, and clearinghouses. 

Michele worked the midnight shift for Y2k, oversaw check services on 9/11/01 when checks still cleared by airplane, and she moved to the NY Fed in time for the 2007-08 financial crisis that revealed the potential for large value markets to freeze. 

Previously, Michele served in cash manager and assistant treasurer positions for a mid-sized conglomerate in Annapolis, MD, as controller for a technology startup, and as an officer at Chase Manhattan Bank.  More recently, she developed curricula and taught enterprise risk management at Manhattanville College’s School of Professional Studies.

Ms. Braun holds a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and a M.S. in Public Management and Policy from Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College.  Ms. Braun is a frequent contributor to business publications on risk management, payments, and innovation topics—most recently on blockchain.