Mr. Saeed is the Founder and Chairman of Whizpay Technology LLC. He is a proud Business Administration alumnus from a top-ranked technological institution in the United Arab Emirates. Saeed hails from a highly respectable national leadership family who has been instrumental in developing and shaping the UAE’s economy by founding many businesses in the country which are brands we can recognize with everyday such as First Gulf Bank, Etisalat, Abu Dhabi National Insurance Company (ADNIC) and many other corporate entities for trade in the national and international arena.

Mr. Saeed is also a member of the Board Member of Bin Otaiba Investment Group, a family-owned diversified firm based in Abu Dhabi that owns a large and diversified portfolio including 14 hotels around the world managed by leading operators such as Hilton, Hyatt, and Radisson, several real estate assets and more. The firm’s portfolio spans several countries including the UAE, UK, South Africa, and Morocco.

In his personal life, Mr. Saeed is a humble family man and a sports enthusiast. He is an avid fan of football and patron member of the famous Al Ain Football Club in the UAE.

Faiq is the Co-founder and Managing Director of Whizpay Technology LLC with its headquarters situated in the United Arab Emirates and has been providing trail blazing mobile money technology services. Faiq has built a reputable name as an ambitious and innovative entrepreneur with substantial credentials of accomplishments in establishing a company from a simple idea to a multi-million profitable concept. Through local partnerships, Whizpay will provide an adapted localized product that will accelerate collaboration and innovation in the financial technology sector, creating better experiences for people, businesses, and communities.

Prior to Whizpay, Faiq has a commendable professional journey of over 13 years with numerous citations and recognitions from various banking and financial services sector namely, First Gulf Bank, Emirates Islamic Bank, Al Masraf Bank, and I.C. Access DWC LLC. His extensive banking experience has secured optimal partnerships in different industries. Furthermore, Faiq has a strong affirmation on the potential of his people as it drives impact on the development of his organization towards equitable success and continued growth.

Faiq holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration major in Finance from Goa University and has a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce, specialized in Finance and Marketing from Goa University. He is currently pursuing certification under the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).

Maryann is a serial successful entrepreneur hailing from Kenya. She founded Nailstop, Tukio Magical and G-Shelters Real Estate which are all very successfully running brands in the Beauty and Wellness, Travel, Tourism and Events Management, and Real Estate Industry in the last 16 years and still going strong. She is a seasoned executive in business development, sales, and investment strategies. Has built sales agent networks, partnerships launched her retail strategy successfully with stellar clients / customer acquisitions. With the line of businesses Maryann had built, she was able to seamlessly connect with numerous business leaders in multinational corporations. These partnerships resulted to some of the most memorable and spectacular events in recent Kenyan history such as hosting the biggest football matches in the country.

Maryann also got onto the Financial Technology eventually in her business journey and decided to take the plunge into the digital wallet space by learning from the core teams of M-Pesa to build the Whizpay Technology story for UAE and beyond.

Aside from being a business enthusiast and a Human Resources degree holder, Maryann is also a Philanthropist. She’s advocating to eradicate poverty and promote education to less fortunate children in her home country, Kenya. Through her ‘Adopt a Child’ foundation, she’s able to create positive impact to their lives and influence them to value education.

Zhenya is a globally experienced Chief Officer driving competitive advantage in international markets with strategy and operations leadership complementing a track record in directing customer-centric service and market innovation. Zhenya managed 6,000 staff across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia and was part of the executive leadership team creating a framework for growth to deliver a global BPO firm, a top strategic partner for Microsoft. Prior to this, as Vice President – Worldwide Software for Hewlett Packard, she orchestrated strategy implementation for digital transformation, post-separation migration from HP, and customer services and sales across 64 countries, including development of a global customer support, service, and sales function. She held Profit & Loss authority and led 5,000 staff and revenues of USD 4 Billion.

Zhenya has held many notable leadership and board positions prior to being a Co-Founder and Board Director of Whizpay Technology LLC. She was a former Board Member of Technology & Services Industry Association (TSIA), a Chief Operations Officer at Tek Experts, and Vice President of Worldwide Software at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Zhenya is a Harvard Business School alumnus. She also holds an MBA from St. Kiril and Metodi University and a double Bachelor Degrees in Information Technology Management, and Finance from the University of National and World Economy.

Salha is a qualified lawyer and the founder of Al Khallafi and Co for Legal Services and Consultancy. Prior to establishing the firm, she handled various of real estate, rental, employment, commercial disputes and settlements. She trained at one of the top law firms in the Middle East “Al Tamimi and Co” and worked in the Legal Department in Meraas and Dubai Holding for several years in dealing with corporate matters and handled the rental, real estates, and employment cases.

Salha has solid national and international experience which naturally comes with sustainable connection with very successful leading groups and entities in the region. She has successfully dealt with complex cases and settlements that are worth millions of Dirhams and has extensive expertise in different Legal fields such as Corporate & Commercial, Labor & Employment, Dispute Resolution & Litigation, Information Technology and FinTech. Consequently, she developed a wide experience in Dubai Courts and Dubai Public Prosecution.

Salha holds a bachelor’s degree certificate from a top-notch Law University in the United Arab Emirates and was later admitted in the Emirati Bar as a licensed lawyer. Currently, she is pursuing a master’s degree certification in the University of Sharjah.

