Joanna Pydo Joins Autopay as Chief Value Officer (CVO) and General Manager in the Middle East

At the outset of March Joanna Pydo joined the Autopay Group in the newly-formed position of Chief Value Officer (CVO) and General Manager in the Middle East. This heralds another step in executing the brand’s multidimensional growth strategy and international expansion plans.  

As Autopay’s CVO Joanna Pydo will be responsible for shaping the Autopay Group’s strategic shareholder value, including primarily managing strategic initiatives, such as collaboration on M&A transactions, investments, and business partnerships. 

She will also oversee our efforts to build and strengthen Autopay’s position on international markets by executing our international communication strategy and running our corporate foreign affairs program, which involves managing relations with key stakeholders. Concurrently, in her capacity as General Manager, Joanna Pydo will be responsible for implementing our comprehensive market entry plan in this region, identifying new business opportunities and building the team and strategic partnerships. 

“We at the Autopay Group are a pioneer on the online payment market with an ambitious and long-term growth strategy. Creating the new position of Chief Value Officer in our senior management team is a key strategic means of strengthening our organization and represents another step in building our brand value. Joanna’s experience in a variety of sectors across many different markets will contribute to a great degree to the Group achieving its next stage of development and it will bolster our position on international markets”, says Andrzej Antoń, Autopay’s CEO and co-founder. 

“Joining Autopay is a highly interesting challenge for me. It is also a source of enormous satisfaction to become a part of a team that is engaged in passionately developing payment solutions to make the day-to-day lives of an ever more global community of consumers easier. I have been following this company for many years. I am greatly impressed by what the team has already achieved, and I am equally excited by what we will be able to do together to continue growing the company’s value”, says Joanna Pydo, Chief Value Officer and General Manager in the Middle East. 

Joanna Pydo has many years of experience in working with international managers, market regulators, government administration and institutional investors in Europe, the United States and the Middle East. She has worked for more than 20 years for Polish companies, international groups and holding companies in the technology, banking and financial services industries, the power and mining sectors, logistics, medical services, real estate and on the financial markets – where she has worked for private equity, venture capital and sovereign wealth funds. She has led numerous IPOs, M&As, debt issuances (traditional bonds and sustainable finance instruments) and refinancing deals. Prior to joining the Autopay Group she served in the capacity of Sustainable Finance Director (MENA) in the senior management team of Sustainability Excellence Management Consulting, an advisory firm in which she was responsible for implementing the sustainable finance strategy in key financial institutions in the Middle East. She has worked in the Arab Emirates for several years; previously, she worked with Anava Capital, the Pfleiderer Group and the Energa Group, among others. 

Joanna Pydo is a graduate of the Global Political Economy program (Master of Arts) at the University of Kassel and holds a master’s degree in economics with a major in finance and banking from the Poznań University of Economics and Business. She has completed executive education, such as Strategy implementation and Business Development at the TUM School of Management and Private Equity and Venture Capital at the SDA Bocconi School of Management. 

Mentor in the StartSmart CEE program (formerly known as MIT Enterprise Forum CEE) – a part of the global network linked to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Co-founder of “The Stock Exchange Is a Woman” project.