---
title: "Chari Adds Ex-Visa Exec Aurélien Pichon as Director"
description: "Chari has appointed former Visa global ops leader Aurélien Pichon as an independent director as it expands from B2B commerce into regulated fintech infrastructure."
canonical_url: "https://liners.com/news/chari-appoints-aurelien-pichon-independent-director"
markdown_url: "https://liners.com/news/chari-appoints-aurelien-pichon-independent-director.md"
type: "article"
language: "en"
published_at: "2026-09-23T12:01:21.458Z"
updated_at: "2026-09-23T12:01:21.587Z"
---

# Chari Adds Ex-Visa Exec Aurélien Pichon as Director

Chari has appointed former Visa global ops leader Aurélien Pichon as an independent director as it expands from B2B commerce into regulated fintech infrastructure.

## Breadcrumbs

- [News](/news)
- [Chari Adds Ex-Visa Exec Aurélien Pichon as Director](/news/chari-appoints-aurelien-pichon-independent-director)

## Content

## In Short
- Chari appointed Aurélien Pichon, a former Visa executive, to its board as an independent director.
- The company is moving deeper into regulated payments and fintech infrastructure.
- Chari says it wants board-level experience running payment operations at global scale.

## What Happened
[Chari](/chari) has appointed Aurélien Pichon to its board as an independent director. Chari is a Moroccan B2B commerce and fintech company that started by helping small retailers buy inventory from distributors.

Pichon previously served as Visa’s Global Head of Client Operations and Services. That role covered the day-to-day machinery behind card payments, including settlement (moving money between banks), service delivery, and support for large clients. Visa said his organisation was close to 5,000 people.

Before the global role, Pichon led operations and client services across Central Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Chari operates across Morocco and has expanded into Tunisia and Côte d’Ivoire. Pichon is based in the Middle East and has also worked at Thomson Reuters and Google.

Chari’s CEO and co-founder Ismael Belkhayat said the company was looking for someone who has “run payments operations at a scale we intend to reach” and who understands both institutional finance and merchant needs.

## Why It Matters
The appointment signals that Chari’s fintech push is becoming a bigger part of its strategy. The company holds a payment institution licence from Morocco’s central bank, Bank Al-Maghrib, which allows it to offer regulated payment services.

Chari has been building a “super app”, meaning one app that bundles multiple services, for shopkeepers. The plan is to help merchants accept and manage payments, access credit, and handle customer transactions. In practice, this can turn informal retail stores into local financial access points for people who do not use banks.

Chari raised a $12 million Series A in October 2025, and later added new investors, bringing total funding to around $17 million. With more capital and deeper payments expertise on the board, the company is positioning for larger-scale fintech infrastructure execution across its markets.

## Sources and products

- [Condia](https://thecondia.com/chari-appoints-aurelien-pichon-board-director)
- [Chari](/chari)

## Related pages

- [People & Leadership](/news)

## Access and citation

- [Canonical HTML page](https://liners.com/news/chari-appoints-aurelien-pichon-independent-director)
- [Markdown route index](/sitemap.md)
- [Agent access guide](/llms.txt)