CAREERS AT AXE FINANCE

Chris Kneen | Chief Commercial Officer

Utchen (Joe) Udomdejwatana | Business Development Director – APAC

Joe brings over 15 years of expertise in Sales, Marketing, and Account Management to his role. Previously living in Australia and currently based in Bangkok, he is dedicated to reinforcing Axe Finance’s positioning in the APAC region and enhancing it through new strategic partnership developments. With a proven track record at Coherent, Element Inc., and Experian Asia Pacific, Joe has consistently driven market growth and customer success, helping companies innovate and thrive in competitive landscapes.

He holds a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from the University of Technology, Sydney, along with a Diploma in Engineering Practice and Business Management. Known for his strategic vision and collaborative approach, Joe is passionate about leveraging technology to transform financial services and enhance customer experiences. Outside of work, he enjoys spending time with family and going to the snow.

Richard Hill | Business Development Director – Europe

With over 20 years of experience working with major financial institutions across the UK, Europe, and the USA, Richard brings a wealth of expertise to drive Axe Finance’s growth in the European market. He has held key sales leadership positions at FICO, Adobe, Sopra, and C&R Software, earning a reputation as a trusted adviser who collaborates closely with clients to solve complex business challenges through innovative enterprise software solutions, helping them thrive in highly regulated and competitive markets.

Richard’s deep understanding of industry challenges and his ability to build meaningful relationships have enabled him to support clients in numerous ways. Whether optimizing revenue streams, lowering costs, improving collection rates, reducing fraud, streamlining mortgage processes, or successfully executing complex digital transformation projects—including migrating legacy platforms to the Cloud—Richard strives to ensure an exceptional experience for his clients and their end customers.

A graduate of the University of Manchester with a bachelor’s degree in politics and economics, Richard is based in London. Outside of work, he enjoys music, fitness, skiing, watching football, travelling, immersing himself in London’s vibrant cultural scene, and spending quality time with his family. He is also dedicated to supporting his local sports-based community charity.

John Patrick Pascual | Marketing Specialist 

Growing up in a family of businessmen and accountants, I have always been fascinated by business and finance. I pursued this interest by obtaining a bachelor’s degree in BS Entrepreneurship from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, followed by a master’s degree in international business from Hult International Business School in London and Dubai. I decided to focus on the field of Marketing, and it has been honed through more than three years of experience in the MENA region.

 I can honestly say that joining axefinance is one of the best decisions I’ve made thus far. Being part of a global company with rapidly expanding offices across the world, my international studies and experience have never been more relevant, not only in marketing strategies but also in working collaboratively with cross-cultural colleagues.

 As a marketing specialist at axefinance, I create compelling content and develop effective campaign strategies to promote them. I also work on product launches, customer case studies, expert content, and more. Our main objective is strengthening axefinance’s positioning as a leader in the global market and providing high quality leads to the business development teams across our offices. With the company’s fast-tracked growth and with our pipeline full of exciting product innovations and new releases, axefinance Marketing team is busier than ever.

 I am grateful to have such supportive team members that encourage me to grow and make me feel the impact of my contributions to the company. Not to mention our team dynamic is through the roof, which makes everything easier to work on. In a company full of individuals embodying the axefinance core values, every day is a learning opportunity for me.

Prashanth Karthikeyan | Country Manager and Global Presales

I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Mumbai University and an MBA (Finance) from the School of Business Management, NMIMS, Mumbai. I have previously worked in MNCs like Tata Consultancy Services where I learned software development lifecycle management and project management by working with global clients and NatWest Bank, where I gleaned how large global banks operate, particularly in the lending domain wherein, as a Credit Manager, I led several automation initiatives in the Bank.

I joined Axe Finance in early 2019, here I continue to leverage my past & present experiences and learnings in the IT & lending domain to help banks solve their digital lending challenges. I manage presales activities like structuring high-level solutions using ACP and managing bids & proposals, whilst also feeding the voice of customers from market demands to our product development cycle. I also set up and expanded our office in Mumbai, which continues to grow and serve our customers in the ME and APAC regions.

Axe Finance is a leading innovator in the LendTech space, which presents new challenges and exciting opportunities at the same time. I am very proud and excited to be part of such a dynamic, fast-growing, and international company.

May Gargani | Chief HR Officer

Having spent her youth in the United States, Tunisia, and Egypt, studied in the United Kingdom, launched her professional career in Libya and held several regional positions, May has had the chance to build an international experience and has consequently developed and instinctively cultivated a cross-cultural background. She obtained several degrees from various institutions, including a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the American University in Cairo, a master’s degree in HR Management and Organizational Analysis from King’s College in London, and an Executive MBA from the Mediterranean School of Business, an AMBA London accredited business school in Tunis.

Passionate about human resources, her career track encompasses over 18 years of experience covering several countries across the MENA region in various HR functions, change management, strategy, as well as organizational design and analysis. She led many projects and initiatives including launching HR departments and functions, designing and implementing people strategies, promoting employee engagement and developing corporate culture, in addition to building diverse and dynamic teams to drive organizational change and growth.

“My career has thus far involved building knowledge and expertise in many sectors, including oil & gas, investment banking, and private equity. Now, I tackle a new and exciting journey with axefinance, one of the global leading firms in the LendTech industry. Joining axefinance’s diverse team with its global mindset in 2022 certainly felt like the natural choice.

I look forward to contributing to axefinance’s growth and prosperity supporting its vision and strategic direction. At axefinance, just as we strive to create an excellent customer experience for our clients, we are also committed to ensure a great employee experience and journey for our employees. Our HR mission is to create a positive work environment, a strong corporate culture, and ensuring our employees are engaged, happy and constantly developing. We achieve this by developing and implementing various HR processes and programs that add value to both axefinance and our people.”

Sirine Jelassi | Business Development Consultant

From Tunis to the United States to Canada, following my American High School journey in Washington DC, I joined the University of Ottawa in Ontario from which I graduated in Commerce and Finance.

The idea of joining axefinance family was mainly driven by my passion for the business world specifically the banking industry, along with the emerging and innovative FinTech industry. This combination happens to be at the heart of axefinance’s core business. Joining such a global company involves dealing with colleagues & clients from across the globe and requires a certain level of flexibility, cultural awareness & openness which are skills that I acquired thanks to my personal journey across multiple geographies & cultures.
I first landed as part of the business development team in Amsterdam. My day-to-day responsibilities include but are not limited to identifying territories/leads in order to develop axefinance’s footprint and supporting clients & partners on a regular basis.

As part of axefinance strategic expansion plan along with my intention to relocate back to my second home Canada, we mutually agreed to bring to life the idea of exploring the North American market and we took on the challenge. Thanks to axefinance extensive expertise in lending digitalization along with its state-of-the-art solution, I strongly believe that we are well-positioned to succeed in this market that has shown to be quite responsive to our solicitations. The flexibility of our modular service offering is deemed to be well appreciated and highly needed.

Unsurprisingly, axefinance has proven to be successful in penetrating new markets by partnering with the most reputable financial institutions such as International Development Desjardins (North America), Société Générale (Europe), FAB, ADCB & Al-Rajhi Bank (Middle East), Vietcombank (Asia) and many others.

Amal Aissaoui | Project Manager

Amal is currently a Project Manager at Axe Finance, where she has been working for over 6 years. She has held positions as a Client Success Manager and IT Business Analyst. Amal holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in Finance with minors in Accounting and Information Technology from Tunis Business School, University of Tunis.