INTELLIGENCE · PERSON DOSSIER
UPDATED 2026-08-13Guillaume Pousaz
Founders & CEOs
Checkout.com · United Kingdom
Net worth
$7.8bn
Stake in Checkout.com
Approximately two-thirds
Peak estimated net worth
About $23bn (January 2022)
Sunday Times Rich List 2022
5th, estimated £19.259bn
Earlier net worth estimate
$9bn (April 2021)
Identity & Ownership
Current role
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Checkout.com
Founded the business in 2012 and has led it as chief executive throughout. In his 2025 annual letter he wrote that February 2026 marked his 20th year in payments and 15 years at the helm of Checkout.com.
Born
1981
Wikipedia gives 6 August 1981, sourced to a French corporate filing. Forbes lists his age as 44 as of August 2026, which would imply a later birth date; the year 1981 is the only element both sources agree on.
Birthplace
Outskirts of Geneva, Switzerland
Raised in Switzerland; Forbes's 2019 profile records that he was given an Amiga 500 computer at the age of eight.
Nationality
Swiss
Forbes records his citizenship as Switzerland and his source of wealth as fintech, self-made.
Based
London, United Kingdom
Forbes lists London as his residence and Checkout.com's leadership page says he lives in London with his family. Forbes's 2019 profile had him living in Dubai and commuting weekly to the London office.
Company headquarters
London, United Kingdom
Checkout.com press releases are datelined London; the group also runs hubs in New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, Sao Paulo, Vilnius and 19 offices in total.
Education
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (mathematical engineering); HEC Lausanne (economics, did not graduate)
He left HEC Lausanne in 2005 without completing the degree, having failed his final exams, after his father was diagnosed with cancer. He had an offer from Citibank in London at the time.
Family
Married to Laure Pousaz; three children
Two sons and a daughter. He and his wife co-founded Pousaz Philanthropies.
Sector
Payments and financial infrastructure
Checkout.com processes card and alternative payments for enterprise merchants and is expanding into issuing, payouts, treasury, identity verification and stablecoin acceptance.
Personal Wealth & Holdings
Net worth
$7.8bn
Forbes real-time billionaires estimate. Wikipedia cites the same figure as of May 2025, so the estimate has been carried forward largely unchanged.
Stake in Checkout.com
Approximately two-thirds
Forbes has consistently put his holding at roughly 67% of the company. Checkout.com says it is 80% employee and founder owned in aggregate.
Peak estimated net worth
About $23bn (January 2022)
Forbes put his fortune at about $23bn after the January 2022 Series D valued Checkout.com at $40bn; The Guardian reported the same event as handing him a paper fortune of about $20bn.
Sunday Times Rich List 2022
5th, estimated £19.259bn
His highest recorded placing on the UK list, at the peak of Checkout.com's private valuation. Recorded via Wikipedia's citation of the 20 May 2022 list.
Earlier net worth estimate
$9bn (April 2021)
Forbes's estimate after the January 2021 Series C valued Checkout.com at $15bn, based on a holding of roughly 67%.
Company valuation mark
$12bn internal valuation (September 2025)
Set for the second employee share buyback in 12 months. Down from the $40bn January 2022 round, but above the $11bn internal mark taken at the end of 2022 and the $9.35bn mark taken in 2023.
Giving vehicle
Pousaz Philanthropies
Founded with his wife Laure and registered in Jersey. Forbes reported that neither Pousaz nor the foundation has disclosed how much he has given it.
Investment vehicle
Zinal Growth
His family office, established in May 2021 to back European technology companies. Zinal Advisors Limited operates from 27 Albemarle Street, London, as an appointed representative of an FCA-regulated firm.
Background
International Payments Consultants, California, 2006
He took the job near a surf break after running out of money in California, and later said he had only taken it so he could keep surfing.
NetMerchant, 2007 to 2009
A US-to-Europe money transfer business co-founded with IPC's head of sales. Forbes reported it was profitable but that the partnership broke up over differing priorities.
SMS Pay, bought in 2009 for $300,000 payable over three years
The Mauritius-based gateway gave him the technology base for a next-generation payments platform.
