A Message from Our New CEO

The hard work of bringing together two industry leaders to create a unified payments company has already been accomplished, and the groundwork has been laid in the short span of just seven months.

I’m so excited to come on board as CEO of Onbe. As I enter my 3rd week, I wanted to introduce myself and share my thoughts about where we are right now and the opportunity the Onbe team and I have in front of us.  

First of all, it’s a great time to join Onbe. The hard work of bringing together two industry leaders to create a unified payments company has already been accomplished, and the groundwork has been laid in the short span of just seven months. We’re proud to have a Net Promoter Score of 54, which reflects our team’s commitment to putting our clients first. Onbe will continue to grow and thrive not just because we have the right mix of people and products in place today, but because we know where we want to go moving forward. We understand the payment problems we are uniquely qualified to solve. And we are investing capital in building the products and capabilities that are fundamentally changing our clients’ lives and making them better at what they do.

I’ve been in payments for the last 14 years, and most of my experience has been in merchant acquiring. Those of us in acquiring jokingly call issuing “the dark side,” and I’ve finally crossed over. I look at this as an incredible learning opportunity, especially coming from a world focused on merchants, banks, and software companies that are hungry for what Onbe does: building innovative corporate payout experiences. The exciting challenge for me is to lead a nimble fintech company that is changing the way brands interact with and incentivize their customers and workers. Not many companies can claim household-name brands as their clients. Onbe can, because the value proposition this company has created enable our clients to turn corporate disbursements into a strategic advantage. We’re doing that by creating digital payment experiences that are not just simpler, faster, and more cost-efficient, but truly engaging, and which use the power of data to help these companies better understand their recipients.

It’s now my job to ensure we are very thoughtful and intentional about the new client-centric Onbe culture that we want to create.  Decisions about which tools and processes to advance will be based on what’s right for the market, the team, and most importantly, our clients. The way to get these kinds of decisions understood at the deepest level of an organization is transparency and one-on-one dialogue. What I always ask is, “Are we making it as easy as possible for our clients?” I look forward to facilitating these kinds of conversations at Onbe as we continue to build momentum as a unified company.

And as I get to know the team at Onbe, I feel incredibly lucky to play a role in guiding this company’s way forward. My commitment is to lead Onbe to its next stage of growth with full transparency, intentionality, and a lot of listening. We already have the foundation for great outcomes. The next step is to set our sights on the expanding pathways and opportunities ahead of us as we work to capture the tremendous global opportunity in corporate disbursements. Together, we’ll do the best work of our lives to drive our customers’ success, build an enduring culture at Onbe, and lead the corporate disbursements market into the future.

by Bala Janakiraman, Chief Executive Officer

At Onbe, Bala is focused on helping the team realize its full potential by aligning strategy, talent, culture, and investments.