ex-CEO of Mollie, Gaston Aussems, named successor
DUBAI, UAE, 4 July 2022 -/African Media Agency(AMA)/- TPAY MOBILE, the leader in mobile payments in the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey (META), today announces it has appointed Gaston Aussems, previously CEO of Mollie, as Group CEO, effective 4th July 2022.
Founder and current CEO, Sahar Salama, will move into a Group Chairwoman position, and will be working closely alongside Gaston Aussems over the coming months to ensure a smooth leadership transition for the fast-growing company.
Gaston Aussems comments: “I’m incredibly excited to be taking the baton from Sahar at such an exciting time for TPAY MOBILE. The company’s mission of empowering underserved regions’ digital economies is something I wholeheartedly support, and I look forward to being part of the next stage of its journey.”
Gaston Aussems was CEO of European payments giant Mollie for over seven years, where his leadership was a crucial success factor in the company achieving its unicorn valuation in 2020. He has since spent two years as a venture partner, at firms including Atlantica and Antler, and a board member of impact investor Oikocredit as well as various fintechs and telecommunications companies, including Yolt and Talk360.
Sahar Salama explains: “All of us at TPAY MOBILE should be so proud of everything that we have achieved. We changed the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa for the better by delivering cross-border micropayments at scale, and significantly improving financial inclusion in the region. While we were always ambitious in our vision of what TPAY MOBILE could become, we never imagined that our services would be so rapidly adopted by our partners and customers, and this makes me excited for what the future holds, especially as TPAY MOBILE expands its payment capabilities to new digital merchants and non-digital services.
“The time is now right for someone new to take TPAY MOBILE to the next level, and I trust that Gaston is that person. His experience of successfully scaling a complex, multi-country payments company, combined with his technical background, product-focused mentality, and global, entrepreneurial mindset, makes him the perfect person to execute TPAY MOBILE’s ambitious plans. I will be moving on to focus on a purely strategic and advisory role for the Group in this exciting next growth phase for TPAY MOBILE.”
Babatunde Soyoye, current Group Chairman at TPAY MOBILE, says: “It has been a pleasure to partner with Sahar over the years and witness the passion, hard work and dedication that has helped grow TPAY MOBILE into the innovative company it is today. Sahar laid a great foundation in building a unique mobile payments network of merchants and Telcos across Middle East, Africa, and Turkey. The next phase of growth is about building on this incredible platform to make TPAY MOBILE the market leading digital merchant acquirer and mobile payments enabler in its markets and we believe that Gaston will help us achieve this”.
Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) on behalf of TPAY.
About TPAY MOBILE
TPAY MOBILE (https://www.tpaymobile.com/) is the leader in mobile payments in the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey (META). TPAY MOBILE provides a full service, end-to-end solution that makes it easy for digital service providers – including merchants and game developers – to access and accept payments from consumers in more than 30 countries in the region.
TPAY MOBILE’s transformative technology drives financial inclusion and access throughout META – a region where many are unbanked, so credit and debit cards are not a realistic prospect. TPAY MOBILE allows users to make purchases by charging payments to their mobile phone carrier bill or deducting from their credit or mobile wallet balance. This is facilitated through a single API integration that enables local and global merchants to reach and accept payments from more than 770 million potential customers without the need for a traditional bank account. In turn, operators and mobile wallet providers can connect their subscribers to thousands of leading digital service providers through TPAY MOBILE’s payments platform.
TPAY MOBILE’s technology is used by regional digital merchants and international brands including Google, Huawei, MBC, Tencent, Anghami, Marvel, beIN and others, to access and accept payments from consumers across the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa.
TPAY MOBILE is headquartered in the UAE and its services are currently used by over 28 million monthly active users. The company shareholders include Helios Investment Partners, the leading Africa-focused private investment firm, and A15, the Middle East’s leading tech-focused VC fund. For more information, visit https://www.tpaymobile.com/ or find us on LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram or Twitter.
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Safaa Elbanna
