Nichole Francis Reynolds

Nichole Francis Reynolds is Vice President of Public Policy at Mastercard.  Ms. Francis Reynolds is responsible for shaping and promoting the interests of Mastercard in the areas of tax, trade, privacy, cyber and data security, branding issues, Fintech, financial inclusion, intellectual property and emerging payments. She is also instrumental in the execution of Mastercard’s community relations program.  As a lawyer and lobbyist, she works with members of Congress, Administration officials and industry associations on global payment issues. Ms. Francis Reynolds assists in the distribution of Mastercard’s PAC, which serves more than 210 countries and territories and roughly 10,000 employees that operate the world’s fastest payments processing network connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments, and businesses.  Through Mastercard’s payment solutions, it delivers value and connects close to two billion cardholders with tens of millions of merchants around the world.

Ms. Francis Reynolds has a unique combination of legal, legislative and political experience. She spent nearly ten years in a variety of roles on Capitol Hill including Chief of Staff to two key Members of Congress, a District Director, and counsel on the Homeland Security Committee. She became adept at building relationships with Members of Congress, staff on both sides of the aisle, and organizations to pass bipartisan legislation and advance policies that improve the lives of all Americans in areas including financial services and manufacturing. She also gained political experience working on national presidential elections and congressional races.

Before serving on Capitol Hill, Ms. Francis Reynolds practiced law in the Washington, D.C. office of Baker Hostetler and defended clients in matters involving professional malpractice, employment litigation, trade, antitrust claims, and policy issues including health care and federal and state taxation. She also practiced law in the Nashville office of Baker Donelson and defended clients in matters involving health care and automobile products liability. She also worked on federal and state public policy matters involving taxation, municipal finance and health care.

Ms. Francis Reynolds graduated cum laude and with honors with a Bachelor of Science from Eastern Michigan University in 1997 and received her law degree in 2001 from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. She is admitted to practice law in Tennessee, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. She is also fluent in Spanish.

Ms. Francis Reynolds serves on the board of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Corporate Advisory Council and the Southern Youth Leadership Development Institute. She is the recipient of several awards including: 2001 Dean’s Special Award for Outstanding Service at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, 2005 Ebony Magazine’s “30 Leaders of the Future”, 2009 Eastern Michigan University Alumni Achievement Award, and was featured in the Washington Post in 2011 as a rising star in a piece entitled “Who Runs Government”. In 2013, the National Bar Association and IMPACT, Inc. recognized her as one of the “Nation's Best Advocates: 40 Lawyers Under 40, and in 2015, she received the Christine Ray Davis Trailblazer Award from the Congressional Black Associates, a Congressional Bipartisan Staff Organization.  She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Jack & Jill, Inc. Washington, D.C. Chapter, and is the President of Eastern Michigan University’s National Capital Area Alumni Chapter.