Marqeta Names Ex-Yahoo Exec Simon Khalaf as CEO

Card issuing platform Marqeta has named its Chief Product Officer (CPO) Simon Khalaf as CEO.

Khalaf joined the company as CPO in June and began leading its go-to-market organization as well in August, Marqeta said in a Thursday (Jan. 26) press release.

Marqeta’s Founder, Chairman and current CEO Jason Gardner will become executive chairman when Khalaf becomes CEO, effective Jan. 31, the release said.

“After an extensive search, the board and I strongly believe Simon is the clear choice to lead Marqeta through its next era,” Gardner said in the release. “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.”

Gardner announced in August that he would become executive chairman after naming a new CEO.

“I have led Marqeta from 0 to 1, and soon it will be time to pass the baton to the best person to lead it from 1 to infinity,” Gardner said Aug. 10 during the company’s quarterly earnings call.

Khalaf has 30 years’ experience as an executive and entrepreneur in the technology space and has served as CEO four times. He most recently served as CEO at Flurry, before it was acquired by Yahoo, and has held senior executive positions at Twilio, Verizon, Yahoo and Novell, according to the press release.

Marqeta also announced Thursday that Todd Pollak has joined the company as chief revenue officer (CRO). He brings 25 years of sales and go-to-market experience to the company after spending four years at Ancestry as chief commercial officer and 13 years at Google as managing director in the financial and retail sectors, the release said.

The appointments come at a time when Marqeta is expanding its platform to capitalize on the fast-growing demand for embedded finance, and Khalaf is to expand the platform’s reach and scale, per the release.

“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,” Khalaf said in the release. “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.”