Zip appoints Chief Technology Officer to help drive global BNPL expansion

Former Citi, Paypal Payments Industry Veteran to Spearhead Technology-Driven Growth for Digital Payments Pioneer

Sydney – 5 November 2021: Zip Co Ltd (ASX: Z1P) is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Ahu Chhapgar as the company’s new Global Chief Technology Officer.

Ahu will commence with Zip on 1 December at the company’s New York office and report to Zip’s Global CEO and co-founder Larry Diamond.

Ahu will be responsible for leading Zip’s global technology organisation on an end-to-end basis. He will drive innovation across Zip’s engineering and technology capabilities and ensure the company’s technology platforms deliver the best possible experience for customers and merchants.

Following rapid global growth, Zip is focussed on increasing efficiencies across its international operations while maintaining its culture of fast-paced, people-centred innovation. Ahu’s appointment will support Zip’s product, technology and engineering teams around the world to find new ways to connect customers and merchants for smarter, seamless payment experiences.

“We are pumped to have Ahu join the Zip family. He comes with an outstanding track record in payments engineering that will be crucial to Zip as we continue to scale, allowing us to drive global synergies while also ensuring local teams are empowered to win in their markets,” said Larry Diamond.

“Zip is all about velocity of output and getting value into the hands of customers and merchants faster than our peers. Delivering game-changing products means rapid, low-cost experimentation, daily shipping and the ability to validate feedback to ensure we’re responding quickly to customer needs. Ahu will provide the north star for our engineering and technology teams, as we strive to be the first payment choice everywhere, every day.”

“Zip’s growth means we not only need transformational engineering leadership, but also a highly capable people leader who can attract and develop world-class talent and that is Ahu. Welcome aboard.”

Commenting on his appointment, Ahu said:

“I am looking forward to joining Zip and working with the global leadership team to drive growth across all its markets. BNPL is changing the world of payments, and Zip is doing exciting work to disrupt the traditional financial services model and offer new digital wallet solutions to its customers. There is so much potential in this space and I’ve been impressed with how passionate Zipsters are about changing the game!” Ahu said.

Before Zip, Ahu spent over three years at Citibank as Managing Director and Global Head of Payments and Receivable Technology where he led payments for all global and regional product engineering functions including all payment types.

He was previously Senior Vice President of Digital Payments Technology at Mastercard, where he led all product and mobile engineering for the company’s digital payment platforms.

Ahu also held several technology leadership roles at PayPal, where he helped the business to scale, in addition to senior engineering roles at DexYP, Convansys and Hewlett Packard.

He has a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Toledo and a Bachelor in Computer Science from the Maharashtra Institute of Technology.

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