Matthias Leyendecker

Co-founded a B2B fintech company and led it from zero to enterprise-grade, servicing financial institutions and marketplaces across Europe.

• Built a white-label BNPL platform, reaching market feature parity in 14 months with MVP live within 5 months
• Sustained ~2.4x average annual revenue growth across four consecutive years
• Drove fundraising as product and technology co-founder, shaping the product narrative that secured investment rounds
• Built and led a cross-functional product, design and engineering department of up to 30 people across 12 European countries, introducing agile processes and maintaining 99.9% platform uptime
• Deployed AI across operations: RAG-powered knowledge management; ML-based anomaly detection for fraud prevention; Agentic risk rule creation
• Secured key enterprise clients (Rossmann, Stripe, Payone) and enabled partner-led go-to-market strategies
• Maintained enterprise customisation ratio of < 5%, balancing scalability with client-specific needs
• Led successful SOC 2 (Type I/II) and ISAE3402 (Type I/II) certifications

Acquired as part of Paysafe's BNPL division by Unzer, retained to lead product across both the legacy and acquired platforms through post-merger integration.

• Owned product strategy for both BNPL platforms post-acquisition, serving as the bridge between the acquired team and the existing organisation
• Led platform consolidation, migrating ~300 clients within 12 months and decommissioning the redundant platform
• Defined and launched a unified BNPL product portfolio for enterprise and SME clients under the Unzer brand

Scaled the product function and BNPL platform across 5 time zones, contributing to consistent company growth in a consolidating market.

• Launched one of the first BNPL POS solutions in the DACH region in partnership with Decathlon, delivering an MVP within 2 months and driving 80% YOY growth
• Led international expansion into the US, UK and Netherlands, adapting regulatory frameworks, rebuilding onboarding and risk/fraud systems, and hiring local product and analytics teams
• Built the product function from 2 to 7 people, establishing all discovery practices, frameworks and processes from scratch
• Owned full product lifecycle across multiple BNPL products, from pricing and positioning to go-to-market, delivering consistently through annual PE-driven strategy shifts

Enterprise sales for payments and risk solutions, building the domain expertise that later led to a product career.

• Integrated arvato's risk software into a major payment infrastructure provider (PAY.ON), opening an indirect sales channel that scaled to 200+ SME clients and multiple enterprise accounts
• Won and managed enterprise accounts across e-commerce and fashion, using consultative, data-driven sales approaches
• Built strategic partnerships and intermediary networks across national and international markets in e-commerce and fintech

Part-time engagement during a gap year travelling Australia, USA, Canada and New Zealand.

Operational support across financial reporting, team onboarding and internal tooling for capacity and resource planning.