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SEON appoints ex-Uber executive Björn Heckel as new CTO
Wed, 24th Jan 2024

SEON, the top-tier fraud prevention and anti-money laundering (AML) platform, has announced the enlistment of Björn Heckel as Chief Technology Officer, augmenting its executive team. Heckel brings with him an extensive technology career that extends beyond 20 years, during which he has showcased his proficiency in leading large-scale engineering operations and diverse tech teams at global tech giants such as Uber, Salesforce, and Intuit.

As SEON heightens its intent on meeting the requirements of enterprise-level business clients, Heckel's appointment could be the game-changer it needs. His extensive experience with serving large-scale clients forms a crucial synergy for SEON's strategy. With Heckel leading the technological helm, SEON is well-positioned to enhance its advanced solutions that are crafted to meet the complex needs of large enterprises, all in a bid to combat fraud.

Heckel brings a wealth of expertise in software development management, large-scale engineering operations, and his proven prowess in building and inspiring teams during periods of significant growth. "We're thrilled to welcome Björn to SEON with his invaluable experience among tech-industry behemoths," says Tamas Kadar, CEO & co-founder, SEON, expressing his enthusiasm over the new appointment. He believes Heckel’s deep technical knowledge in high-performance distributed computing and machine learning will be crucial to shape SEON's future direction.

Prior to joining SEON, Heckel acted as CTO at Taxfix, where he led the charge in simplifying tax filing systems via chat interfaces, raising a $220 million series D round in the process. His pedigree goes back to his time spent in Silicon Valley building SaaS platforms and consumer-facing applications in his executive leadership roles at Salesforce, Uber, and Ellie Mae.

Heckel is prepared for this new chapter at SEON and anticipates to strengthen SEON's efforts in fraud prevention. "I look forward to playing an integral role in SEON's mission to combat and prevent fraud by deepening the company's R&D capabilities," Heckel declares. Expressing the importance of staying ahead of the increasingly complex challenges faced by their enterprise clients, Heckel emphasised the need to "diversify and fortify our engineering prowess". This points towards an aggressive scaling strategy for the firm's solutions to address the intricate needs of larger enterprises.

SEON, renowned for its end-to-end solution for fraud prevention and AML, offers a balanced amalgamation of advanced digital footprinting, proprietary device intelligence, and a fully customizable machine learning rules engine. With a history of serving over 5,000 companies globally and processing billions of transactions daily, SEON has managed to save industry-wide costs put at over $200 billion. It maintains operations from its offices in Austin, London, and Budapest.