Following a successful 12-months, including processing and reconciling over £5 billion in payments volume, Kani Payments has promoted Alina Ciocan as Head of Finance, previously Finance Operations Manager, Melissa Beckett as Chief Marketing Officer and Sophie Harbisher at Data Science Lead.
The hires & promotions in the team will meet growing demand from clients looking to make operational efficiencies and invest in payment reconciliation technology.
Founded by CEO, Aaron Holmes, Kani Payments empowers fintech’s, payments companies and challenger banks to better understand the complex payments ecosystem through payment reconciliation and reporting technology and upskilling in-house finance teams.
With a degree in Finance & Banks from the Academy of Economic Studies in Romania, and over 10 years’ experience in the finance and payments industries, including with EE Mafcote International and Flex-e-Card, Alina ‘leads the finance team, which includes supporting customers with their reconciliation and reporting requirements as well as influencing the finance process requirements of the Kani Payment’s progressive platform.
Melissa, meanwhile, previously led NatWest’s Business Accelerator Programme for the North. She is passionate about culture and has a wealth of experience in supporting fintech businesses from start-up to scaleup status. Her experience in technology and software marketing from Sage software, combined with accelerating businesses, will see her drive the company’s growth strategy, including developing partnerships, international expansion and customer journey.
Using data to gain valuable insights for Kani Payments’ clients and helping them to understand and manage their data, Sophie’s background in research statistics makes her a strategic Data Science Lead.
Sophie’s data insights focus brings automation to tedious matching of records as well as developing statistical models to gain insights into data trends to make predictions. Prior to joining Kani Payments, Sophie worked as a postgraduate research student in Bayesian statistics at Newcastle University, during which she completed a 3-month placement at IBEX Innovations.
Aaron Holmes, Chief Executive Officer of Kani Payments, commented: “Alina is a key member of the Kani team and is an expert in payments. She has done a brilliant job at leading our finance operation to-date, which was a key factor in inviting Alina to head up the finance team as we move into a new stage of growth.
“The appointment of senior female leads in Melissa and Sophie also signifies a huge milestone moment in the Kani Payments growth journey – not only does it demonstrate our commitment to building a diverse and inclusive payments team, as well as the overall trajectory of the company. The combined experience of these new additions to our team, coupled with Kani Payments’ truly innovative data reconciliation solution, are the perfect foundation for a remarkable year in 2021.
“With their support behind us, we look forward to revolutionising the reconciliation process for businesses of all sizes across the globe, empowering them to drill down deeper into their data to make informed, strategic decisions that aid their success.”
The announcement also follows the scaleup’s successful expansion across Europe, the US, Middle East, and Australia, where it has a fast growing customer base and a number of strategic partnerships emerging. The company was also named ‘Europe’s Leading Financial Services or Payments Start-up’ by the The Payments Association in 2019.
Holmes continued: “The impact of the ongoing pandemic and the swift digitalisation of payments that has taken place means companies now expect automation and require a better way of understanding their costs and how to reduce reconciliation errors, and a system that will support their requirements. Ultimately, finance teams need to ensure money is where it should be, right throughout the payments chain, and need to be able to evidence this at a moment’s notice. We are proud to be able to provide that service where it is so urgently needed.”
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