PayU GPO, the leading online payment service provider operating in over 50+ emerging markets, today announces the appointment of Simona Covaliu as Chief Risk Officer.

Covaliu brings over 18 years of experience to the role, having worked at various global companies including Booking.com as Senior Risk Manager, Uber as Chief Risk and Compliance Officer, and Mambu as VP of Risk and Compliance.

At PayU GPO, Simona will be working with the Privacy, Compliance, Risk, and Security teams as the Second Line, providing greater transparency to the wider business to make informed decisions about product development, further decreasing the risk of the offering for SMBs and enterprises. Given the span of PayU GPO’s operations, increased synergies within the risk team will be essential to ensure a continued smooth roadmap of product development and implementation.

Four key pillars will fall under Simona’s leadership, including:

Privacy: Maturing the processes already in place, ensuring agility and scalability. With the advent of AI, accessing the impact this technology could have is crucial.
Security: Implementing new solutions to support staying ahead of evolving threats. With new regulation, these methods will help respond in a scalable way.
Compliance: Assessing how this function can most effectively grow as PayU GPO continues to scale, and the potential for automation to support with regulatory compliance.
Risk: Increasing oversight of all types of risks and strengthening communication about potential factors, either internal or external, that could impact operations.

Simona Covaliu, Chief Risk Officer comments: “I’m excited to be taking on a new challenge at PayU GPO. Working with so many different teams, there is a great opportunity to learn and grow from a vast variety of experiences. Building scalable risk, compliance, privacy and security frameworks for an organisation of this size and intricacy is a really exciting opportunity for me and I’m looking forward to working with the team to build and further refine our approach.”

Daniel Cohen, CEO, PayU GPO adds: “Simona’s breadth of experience working closely with regulators, together with her deep understanding of the fintech landscape makes her an incredible, strategic addition to the PayU GPO leadership team. With Simona stepping in to oversee all our Second Line operations including Compliance, Risk, Privacy and Security, she will play an instrumental and strategic role in the next stage of our growth, as we expand and deepen our global operation in fast-growing, emerging markets.”