Meet Hugo Remi – Cardaq’s CEO

How Hugo Remi, a man who is under 40 and was not born into wealth or a career in financial services, came to lead one of the most innovative fintechs operating in payments today.

Hugo Remi has been leading Cardaq for over five years, since taking over the fintech in 2018. Though it has been steadily growing since then, 2024 is an exciting time for the company as it grows its presence in the market, capitalising on recent achievements such as becoming licensed principal members of Visa and Mastercard. To understand more about how a man, who doesn’t come from a wealthy background or have a career in financial services behind him, came to this role before he turned 40 it’s worth stepping back and examining where it all began.

Before moving to the UK, Hugo grew up on a farm in the countryside with his grandparents. After spending his formative years in this rural setting, he moved to the city to live with his parents before progressing academically. Unlike many other CEOs in the City of London, Hugo was not born into money and did not attend a top university like Oxford of Cambridge. Reflecting on his roots, Hugo simply says: “I am a regular person, who has dreams and who tries to make them happen.”

One of the first steps to these dreams was when Hugo went to university. In 2009 he joined Manchester’s University of Salford to study IT and satisfy his thirst for knowledge around all things tech. As a student, Hugo worked in the hospitality industry at a Michelin starred restaurant. While this was to cover life expenses, the CEO-to-be found an affinity with the world of hospitality which gave him a solid grounding for his future career in fintech.

“I learnt that the customer is always right,” reflects Hugo. “You should always greet each guest and be grateful to everyone who comes to visit you. Even if they are rude with you or impolite, that doesn't allow you to be the same with them, you should treat such guests with even bigger respect and then you will see how they would change. I still use those principles in my day to day business.”

Hugo didn’t wait until graduating to begin applying his education to a career. Around this time, he joined WebMoney – one of the first EU e-money institutions – in a customer support role and as a front end developer. Here, Hugo really began to immerse himself in the world of fintech and payments.

“We were developing and supporting the fintech project where people could pay online using the virtual currencies their bills for utilities, mobile communication, and so forth,” recalls Hugo.

Things developed rapidly for Hugo at this point and the following years were a blur of impressive career progression moves. He became e-commerce manager at Latvian Post Bank JSC, before soon heading up this entire department. In time, Hugo also became CEO at Fondy and vice president at WebShield. However, things really began to get exciting when Hugo would come across Cardaq.

The Cardaq moment

In 2018, a crossroads moment occurred for the young entrepreneur. At that time Hugo was working at a compliance consultancy he had established in London, working with the Association of Professional Compliance Consultants and the Financial Conduct Authority to help firms gain authorisation. Here, he came across Cardaq which had been founded in 2011 and by that point was up for sale.

Looking back, Hugo is honest in his assessment of the company at the time and that it was in “poor condition” without the effective management – or technical innovation – required to excel in a fast-paced area like payments. Identifying the opportunity, Hugo acquired the business for a five figure sum and became CEO to lead the business forward, eventually making it the payments leader it is now.

A key part of Cardaq’s transformation was the involvement with Teido, a proprietary platform designed to handle complex payment processes for businesses of all sizes. This allows Cardaq to support businesses to manage transactions, automate processes and gain real-time insights into financial operations. As a business, Hugo oversees Teido too.

With the tech in place, Hugo and his team began spreading the message about Cardaq to the market, with the CEO clear in his ambition: “I want Cardaq to become the next PayPal or Stripe, a global company with the latest technologies.”

Achievements soon followed in this time. Despite the disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic, in the years following the acquisition Cardaq became a principal member of Visa, MasterCard and UnionPay for issuing and acquiring. The company also became more vocal on industry matters, joining the UK’s Payment Association as a leading member. New services were rolled out, including white label solutions for businesses and a card builder tool that caters to bespoke branding requirements.

Bigger and better things

As Cardaq became larger, challenges evolved, and Hugo was tasked with helping this fintech continue to grow and deal with larger clients. To do so involved bringing on fresh insights and industry experience, so Geoffrey Nicholson joined in January 2024 as a non-executive director. With an MBA from Harvard, Geoffrey has a wealth of corporate experience and has been on boards of companies such as Nemera Capital, CashDirector, Digital Horizon Venture Capital and Bellator.tech.

“Although I have only known Hugo for 10 months now, I feel I am constantly finding out new things and I also feel he is quite modest about his achievements especially for his age and background as he has had to overcome many challenges, but he still has an extraordinary expansive vision for our business and for his other activities such as his involvement in space technology,” says Geoffrey of his working relationship with Hugo.  

With a strong team in place, Hugo is dedicating his life to the growth of Cardaq and these enterprises. He works seven days a week, constantly seeing to areas of importance, and hasn’t been on holiday since 2015.

“I have the core business where I spend 90% of my time and 10% for my startups which I am developing in order to keep progress going and develop the new technologies,” says Hugo. “That is hard to believe, you need to live that life in order to understand it and see. But you also need to sacrifice a lot to achieve that, like your health, family, friends and time.”

While growing Cardaq, he has also expanded with a venture called Spacefex. This is an orbital data transfer tech company, built to process payment data using satellites orbiting the earth and utilising solar energy to do so. This is no pipe dream for the CEO, who is already working to get a Spacefex satellite into space as a member of the NASA startup programme. Hugo has also made time to invest his knowledge and time into a social initiative called PridePay, which looks to bring the same high level of payment support to those in the LGBTQIA+ community.

These are exciting times for the entrepreneur, and Hugo is looking ahead to an exciting 12 months ahead for Cardaq and this growing business empire. Not settling for a 12 month plan, Hugo is determined to keep moving and innovating.

“Never think about what is behind you, because you don’t know what awaits you ahead,” says Hugo, when asked about his advice for any other entrepreneurs. “Stay always ready and prepared for everything, the critical set of mind helps you to stay alive and operational. Keep going in other words and never stop.”