Opus Payments, Singapore, 2009; renamed Checkout.com in 2012
Opus enabled Hong Kong businesses to take payments from buyers worldwide. Forbes reported that the Chinese gadget retailer Dealextreme became a client in 2011 and moved the business from losses into profit.
UK acquiring licence, 2012
In his 2024 annual letter he described securing the first UK acquiring licence in 2012 as the founding act of the business, and in October 2025 he used it as the benchmark for the Georgia bank charter.
Principal member of Visa and Mastercard by 2013; fully certified payment processor by 2015
Stated in his own account of the company's first phase in the 2025 annual letter.
Seven years with no outside capital, 2012 to 2019
CNBC noted he went seven years without external funding before the 2019 Series A; the 20VC episode summary adds that Checkout.com had never spent a dollar on marketing at that point.
Profitable since 2012, loss-making mid-decade, back to full-year EBITDA profit in 2025
The June 2020 Series B release said the company had been profitable since 2012. UK filings for 2023 showed combined losses of $258m across two UK entities. The 2025 annual letter reports full-year EBITDA profitability with a margin above 10%.
About 300 days a year travelling, 80-hour weeks
Forbes's 2019 profile described him living in Dubai, flying to London every Monday morning and spending 50 to 60 nights a year in one London hotel, with his physician warning him about the workload.
"Three roadmaps for life" — two, five and ten years
Described on the 20VC podcast in April 2021, alongside his view that becoming a father made him a better chief executive and that decision velocity is what distinguishes leaders.
Endurance athlete; padel patron
Checkout.com's leadership page calls him an accomplished endurance athlete and Forbes notes an obsession with endurance sport. The "athlete mindset" is the organising metaphor of his 2025 letter, and the company sponsors the padel players Alejandro Galan and Delfi Brea.
Mentor in the Endeavor network
Checkout.com's leadership page records his mentoring through Endeavor. Endeavor Catalyst has also been an investor in Checkout.com since at least the 2020 Series B.
Rarely gives interviews; annual letters are his main public channel
Forbes recorded that both Checkout.com and Pousaz declined to comment on its 2023 report on his foundation. His longest-form public statements are the annual letters published on the company blog each January or February.
Names Dune by Frank Herbert as his favourite book
Given in the 20VC episode published 7 April 2021.
Notable Coverage
21 items
Checkout.com enables merchant stablecoin acceptance with Coinbase Payments
Checkout.com returns to full-year profitability on $300bn of volume
Pousaz said the result validated "the long-term architectural bet we made from day one: that a single, unified infrastructure would ultimately outmatch patched-together legacy systems".
Pousaz discloses a paused Brazil launch in the 2025 annual letter
Checkout.com buys Blue EMI, a licensed euro stablecoin issuer, and opens a Vilnius technology hub
Pousaz said the acquisition was "a strategic investment in the European fintech ecosystem" and that Europe had "set the global pace for the evolution of digital money".
Georgia approves the bank charter, clearing the way for Checkout.com to act as its own US acquirer
Georgia accepts Checkout.com's application for a merchant acquirer bank charter
Pousaz called the charter a "pivotal moment" and a "line in the sand", comparing it to the 2012 UK acquiring licence and forecasting the US would be the biggest region globally by the end of 2027.
Second employee share buyback prices Checkout.com at $12bn
Pousaz said the company was "relentlessly focused on growth and innovation, particularly with the impact of AI and the expected rise of agentic commerce".
2024 annual letter reports 40% net revenue growth and a profitable exit from the year
UK filings show a revenue fall after the Binance exit, and Checkout.com pushes back on the coverage
Checkout.com published a statement the same day saying the UK FY23 filings covered only two of its entities and were not a reflection of global performance, that global net revenue growth in 2024 was over 40%, and that reported headcount reductions reflected an internal transfer between Checkout Ltd and Checkout Technology Ltd rather than job losses, with global headcount rising from 1,700 to over 1,900.
Internal valuation cut twice, to $11bn and then $9.35bn
Pousaz terminates the Binance contract over compliance concerns
A Binance spokesperson said the exchange had come a long way in building an industry-leading compliance programme, disagreed with the basis for termination, was considering legal action and expected no impact on its services. No litigation between the two companies has been reported since.
Pousaz and his wife open a Jersey-registered education foundation
Checkout.com and Pousaz declined to comment to Forbes.