Marqeta has appointed Simon Khalaf as its new CEO effective January 31, 2023, the company has announced.
Khalaf will also join Marqeta’s Board of Directors while Jason Gardner, Marqeta’s founder, Chairman, and current Chief Executive Officer, will become Executive Chairman.
Khalaf joined Marqeta in June of 2022 as Chief Product Officer before taking on leadership of the Go-to-Market organisation last August. He has over 30 years of technology experience as an executive and entrepreneur, and has held the position of CEO four times in his career, most recently at Flurry before it was acquired by Yahoo. He has also held senior executive positions at established public companies Twilio, Verizon, Yahoo, and Novell.
Speaking on the announcement he said, “Together with Jason as Executive Chairman and a skilled and accomplished executive team, I believe we have the recipe in place to unlock the next level of growth and scale for Marqeta. There is tremendous opportunity in front of us to enable the brands we serve with our innovative, flexible platform and grow the ubiquity of digital payments globally.”
Khalaf’s appointment comes as Marqeta expands its card issuing platform to capitalise on the fast-growing embedded finance market segment.
Meanwhile, ex-Google and Ancestry Executive Todd Pollak has joined the company as Chief Revenue Officer.
Pollak has over 25 years of sales and go-to-market experience, most recently, spending four years at Ancestry as Chief Commercial Officer. He also spent thirteen years at Google serving as managing director in the financial and retail sectors.
“Marqeta has an A-list customer base, a product with proven scale and clear product-market fit. I am excited to lead the team in capturing new opportunities in embedded finance and enabling our customers to offer solutions that upend how consumers and businesses can access their money and make payments,” Pollak said.
