Leading Finance Transformation at Paysafe with Nicole Nahlous, Chief Accounting Officer

When you think of an easy, fast, safe payment experience, accounting probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind, but it plays an integral role in supporting every transaction for our merchants and consumers. We sat down with Nicole Nahlous, our Chief Accounting Officer at Paysafe, to explore exactly that. Nicole shares her career trajectory from external audit to leadership, our detailed three-layer AI finance transformation strategy, and how compliance directly builds trust with consumers and merchants.

Then, we dive into a topic Nicole is deeply passionate about: women’s career advancement in fintech. She shares practical ways business leaders can champion women in fintech through structural flexibility, programming, and mentorship. She also speaks directly to women in fintech, offering guidance on navigating workplace dynamics and moving into leadership roles.

Watch our interview here and read an excerpt below.

Editor’s note: This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.

Host: Nicole, it is a pleasure to speak with you today. Welcome to the show!

Nicole Nahlous: Thank you, and I'm so excited to be part of the first session.

Host: What has your journey to becoming the Chief Accounting Officer at Paysafe entailed?

Nicole Nahlous: I started my career at PwC. I spent a few years there working in external audit. I also spent time in PwC's national office, where I developed a passion for supporting teams and clients deal with challenging audit, accounting issues, and internal controls matters. That role ultimately made me want to take a leap outside of audit and do something completely different — so, a new challenge, and that came in the form of Paysafe.

I was really excited about the opportunity to join a high-growth payments company, an industry I had no experience in prior, so it was very cool. And I was also excited about helping the company build internal controls and to prepare to go public. So, a very unique opportunity, and that was a part of my responsibility for the first couple of years, while I was at Paysafe in that role.

And then over the next few years, I took on increasing responsibilities, and today the scope of my role covers everything from internal controls, tax, finance operations or FinOps, as we like to call it in the industry, global finance shared services, technical accounting, and SEC reporting.

I know not everyone's familiar with what SEC reporting is. It means ensuring our financials are in line with the Securities and Exchange Commission rules. And the SEC is a U.S. governmental agency, which is focused on providing both guidance to management as well as overseeing the activities of publicly listed companies.