Nubia Valenzuela

Nubia Valenzuela is a Senior Consultant with Samaha & Associates, Inc. specializing in bankcard operations, third-party system conversions, ATM fleet and fraud management. She has more than 33 years of experience in the payments industry.

Prior to joining Samaha & Associates, Nubia was the Vice President of the Payments Division for SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union. During her 12-year tenure, she successfully completed multiple projects and was responsible for leading back-office Member services staff with a primary focus on Member service, compliance, policy, and Member experience.

As the First Vice President of F&M Bank of Long Beach (Calif.), Nubia established guidelines and implemented plans that grew revenue streams in the following departments: Merchant Card Services, ATM department and Bankcard departments. Her efforts also improved overall communication to the retail branches and other departments within the bank. In addition, she was responsible for the Electronic Payments Division operation (fraud monitoring, mitigation and reporting, collections and charge-off management) as well as Merchants’ end-to-end operations, including inventory management.

Nubia has a proven efficiency record in minimizing fraud losses, which is based on years of experience managing records and item processing, statement processing, tax notices, payment operations, ACH, wires, bill pay, and ATM fleet processing management.

A CUES CEO Leadership Program graduate presently pursuing a Business Administration and Organizational Leadership degree from the University of Massachusetts, Nubia holds a master’s certificate in Business Administration from the University of Irvine. She is the recipient of two Unsung Hero awards: the President’s Award and Leadership Award, and was nominated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for the Investigator of the Year (2017).

A resident of Gardena, Calif., where she lives with her fiancée, Nubia has four children and two grandchildren. Along with being a Los Angeles Dodgers super fan, she loves movies. Topping her list of favorites films, The Notebook.