Simon Khalaf has been appointed as Marqeta’s (NASDAQ:MQ) new CEO, effective January 31, 2023. Previously Marqeta’s Chief Product Officer, Khalaf will also be joining Marqeta’s board of directors.
Marqeta’s founding CEO Jason Gardner will now become the Executive Chairman of Marqeta. Gardner was previously Chairman as well as CEO.
Khalaf said he was humbled by the opportunity to build upon Gardner’s vision.
“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.”
Gardner said that after an extensive search, he believes Khalaf is the right choice to lead the Fintech he founded.
“Simon’s diverse experience leading companies over a long career, the strong customer orientation and product vision he has shown in his time at Marqeta thus far, and his ability to build great teams, make him the right person to lead Marqeta into the next chapter. I look forward to supporting Simon and the rest of our executive team in delivering the next generation of Marqeta.”
Khalaf has been CEO four times in his career, most recently at Flurry before it was acquired by Yahoo. He has held senior executive positions at public companies Twilio, Verizon, Yahoo, and Novell.
Marqeta also announced that Todd Pollack is joining the executive team as Chief Revenue Officer. Pollak joined Marqeta in January 2023, having previously been the Chief Commercial Officer at Ancestry and spending 12 years at Google.
Marqeta is a Fintech innovator in the card issuance and management sector, enabling all types of firms to issue virtual and physical cards.