
Sean Gelles leads consumer payment research and intelligence at J.D. Power with a heightened focus on Buy Now, Pay Later, Debit Card, Digital Wallet, Peer to Peer, and Point of Sale Choice payment methods. More broadly, Sean works with clients to help them identify improvement opportunities and gain a competitive advantage in the rapidly evolving payments industry.
Prior to joining J.D. Power, Sean worked for several years at American Express, where he led a team of analysts that harnessed customer data from across the credit card and banking industries to generate insights resulting in improved digital experiences that led to enhanced customer acquisition, account servicing, and growth in company revenues.
Sean has 20 years of experience leading customer analytics and insights teams across multiple industries, including payments, media, and marketing. He earned a bachelor's degree from Northwestern University and a master's from Cornell University.
Expertise & Speaking Topics
- Payments innovation – role of AI/ML and blockchain – and future of payments
- Digital drivers of acquisition, onboarding, and early tenure satisfaction among consumer credit card customers
- Future of digital account servicing in credit cards and payments in general

Where you've seen Sean Gelles
Below are some of Sean Gelles' recent speaking engagements.
Zelle Marketing Forumn
Topic: Make Some Noise: The Case for Marketing P2P in Banking
FIS Emerald Conference
Where you've read insights from Sean Gelles
Mike's insights have been featured in the following publications.
Jumping Aboard the BNPL Bandwagon Becomes a ‘Must Do’ Even for Smaller Banks
The Financial Brand
Gen Z used BNPL more than credit cards over holidays, survey shows
Retail Dive
Satisfaction with Buy Now, Pay Later Services is Growing
Consumer Affairs
The Turned-on Wallet
Digitaltransactions.net