Vodeno hires Philip McHugh as Chairman & Noah Sharp as CEO

By Gloria Methri

European Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) provider Vodeno has appointed Philip McHugh as Chairman and Noah Sharp as CEO.

McHugh and Sharp will steer Vodeno’s next phase of growth and continue the company’s momentum, with over 30 BaaS projects in development, and new investors confirmed in recent months.

Together, McHugh and Sharp have a combined 50 years of experience in the international banking and payments industry. McHugh is the former CEO of Paysafe, prior to which, he was the senior Executive Vice President and President of TSYS Merchant Solutions.

McHugh also spent 20 years working for two leading banks, most recently as Chief Executive Officer of Barclaycard Business Solutions and a further 10 years at Citigroup, where he held senior management roles within the credit card division.

Sharp joins Vodeno from payments firm BCB Group, where he served as Deputy CEO. He is also the former Chief Banking Officer of Paysafe. A FinTech banker and payments expert, Sharp has held several senior roles within global banks, including Standard Chartered, where he was responsible for building and advising the bank’s FinTech client franchise in Europe and North America.

Prior to this, Sharp worked at Deutsche Bank for 11 years across several continents, where he most recently led global relationships for European and US-headquartered FinTechs and other non-bank financial institutions.

Vodeno’s proprietary, cloud-native banking platform offers the ability to partner with any bank or payment institution to enable a comprehensive suite of embedded banking products. The company currently partners with ECB-licenced, Aion Bank, to offer B2B and B2C solutions to European e-commerce, FinTech, and corporate clients, as well as banks. It recently announced a strategic partnership with NatWest Group to create a BaaS business in the UK.

Wojciech Sobieraj, Founder and Board Member of Vodeno, said, “Philip and Noah bring deep payments, banking, and financial services expertise to Vodeno. Their impressive track record of scaling businesses, alongside an intrinsic understanding of how to successfully support large-scale BaaS projects positions the company well for its next phase of growth. Our ability to attract Philip and Noah, alongside key investors Warburg Pincus, NatWest Group, and EBRD, demonstrates the strong belief in our ability to become Europe’s leading BaaS provider.”

Philip McHugh, Chairman of the Board, of Vodeno, added, “Wojciech and team have built an incredible business at Vodeno. The technology the team has built is second to none, and the client wins and partnerships created to date are truly impressive. Additionally, everyone – from the internal teams to the Board to the investors – is highly focused and energised on making Vodeno a major BaaS player. I look forward to building on the team’s great progress to date and working together to achieve Vodeno’s growth ambitions.”

Noah Sharp, CEO of Vodeno, said, “Vodeno’s platform is unique; it can work with multiple partner banks across many countries and with companies across multiple sectors to enable a comprehensive suite of embedded banking, payments, and lending products. I want to thank Helen Smith for her contributions as Interim CEO, and she leaves the company in a very strong position to scale. I am looking forward to working with Vodeno’s talented teams to establish us as the core, reliable BaaS provider in Europe.”