What does it actually take to lead a fintech company through eight years of pivots, regulatory pressure, and market turbulence — and still walk into the office smiling? We found out when Pyypl CEO Mohamad Masri joined the Ultimate Connector podcast for a candid conversation about leadership, people, and the art of turning chaos into opportunity.
What follows isn't a highlight reel. It's the real stuff — the mistakes, the mindset shifts, and the unconventional ideas that have shaped how Mohamad builds and leads teams at Pyypl.
The Goal: Build a Team That Can Replace You
Ask Mohamad what leadership means to him and he'll give you an answer that surprises most people: "I always have in my mind the mindset of making sure that the team that I'm working with have the ability to replace me one day."
It sounds counterintuitive. But the logic is sound. When you build a culture where people are empowered to think, decide, and take ownership — rather than wait for permission — you don't just get better output. You get a team that trusts itself. And a team that trusts itself doesn't need a leader in the room to function.
That means giving people real proximity to decision-making. Not token input, but genuine influence. "If you have the ability to argue a decision, please come with facts and prove me wrong. Because everyone can be wrong."
It's Not a Family. It's Something Better.
One of the most refreshing moments in the conversation came when the hosts used the word "family" to describe startup culture. Mohamad didn't let it slide.
"I'm against that, by the way. I never call it a family."
The distinction matters to him. A family has unconditional loyalty. A team — at its best — has something more interesting: shared purpose, mutual accountability, and the honesty to say when something isn't working. The bond is real, he acknowledges. You spend more time with these people than with anyone else in your life. But the moment numbers and business reality enter the room, everyone has to be clear on what they're there to do.
It's a more honest framing. And honesty, it turns out, is central to how Mohamad leads.
Mistakes Are the Curriculum
In a regulated fintech environment, mistakes carry real consequences. Compliance isn't a checkbox — it's the foundation the entire business sits on. And yet Mohamad's philosophy on mistakes is surprisingly forgiving.
"The pointing finger thing doesn't work. The moment you start there, it becomes toxic." Instead, his approach is to make the person who made the mistake part of the solution. Not to punish, but to teach. "If you put someone in the corner and a completely different team solves the problem, what did he learn?"
He's also honest about his own record. His 2025 year-end letter to his team opened with an apology for the wrong decisions he'd made that year. The response? A video message from one of his closest team members: it's all right. Everyone makes mistakes.
That kind of psychological safety doesn't happen by accident. It's built, deliberately, over time.
Constructive Chaos as a Strategy
Here's something you don't hear from many CEOs: "When things are very good and stable, I create chaos. Because it becomes boring."
For Mohamad, stagnation is the real risk. When a company settles into comfort, it stops asking the questions that keep it relevant. So he deliberately introduces disruption — a new idea, a new angle, a challenge to how things are done — to keep the team thinking.
He calls it constructive chaos. And it shows up in unexpected places. Like the time he spent a week tinkering with AI tools on his own and returned to the team with a fully formed concept: the AI Fintech Lab — an internal programme where any employee can identify a workflow problem, pull together a cross-functional team, and build a solution. Then present it to the whole company.
"It allows them to start thinking about things differently," he says. "And it brings everybody together."
When the Market Shakes, Double Down
The conversation turned, inevitably, to the broader context: a turbulent market, uncertainty in the region, companies pulling back or exiting. Mohamad's take was unambiguous.
"If UAE at any point of time will not be safe, then there is nowhere around the world that you will feel safe."
Rather than retreat, Pyypl leaned in. The team got more focused. The strategy got sharper. And the disruption created space to do things that a busy, "normal" market wouldn't have allowed — including the pivot toward trade finance and B2B payment infrastructure that now sits at the centre of Pyypl's next chapter.
"Take all of our experience — eight years dealing with everything related to payments — scale it up, and move into trade finance related segments. Oil trading, commodities, whatever is creating opportunity right now." The regulatory infrastructure, the compliance muscle, the operational know-how — all of it transfers. The market just changed which door it applies to.
The Things That Keep Him Going
Away from the office, Mohamad recharges through music. He's been DJing for years, plays piano and guitar, and describes it as his meditation — the space where the noise quiets down and ideas have room to surface. "That's where the creativity starts. And then the team gets scared because I come back with a crazy idea the next day."
He laughs when he says it. But the underlying truth is serious: great leadership requires renewal. You can't pour from an empty cup, and you can't bring energy to a room if you're not genuinely energised yourself.
What fuels Mohamad most, though, is simpler than music or meditation. "I'm so passionate about solving problems. No matter what it is — give me a car that's not working, I'll roll up my sleeve and try to fix it." For someone in his position, that instinct is less a trait and more a superpower.
Listen to the full episode of the Ultimate Connector podcast featuring Mohamad Masri, CEO of Pyypl. Available now on YouTube.
Share article