Eric will be spearheading the Whizmo business in the UAE as its CEO. Eric is highly experienced mobile money & digital financial services business leader with over 20yrs experience in banking and telecommunication. As the Group Director in charge of Strategy Execution at Equity Group holdings, Eric successfully spearheaded the creation of the Equity Group holding virtual bank (EazzyBanking ) that saw the conversion of ~ 95% of all Equity Bank retail transactions to digital self-service channels, played a major role in the creation and launch of Equity Bank mobile virtualnetwork , Equitel , the first bank led MVNO which played a major role in bankingdigital disruption that saw 2.7M Equitel activations and 20% Market share in two years and the launch of Equity Group holdings Fintech, Finserve Africa. A 100% owned subsidiary of Equity group holding created to build relevant consumer focused financial technology solutions for individual consumers and Organizations. Eric has extensive experience in successful mobile money operations in Africa such as M-Pesa (Kenya) and Airtel Money (Uganda) in addition to successful stints in the investment banking and fintech industries. At M-PESA, he was in charge of M-PESA product development and Operations and worked on development and delivery of key initiatives within M-PESA such as M-Kesho, M-Shwari, Lipa na M-Pesa & bring M-Pesa back home. At Airtel, Eric was responsible for e-wallet based services for Africa and later responsible for the overall Airtel Money business in the Uganda market for Airtel Uganda. 

Eric’s experience will play a pivotal role in the market entry, launch and growth of Whizpay in the UAE market. He brings with him extensive learning from the launch and operations of two successful mobile money services in African countries. He has played a key role in sculpting the service feature set, operating policies and the go-to-market strategy of Whizpay for its Whizmo service in the UAE and will oversee the running of the Company.

Ian is a passionate leader of Telecommunications and Mobile Money. He has a track record of delivering turnaround and acceleration stories in all the Companies that he has led. He has also worked in complex operating environments, navigating through difficult regulatory, competition, economic and political headwinds. Despite external challenges, he has remained focused on delivering accelerated growth, culture change and reputational enhancements. Ian has done this by building visionary strategies, surrounding himself with the best Executives in the industry and by building a sense of purpose and trust within the employee base.

He has been successful in delivering strong commercial growth, internal culture change, external reputational improvements and developing a future generation of Telecom leaders in each of his roles. It was one of his greatest privileges to lead Vodacom Tanzania through a super complex IPO process, eventually delivering success for shareholders, Government and new investors. Some of his notable achievements include an overall Profit & Loss accountability >USD 430 Million Revenue, USD 130 Million EBITDA, making Vodacom the First Telecoms Company to list 25% of equity on the Tanzania Stock Exchange raising USD 213 Million, and M-Pesa acceleration with Mobile money hitting 30% of revenue – a focus on Mobile Payments.

Ian was a consultant with Deloitte in the London office prior to beginning his fast-paced career in the telecom & payments industry. Prior to that he studied management sciences in the Warwick Business School and has also completed several leadership courses in his spare time to date and is an avid business trends reader.

Vikram is a highly analytical investment professional with experience in private equity investments, real estate and business strategy. He has a proven track record of executing equity investments and M&A transactions within international markets, including Europe, USA, the Middle East and Asia.

He has worked in prominent private equity institutions such as Oman Investment Fund and Motital Oswal Private Equity as well as renowned real estate developers like Damac Properties over a career spanning 18 years. He has executed several marquee transactions including a $500M sukuk for Damac and a $1B debt restructuring deal for the OIF. He managed an investment portfolio of $800M for the OIF and was responsible for two early-stage investments that turned into multi-bagger successes for Motilal Oswal.

Vikram holds a Master’s Degree in Financial Management from the University of Mumbai, India and a certification in Real Estate Economics & Finance from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Michael Musau is a highly experienced IT leader who possesses an exceptional record of achievement in the management of global technology and country operations, including information security, project management, systems, disaster recovery, strategy, and business solutions. He has a demonstrated history of reducing costs, improving efficiency, increasing revenue and profitability, and streamlining workflow through the delivery of innovative technology and process enhancements to meet organizational needs.

Michael has a rich career spanning organizations in Kenya and the USA with notable milestones such as:

• Enabled 35% revenue growth at Techpitch Ltd. and eliminated database downtimes by implementing backup systems that improved recovery times from 3 hours to 11 minutes.
• Lowered budget from US$17M to US$10M by focusing on higher retention assets, especially in marketing.
• Selected to take on the role of Kenya Country Chief Operations Officer because of strategy expertise
• Established technology hubs in Kenya, Spain, and the UK to support global expansion efforts.
• Grew Chalbi Business Solutions from initial startup to several million dollars in revenue.
• At EMC2, spearheaded the implementation of the first 2 public cloud offerings in all of Eastern Africa.
• Reduced the hardware footprint 30% in 6 months at OmniAmerica by virtualizing the data centers.
• Developed and deployed OmniAmerica’s Windows systems baseline standards and controls.

Santhana Krishnan is a highly experienced CFO with over 25 years of progressive leadership experience in the UAE covering UK and MENA region, served as board member, board secretary, licensed director and authorised finance officer for a DFSA regulated Cat-2 licensed firm with head office in London. Most recently, was the CFO of Grant Thornton UAE, a leading audit and consulting firm in the UAE.

Santhana has over 20 years of experience in the UAE having previously worked for Rasmala Holdings, Rasmala Investment Bank and Smith International Inc. Dubai (part of Schlumberger).

Santhana holds the CPA and CMA qualifications from the United States, holds the IFRS certification from the US CPA Institute and has completed the Executive Education Leadership program from Harvard University.