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Chari, the Moroccan B2B commerce and FinTech company serving proximity retailers across Francophone Africa, has appointed Aurélien Pichon to its board of directors as an independent director.
The move strengthens the company’s governance as it scales its agency banking and fintech-infrastructure-as-a-service businesses across the region.
Aurélien Pichon, former Global Head of Client Operations and Services, Visa Inc said,“What Chari is building is the unglamorous, essential layer of financial infrastructure — the famous “last mile” that actually reaches the merchant around the corner. I have spent a significant amount of my career close to the institutions that power small and medium businesses, that operate as B2B end to end, that issue and acquire; Chari is now close to the millions of small businesses that make up the real economy in this region. That combination is where the next decade of payments in Africa will be decided, and I am delighted to be joining the board at this stage.”
Pichon was until recently Global Head of Client Operations and Services at Visa, where he led a worldwide team of close to 5,000 people. He moved into that global role in 2024 after heading operations and client services for Visa’s Central Europe, Middle East and Africa region, the same region Chari operates in. He is based in the Middle East.
The appointment comes as Chari expands beyond its original retailer-distribution business into regulated financial infrastructure.
This includes agency banking, where the company turns neighbourhood shops into cash-in and cash-out points that offer financial services, and fintech infrastructure-as-a-service, where Chari makes its rails available to banks, telcos, corporates, fintechs, startups, and other financial institutions.
Pichon joins the board in an advisory and strategic capacity, with a mandate covering payments expertise, institutional relationships across issuers, acquirers, processors and regulators in Africa and the Middle East, and experience running large service organisations at global scale.
Ismael Belkhayat, CEO and Co-founder, Chari, said, “We did not look for a name. We looked for someone who has personally run payments operations at a scale we intend to reach, and who understands both the institutional side and the merchant side of this business. Aurélien has done exactly that, in exactly our region and in other high-growth regions of the world such as Asia and Latin America. His presence on our board raises the standard we hold ourselves to, on strategy as much as on execution.”
Founded in 2020 by Ismael Belkhayat and Sophia Alj, Chari digitises traditional proximity retailers across Francophone Africa and provides them with financial services, including agency banking and payments infrastructure. Notably, Chari is an alumnus of Y Combinator.
