CEO Today Business Women of the Year Awards

www.ceotodaymagazine.com 26 CEO Today Business Women of the Year Awards 2018 UNITED KINGDOM RACHEL ELIAS-JONES CFO of Bango FIRM PROFILE Bango is the payment platform chosen by the world’s most influential companies to grow their sales faster in the new age of connected commerce. Working with global stores including Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, Bango has become the industry standard, helping people make payments quickly and conveniently. Through its partnerships and reach, Bango offers unique insights derived from pooled data and shared knowledge. Bango gives businesses unrivalled visibility into their markets and customers, increasing sales and customer acquisition. Built to scale, the Bango Platform supports the exponential growth ambitions of its global partners. Founded in 1999 and listed on The London Stock Exchange (AIM: BGO) in 2005, the Bango Platform is deployed with the world’s leading app stores. Global leaders plugging into Bango include Amazon, Google, Samsung and Microsoft. Bango is growing rapidly and is increasingly vital to leading mobile brands that support Bango’s vision: to make a frictionless payment experience available to every mobile device user in the world. Bango’s journey Formed in 1999, Bango was the pioneer of mobile internet payments, partnering with leading operators to launch ‘charge to bill’ services and opening-up mobile payments to early adopters and major content publishers. From 2001 to 2005, Bango established the “browse and buy” model for mobile payments. This technology delivered a familiar e-commerce experience on a mobile phone screen. By 2005, when Bango floated on AIM on the London Stock Exchange, Bango had a broad section of content providers using its direct-to-consumer billing platform. The arrival of faster mobile internet connections and better devices gradually drove more usage of mobile services. As the smartphone revolution became increasingly prevalent, and app stores emerged as a primary distribution channel, Bango has become increasingly influential in the space, powering payments for many of the world’s largest app stores. This had two significant impacts on paid content which combined to transform Bango’s business: • Users discovered that smartphones were good internet devices. More than that, they were great for consuming and paying for content of all types. • These smartphone platforms came with a pre-loaded content ecosystem. Bango recognized its payments technology was as relevant to a global app store as to a global publisher. Thus, the company focused its attention on the big smartphone platforms, and in 2010 struck a deal with RIM to provide billing for its BlackBerry App World store. In October 2012 Bango announced that its total reach for mobile payments exceeded one billion users. By the end of that year, the first Google Play market to capitalize on Bango’s state of the art billing was launched. 2013 saw Bango’s first integration with Microsoft’s Windows Phone Store. In 2014 Bango launched its first live markets with Amazon Appstore and Samsung GALAXY Apps, as well as group-wide partnerships with leading MNO groups including Deutsche Telekom and Etisalat, cementing its place as the de-facto leader in app store carrier billing. ABOUT RACHEL ELIAS-JONES Rachel is responsible for over- all financial management of Bango, for corporate financial functions and Bango’s finan- cial relationships with partners. The global reach of Bango re- quires a wide range of financial and taxation models, Rachel ensures the smooth running of the team delivering this com- mercial flexibility. Rachel has responsibility for innovation and management in critical fi- nance functions, and is closely involved in product develop- ment to ensure the Bango Platform can scale and handle complex requirements. Her flair for bringing clarity to complex finance structures is reflected in her leadership of “Project Clarity”, an initiative that has transformed the qual- ity of analysis and reporting that Bango issues to partners. An experienced finance leader and Chartered Accountant, Rachel spent 5 years in prac- tice at ‘top 5’ audit firms, spe- cializing in the technology and listed sectors, prior to joining Bango. www.bango.com