Stuart Neal assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer at the payments firm Boku (AIM: BOKU) on 1 January, the company confirmed today (Friday). He is now expected to join the company's Board of Directors on 17 January.

New CEO at Boku

The appointment did not come as a surprise, as the UK-based company named Neal as the designated CEO in July last year. His appointment came as Jon Prideaux, who led the company for the previous five years, retired from the apex role. Following his retirement, Prideaux continues to sit on Boku's Board in a non-executive capacity.

Boku offers mobile payment solutions to businesses as its offerings include a mobile-first payments network, including mobile wallets, direct carrier billing, and account-to-account/real-time payment schemes. According to the company, it has over 7.5 billion mobile payment accounts.

In the first half of 2023, the revenue of the company soared 26 percent to reach $38.2 million. However, the net income nosedived from $28 million to $2.3 million.

Former CFO Takes Over as CEO

Along with his role at Boku, Neal is also a Non-Executive Chairman at Loopin, a UK-based software startup, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Neal is not a new recruit at Boku. Previously, he spent five years at the London-listed payments company, as he joined as the Chief Financial Officer in June 2017 and then became the General Manager of Identity after a couple of years. He was additionally appointed to the role of CFO at Boku between November 2011 and October 2014.

He further served as the Chief Commercial Officer at the Pay by Bank app between his two previous tenures at Boku.

He started his career in early 2022 as a Financial Director at Virgin Media (previously NTL Home South). Later, he joined Barclaycard as the Commercial Director of Global Payment Acceptance and then became the acting General Manager of Global Payment Acceptance for a brief period of ten months before his departure.