How Byas Nambisan shed early jitters and gave fresh direction to Ezetap

Initially nervous when asked to take charge after predecessor Abhijit Bose joined Whatsapp, he moved quickly to drive his company deeper into what it excelled at -- enterprise payments

Byas Nambisan, the new CEO at payments technology firm Ezetap, is much like his predecessor Abhijit Bose— western-accented, a pedigree of top US universities and having had his early career at a big technology multinational.

In fact it was Bose who brought him over to Ezetap back in 2014; Nambisan was also the first in his company to know of Bose’s decision to move on.

Now, with Bose having joined WhatsApp as its India head — which also brought Ezetap some favourable publicity for producing a WhatsApp worthy leadership executive — Nambisan is stepping into his shoes. 

Sitting with his chair pulled back at a conference room in Ezetap’s office in HSR Layout, Bengaluru, Nambisan recalled how Bose’s departure came as a shock and that he wasn’t sure how things would proceed from that point. After the first couple of meetings, the board, which includes co-founder Sanjay Swamy (Prime Venture Partners) and Ashish Gupta (Helion Ventures), asked him to lead. 

After some consultations, he agreed. “I said I’m going to come in and I’m going to take over 100 per cent from Day 1. So, on November 22, I was completely on board,” said Nambisan.

“Starting day zero, I met every single person in the team. We had team member after team member coming into this room. I walked them through my own journey, through uncertainty, (explained) where I wanted to take the company, and outlined my vision.”

Now the transition is all but complete and Ezetap is back on track to go deeper into the enterprise payments space. “Any time there is a transition, there is an opportunity to inject a little energy. So we did just that -- injected some energy.”

Ezetap, which started out selling soap-sized point of sale devices, has over the years grown into a full-services payments solutions provider for enterprises. It has a presence in e-commerce, logistics, BFSI, oil and gas, sectors and government projects. it has also attracted marquee investors such as Helion Venture Partners, and US-based Social Capital and JS Capital.

Nambisan says the company has moved away from installing PoS devices to delivering end-to-end solutions. “We are a software-focussed company that is 'very payments'. We incidently have a hardware DNA. We started with PoS at the time because we wanted to manufacture and bring to the market a sub-$50 device, but now we have moved away from the that,” he says.

The near-term goal, explains Nambisan, is to go deeper in sectors it already operates in and maintain the growth momentum.

With a masters in electrical engineering, many would regard Nambisan as a hands on engineer. However, he spent most of his career at leadership finance roles. While he started as an engineer at Intel in 2000, he later moved to head the Intel’s flash memory division as a CFO. At later part of his stint, he managed the finances of Intel’s biggest business vertical- notebook microprocessors. 

Outside his work life, Nambisan is a hand-on engineer. He is currently restoring three cars in his home garage and building an engine with a friend. “That’s my passion.. and this is the job that fund my passion,” he says.