Why Onfido’s CEO and co-founder is stepping down

November 11, 2020

Global identity verification and authentication provider Onfido has announced a major shift in its leadership as CEO and co-founder Husayn Kassai is stepping down from his role.

Onfido has had a busy year. The RegTech company has inked deals with FinTechs like Curve, Admiral Markets and bunq. The startup also scored $100m in a funding round in April. But more things are to come with CEO Husayn Kassai announcing that he is stepping down from his role.

Husayn co-founded Onfido with Eamon Jubbawy and Ruhul Amin in 2012 with the goal of making digital identity verification simpler and more accurate.

While he is leaving helm, he will still remain with Onfido to help and advise his replacement, Mike Tuchen, who will lead Onfido’s further global expansion endeavours.

Tuchen most recently served as CEO of Talend, a leader in cloud data integration, which he took public in 2016. Prior to Talend he led Rapid7, a security software startup, and founded a marketing analytics startup in between senior management roles at Microsoft and Polycom. He holds degrees in electrical engineering from Brown and Stanford and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar.

“I have spent over 20 years working with leading software and tech businesses and I couldn’t be more optimistic about Onfido’s product and mission,” said Tuchen. “This is an incredibly exciting time for the business, with Onfido’s focus on virtual verification more important than ever as companies focus on digitisation and the shift to remote working. Husayn has built a fantastic team and business and I look forward to building on that success as we rapidly scale the company worldwide and broaden our offering.”

Kassai welcomed his replacement. “This is an important moment for Onfido,” he said. “When I founded the company in 2012 with Eamon and Ruhul, we raised just $20,000 of funding to build the new identity standard for the internet. Eight years on, we’ve achieved so much and I’m proud of the hundreds of Onfidoers who’ve joined our mission to solve the identity problem. We’re in such a strong position and now it’s the right time to hand the torch over to Mike, with all his experience, to lead the company into the future.”

Onfido employs over 400 people globally, has raised more than $200m across multiple funding rounds and is continuing to grow rapidly across all its end markets.