TPAY MOBILE's CEO, Sahar Salama relinquishes Group CEO duties to Become Group Chairwoman
TPAY MOBILE, the leading mobile payments platform in the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey (META) has appointed Gaston Aussems, previously CEO of Mollie, as Group CEO, effective July 4, 2022.
Announcing the appointment, the founder and former CEO of TPay Mobile, Sahar Salama, now the group chairwoman said “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,” Salama added.
Salama will assume the role of Group Chairwoman and will work closely with Gaston Aussems in the coming months to ensure a smooth leadership transition for the rapidly expanding payment company.
Commenting on his appointment, Gaston Aussems expressed excitement about joining the company, “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.”
Aussems comes with some solid experiences, having been the CEO of European payments company Mollie for over seven years, where his leadership was an integral 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.
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 the 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.”
With 28 million monthly active users, TPAY MOBILE offers a full-service, end-to-end solution that enables digital service providers, such as merchants and game developers, to easily access and accept payments from consumers in more than 30 countries across the region.
Its technology is used to access and accept payments from consumers in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa by regional digital merchants and international brands such as Google, Huawei, MBC, Tencent, Anghami, Marvel, beIN, and others.