Paysafe announces leadership change as Joel Leonoff ends CEO tenure

Paysafe Group has this afternoon confirmed that long term President & CEO Joel Leonoff, will step down as leader of the company, taking the governance position of Vice Chairman of the Board.

Issuing a market update, the digital payments group confirms that it has found Leonoff’s replacement, appointing TSYS Vice President of Merchant Solutions Philip McHugh as inbound Chief Executive

The announcement, sees Joel Leonoff end his 11-year tenure as leader of Paysafe Group, a period in which he transformed the company into a leading player within the digital payments scene.

Leonoff was the enterprise founder of Canadian e-wallet provider Optimal Payments, a company which would merge with rival Skrill in 2015, forming Paysafe Group.  

Issuing a corporate statement, Paysafe Group Chairman Stuart C. Harvey Jr praised Leonoff’s leadership – “Joel is a true entrepreneur and has taken this business from humble beginnings as a Canadian start-up to a global payments provider serving millions of merchants and consumers around the world. We would like to thank him for his terrific contribution over the years and we look forward to continuing to work closely with him as Vice Chairman of our board.”

Philip McHugh
 Paysafe Group

Philip McHugh commented on taking over Paysafe Group leadership  –  “I am truly honoured to become part of the Paysafe story. Paysafe has built an incredibly unique payments business that is scaled, diverse, highly specialized and frankly hard to beat. The opportunity to continue to invest in, and leverage Paysafe’s differentiated payments assets, as well as identify new areas of growth while working with a highly focused and energized team, is a very exciting one. I look forward to meeting the team and helping to take Paysafe to the next level of growth and scale.”

Leonoff’s leadership replacement, Philip McHugh is a twenty year executive in digital payments, retail banking and corporate finance. McHugh has formerly served as CEO of Barclaycard and territory lead for Citigroup Latin America.

Signing off as Paysafe CEO, Joel Leonoff maintains that he will continue to be closely involved in the development of Paysafe’s corporate strategy as Vice Chairman;

“I congratulate Philip on his appointment and look forward to working with him on the transition. I am confident that under his leadership Paysafe will continue to prosper long into the future. It has been an incredible honor to lead Paysafe and I am very grateful for the commitment and hard work of our people and their passion for creating a truly pioneering payments company.”