Cashfree Payments appoints former Visa executive Sameer Gandhi as CFO

Cashfree Payments on Monday announced the appointment of Sameer Gandhi as its chief financial officer.

With more than two decades of experience across global financial institutions, Gandhi will anchor the artificial intelligence-native payments infrastructure and intelligence company’s financial strategy, enhancing the efficiency of financial operations and revenue planning. He joins at a time when the Bengaluru-based company is looking to accelerate its growth and become profitable in the coming quarters.

Gandhi brings with him diverse, transnational work experience encompassing corporate finance, transformation, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), investment banking and consulting. Most recently, he served as head of finance at Visa India, where he led the company’s financial operations and financial planning. Prior to that, he held senior roles at Vodafone as general manager of financial planning and analysis for its enterprise and carrier businesses, and earlier at ING Australia as a senior M&A analyst. He began his career as an analyst at Crisil and Citigroup.

“For over a decade, we have been simplifying payments to help businesses launch, grow, and succeed in the digital economy while ensuring that every single transaction is safe, secure, and compliant. The combination of receiving RBI licences early, strong revenue growth, and early leadership in AI-native payments, has helped us create a strong foundation for our business,” Cashfree Payments CEO and co-founder Akash Sinha said in a statement.

“As we accelerate into our next stage of growth, Sameer’s proven track record in working for large institutions makes him a powerful addition to the leadership team. His expertise will be instrumental as we double down on sustainable growth and strive towards our goal of becoming profitable," he added.

Gandhi said, “India presents a huge long-term opportunity in the digital payments sector, with an established fintech ecosystem. Being the first payments platform in India to hold all three RBI (Reserve Bank of India) payments licences gives a significant edge to Cashfree Payments over other players. I look forward to working as a strategic business partner - balancing cost discipline with funding innovation, and contributing to shared vision and goals by ensuring robust financial foundation and governance across all functions."

The company recently raised $53 million (Rs 450 crore) in a funding round led by South Korean digital entertainment firm Krafton and existing investor Apis Growth Fund II, managed by Apis Partners (UK).