Connie Theien

Connie Theien serves as the Federal Reserve’s director of payments industry relations, leading efforts to engage stakeholders in advancing U.S. payment system improvements and collaborating to drive adoption of faster payments in the United States.

Theien leads collaboration and education programs focused on faster payments, fraud prevention, and efficiency improvements for B2B and cross-border payments. She is responsible for actively involving 10,000 members of the FedPayments Improvement Community in initiatives to improve the end-to-end speed, efficiency and security of payments in the country, in addition to building industry support and advocacy for the FedNow instant payments service.

As part of the Federal Reserve’s payments improvement leadership team, she established and managed the Faster and Secure Payments Task Forces, a coalition of 500+ stakeholders that worked from 2015-2018 to lay important groundwork for collaborative industry advancements.

In her tenure at the Federal Reserve, Theien established the national marketing function in 2004 and industry relations in 2013. Prior to coming to the Fed, she led marketing and public relations efforts for nonprofit, retail and academic organizations. Theien holds a B.A. in communications and an M.B.A. from the University of Minnesota.