Online payment platform PayU has confirmed the appointment of Simona Covaliu as its new Chief Risk Officer.
Covaliu brings an extensive 18 years of experience within the privacy and compliance risk domain, having held similar roles at companies such as Uber, Booking.com and Mambu.
At PayU, Covaliu will work with the privacy, compliance, risk, and security teams as the second line to provide greater transparency to the wider business to make informed decisions about product development.
Due to PayU’s scope of operations, it has placed an increased focus on synergies within the risk team that it believes will be essential to ensure a continued smooth roadmap of product development and implementation.
Daniel Cohen, CEO of PayU, said: “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.”
Under her new role at PayU, Covaliu will encompass four key pillars as CRO, the first being greater focus on privacy to mature the process and provide flexible operations as artificial intelligence is set to become a major concern.
She will also ensure greater security solutions to match evolving threats, as well as providing greater compliance with various regulatory requirements. Covaliu will also maintain greater risk mitigation and strengthen communications, both internally and externally.
Simona Covaliu, Chief Risk Officer, commented: “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.”