Wibmo Appoints Shailesh Paul as its New CEO
Wibmo, the online payments security platform owned by PayU, is set to appoint Shailesh Paul, a senior executive from Visa, as its new CEO. Shailesh Paul is an international business leader known for fostering growth and guiding strategy. His career encompasses more than twenty years in leadership positions within payments, financial services, and fintech.
Shailesh oversaw international markets, including Asia Pacific, South Asia, and Middle Eastern markets based in Singapore, India, and Qatar. Shailesh has led strategic changes affecting revenue in the 10-digit dollar range. He is a recognized expert in payments and a former retail banker.
Shailesh was most recently the Global Head of Small Merchant Acceptance at Visa, responsible for strategy and market entry for a segment that generates 10-digit dollar industry revenue. He led the overhaul of Visa's worldwide strategy for SMBs and launched new pricing and product innovations. Throughout his tenure, the company provided digital solutions to over 50 million SMBs worldwide.
Before joining Visa, Shailesh was in charge of Cards & Personal Loans at Standard Chartered Bank in Qatar. He worked as a product manager at the bank in India and was the Marketing Manager for Mastercard before that.
Shailesh is a graduate of the Wharton School of Business – Advanced Management Program (recipient of the Best Social Enterprise Project award), has an MBA from Xavier Institute of Management (India), and possesses a business degree from Delhi University.
The appointment follows the exit of Suresh Rajagopalan, who stepped down as Wibmo’s CEO in March after a five-year stint. Rajagopalan has since joined Samunnati Agri Innovation Labs as CEO.
PayU acquired Wibmo in 2019 for $70 million as part of its strategy to extend beyond consumer payments into areas like security, lending, and infrastructure. In March, ET reported that PayU had picked up a stake in payments firm Mindgate, valuing it between $200–250 million.
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Founded in 1999 by Govind Setlur and Veena Mistry, Wibmo had previously raised early-stage funding from venture capital firm Accel, according to Tracxn data.