Lazada Co-Founder Charles Debonneuil Heads to Revolut

Charles Debonneuil, co-founder and former chief marketing officer (CMO) of the eCommerce platform Lazada, was named Asia-Pacific general manager of Revolut, according to a press release on Monday (April 4).

Debonneuil will focus on building out the company’s growth strategy in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region as the FinTech startup strives to boost its user base for its mobile payments platform in the area. He oversaw growth in the APAC region for Lazada after launching the company in 2012 before it was acquired by Alibaba in 2016. Today, Lazada has an estimated 160 million monthly active users across six countries.

After leaving Lazada and prior to joining Revolut, Debonneuil was president of the eCommerce solutions company Intrepid Group for over three years. He expanded the firm’s workforce to more than 300 people across Asia.

See also: Revolut Expands Into LatAm, Middle East

Headquartered in London, the digital bank Revolut was launched in 2015 by Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko. In the APAC region, Revolut has office locations in Australia, Singapore, India and Japan. With 23 offices worldwide, the online financial services firm employs more than 3,000 people. 

Revolut global General Manager and Head of Marketing Ankit Khemka said that the company will tap the “extensive expertise” that Debonneuil has in addition to using his talents to “deliver more core products” to the APAC market and “getting our global superapp into the hands of more customers.”

Debonneuil said he is looking forward to working with Revolut to “build a global financial superapp” and helping more people in the APAC region take advantage of the benefits that Revolut has to offer.

Read more: Revolut CRO Alan Chang Leaving to Start Crypto Platform

Debonneuil has a master’s in management from HEC Paris. He also studied at Wharton School of Business and Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management in China. He is also a board member of Intrepid Group.