RZ
01Executive resume

Rizwan Zafar, Product & Program Executive

Dubai-based product and program leader scaling regulated fintech infrastructure in complex markets: payment rails, merchant onboarding, settlement, reconciliation, risk/AML controls, partner ecosystems and AI-enabled operations.

Download PDFrizwanzaffar.pk@gmail.comLinkedIn
$1B+
GTV / TPV scaled
25M+
Monthly transactions
7
Complex markets
50+
Bank, wallet & FI partners
40+
Engineers led
4
Production AI deployments

Executive Summary

Product & Program Executive with 14+ years across payments, fintech, OTT, ecommerce operations and digital transformation.

Currently CPO at Simpaisa, where I helped scale regulated payment infrastructure to $1B+ GTV, 25M+ monthly transactions and 50+ bank, wallet and FI partners. My operating lane sits between product strategy, program delivery, compliance, risk, engineering leadership, partner ecosystems and market expansion.

Product Leadership

Payment infrastructure, pay-in/payout APIs, card acquiring, wallets, DCB, merchant onboarding, settlement, reconciliation, fraud controls and cross-border corridors.

Program Leadership

PMO governance, multi-squad delivery, vendor management, SteerCo reporting, regulatory programs, PCI DSS, ISO 27001 and complex-market execution.

Commercial Scale

Built product and operating systems that scaled GTV, improved authorization, reduced failure rates, controlled fraud loss and made local rails usable for enterprise platforms.

Priority Skills

Payment infrastructureProduct strategyProgram governanceCross-border paymentsSettlement & reconciliationKYC/KYB automationFraud & AML/CFTBank/wallet partnershipsPCI DSS / ISO 27001AI in payment operationsVendor managementComplex-market execution

Experience

Aug 2020 - Present
Dubai, UAE

Chief Product Officer (acting CTO, 2024) · Simpaisa

  • Owned product strategy and program execution for a regulated multi-rail payments platform spanning pay-in, payouts, wallets, DCB, IBFT, card acquiring, settlement, FX and cross-border corridors.
  • Helped scale infrastructure from $0 to $1B+ GTV, 25M+ monthly transactions and 50+ bank, wallet and financial institution partners across complex markets.
  • Built merchant onboarding, KYC/KYB, risk-tiering and category pricing flows that cut standard-risk activation from weeks to hours and supported 150+ merchant integrations.
  • Led a 40-engineer payments organization across 12 squads; managed $5M+ technology budget, 15+ vendor relationships, PCI DSS, ISO/IEC 27001 and multi-jurisdiction reporting programs.
  • Improved platform economics and control: payment failure rate down from ~8% to ~1.2%, 99.95% settlement SLA, fraud loss below 0.1% of GTV and downtime down 90%.
  • Deployed four production AI/GenAI solutions across merchant support, incident auto-escalation, partner operations and fraud/AML decisioning.
Mar 2020 - Sep 2020
Karachi, Pakistan

Project Manager, Payments Operations · Daraz (Alibaba Group)

  • Ran payment operations governance across five markets during a COVID-driven volume surge, covering settlement cycles, disputes, fraud rules and COD-to-digital conversion.
  • Coordinated multi-country reconciliation, vendor management and Alipay localization with Alibaba teams; expanded payment coverage on checkout by ~40%.
Jul 2017 - May 2020
Karachi, Pakistan

Senior Project & Product Manager · Tapmad

  • Owned product strategy and program delivery for OTT monetization, subscription billing and payment rails, turning a high-cost billing model into a commercially viable product.
  • Launched direct carrier billing across all four major telcos and scaled acquisition from 0 to 5M paid subscribers in under three years.
  • Led wallet-billing migration that reduced payment cost from ~50% of revenue to ~1%, improved refund/subscription UX and supported MENA expansion.
Apr 2017 - Oct 2017
Dubai, UAE

PMO & Project Manager · Wing Logic

  • Built a PMO operating model for a $12M+ project portfolio, creating executive dashboards, KPI cadence and delivery governance for 50+ people.
  • Reduced project delays by 40% through clearer ownership, reporting rhythm and cross-workstream dependency control.
May 2016 - Jan 2017
Democratic Republic of the Congo

Assistant Manager, Projects · CIMKO (Nyumba Ya Akiba SA)

  • Delivered $8M+ in IT infrastructure and ERP projects in a high-complexity operating environment; reduced project delays by 12% and procurement costs by 15%.
Sep 2012 - Feb 2016
Karachi, Pakistan

Project Manager, PMO · DS Engineering Services

  • Managed governance and reporting across 400+ engineering projects and a $15M utilities/power infrastructure portfolio; improved delivery efficiency by 70%.
Jun 2009 - Aug 2012
Karachi, Pakistan

Senior Planning Engineer · Pakistan Engineering Services Co. (PESCO)

  • Built planning and monitoring systems for substation field operations, improving downtime visibility and reducing downtime by 6%.

Skills & Credentials

Payments Infrastructure

Pay-in / payout APIsCard acquiring (MPGS/MDES)Tokenization (DPAN/FPAN, 3DS2)Wallets, DCB, IBFTCross-border corridors & FXSettlement & reconciliationISO 8583 / ISO 20022 / SWIFTTreasury tooling

AI & Data

GenAI use-case identification & value modelingRAG architecture & LLM ops in productionAI-driven merchant support & integration botsAuto-escalation & log-analysis agentsAI fraud detection & AML decisioningAnalytics platforms · decline-code segmentation

Risk & Compliance

KYC / KYB automationAML / CFT controlsSanctions & PEP screeningFraud decisioning & chargebacksPCI DSSISO 27001Travel Rule & VARA / FATF alignment

Program & PMO

PMBOK-based stage gates for capital projectsAgile / Scrum / Kanban / hybrid frameworksRAID logs, SteerCo, board reportingOKRs, RICE / MoSCoW prioritisationVendor & partner negotiationProgramme governance at $1B+ scale

Product & Leadership

Payments product strategy & roadmapP&L ownership (built from $0)Org design (built 2 → 50+ across 12 squads)Network & issuer partner enablementRegulator and central-bank engagementPricing, unit economics, ARPUGo-to-market across 7 regulated markets

Markets

UAEPakistanBangladeshNepalIraqEgyptMENASouth Asia

Certifications

  • Project Management Professional (PMP), PMI
  • PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP), PMI
  • Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Scrum Alliance
  • Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Scrum Alliance
  • COBIT 5, IT Governance (ISACA)
  • ITIL v3, IT Service Management (Axelos)

Also led PCI DSS and ISO/IEC 27001 certification programs from scratch at Simpaisa.

Education

  • Mastering Design Thinking (Executive Program)
    MIT Sloan School of Management
    Aug 2022, Dec 2022
  • M.Sc. Physics
    University of Karachi
    2009, 2012
  • B.Sc. Physics
    University of Karachi
    2007, 2009

Recognition

  • Youngest Project Manager of the Year
    Industry honor · 2015

Contact

Dubai, UAE
rizwanzaffar.pk@gmail.comLinkedIn profile

Ready for senior product, payments and program leadership roles.

Best fit: fintech infrastructure, payment networks, PSPs, banks, OTT/ecommerce platforms and digital transformation programs that need product judgment plus delivery discipline.

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