Ovanti appoints ZIP leader to drive US expansion

• Zip Co’s Peter Maher appointed to lead Ovanti’s new US operations
• Maher serves as USA head of enterprise merchant partnerships at ZIP
• Maher’s mandate is to build and scale an innovative, affordable and agentic solution for US market

Special Report: Ovanti has progressed plans to enter the US market with the appointment of Zip Co’s Peter Maher as CEO of the fintech’s US BNPL division as well as its US payments and embedded finance businesses.

Maher currently serves as the USA head of enterprise merchant partnerships at Zip Co Limited (ASX:ZIP) and previously was senior director of high growth at the company.

He is set to start his new role on July 14, subject to serving the remainder of his notice period.

Ovanti (ASX:OVT) said Maher’s responsibilities involved leading ZIP’s US commercial expansion, enterprise growth and partnership platform integrations across all of North America.

During ZIP co-founder Larry Diamond’s time at the fintech, Maher worked alongside and reported to him, and together they grew revenue and acquired large merchants for the US side of the business.

Before ZIP, Maher held senior leadership roles at Capital One and HTLF Bank, where he was vice president of sales and digital payments.

The new CEO brings to Ovanti extensive expertise in forging strategic alliances, scaling high impact partnerships and launching revenue-first go-to-market strategies across BNPL, fintech and digital payments.

He is known for building and scaling high performance teams, driving technology-led growth, and operationalising new market entry in regulated financial environments.

Sought leader from major US BNPL operator

Ovanti said to meet ambitions to expedite market entry and revenue generation in the US BNPL market in 2025, the company was focused on identifying a leader from a major BNPL player operating in the market.

The fintech said it sought a leader with deep experience in embedded finance, AI-driven product strategy and regulatory navigation in the US and as a new entrant into the US BNPL market, it had an opportunity to create an innovative product offering.

A key focus of the executive recruitment process, which ran for more than three months, was to secure a leader with proven capability in driving revenue growth and large-scale merchant acquisition, alongside strong relationship management skills.

Equally important to Ovanti was finding someone with demonstrated leadership ability and the credibility to be recognised as an industry thought leader, particularly in the fast-evolving BNPL sector where technical innovation is critical.

Ovanti said Maher stood out not only for his deep experience in the US BNPL market, gained alongside Diamond at ZIP, but also for his ability to launch and scale differentiated payment platforms that operated at the intersection of commerce, compliance and consumer trust.

As Ovanti USA, CEO Maher will report to the board and will lead all aspects of the company’s US market entry strategy, including commercial partnerships, platform activation, product launches and regulatory alignment.

His mandate is to build and scale an innovative, agentic solution for the US market that delivers true affordability — using real-time income, spending behaviour and cash flow data to structure adaptive, non-credit-based deferred payment plans.

Focused on expediting US market entry

Ovanti interim CEO and executive chairman Daler Fayziev said he was “optimistic” about the appointment of Maher and the company was “very focused” on expediting its US market entry into the BNPL sector.

“His experience alongside Larry Diamond growing the revenue and large merchant acquisitions of ZIP in the USA market is impressive and directly aligns with the experience we need at OVT to fulfil our own growth ambitions,” he said.

“It was imperative the new leader had strong experience in large BNPL merchant acquisition, having worked at a very senior level in such a role at a major BNPL provider such as ZIP.

“During the course of the interview process, which was extensive and involved many rounds with leading industry figures, Peter Maher was clearly in the board’s view the best candidate we saw in the market based on our specific requirements to expedite market entry and achieve high growth.

“Therefore, we are pleased to have secured his services for OVT.”

Fayziev said philosophically Maher and the board agreed that consumers in the US fundamentally no longer wanted credit and sought control over their finances.

“Ovanti’s upcoming USA BNPL product offering shall unlock that control, using real-time affordability insights, rather than outdated FICO scores, to enable flexible pay-over-time options that serve both merchant revenue and consumer well-being,” he said.

“Peter’s experience and deep interest in AI-led affordability, intelligent cash flow decisioning and platform distribution models positions OVT to launch fast, scale outcomes vs headcount, and lead with compliance-first innovation.”

This article was developed in collaboration with Ovanti, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.