Identrus LLC has announced the appointment of Karen Wendel as chief executive officer. Wendel has more than 20 years experience in financial services, applications development and business management.

“With Karen, Identrus gains an experienced financial services business leader,” says Andrew McLauchlan, Identrus chairman of the board of directors. “She also has a strong technology background with a proven ability to raise capital for expanding service offerings and to bring innovative web-based solutions to market quickly.”

Wendel’s vision for Identrus is to lead the drive toward greater digital certificate usage within the financial services, government and corporate sectors worldwide. Additionally, Wendel will spearhead strategic alliances and acquisitions to accelerate certificate-enabled applications development and deployment.

Prior to joining Identrus, Wendel was CEO of eFinance Corporation, an applications development company providing risk and credit decisioning solutions. She was previously a partner at the Belgium-based consulting firm The Capital Markets Company (Capco) where she led the growth of Capco’s e-finance practice, including raising capital and building out the required team and infrastructure to serve global financial institutions in Asia , Europe and Latin America. Prior to that, Wendel led the US financial services practice of Gemini Consulting where she developed and managed global accounts.

Identrus LLC has established a regulated policy framework that provides the global standard for digital identity authentication and trust online. The Identrus platform provides the legal and technical infrastructure for financial institutions (FIs), their customers and government entities to effectively manage the risks associated with identity authentication in digital transactions. Identrus digital certificates are scalable and interoperable supporting enterprise-level applications as well as domestic and international transactions. Identrus also provides managed digital certificate services through its subsidiary Digital Signature Trust™ LLC and e-payments initiation services through EleanorÙ, the global e-payments specification that enables FIs to build upon their existing payments systems to offer enhanced e-payments initiation services to their customers. Identrus membership consists of more than 60 of the world’s leading financial institutions spanning 160 countries. Additional information about the company is available at www.identrus.com.