CRED Founder Kunal Shah Named as New WhatsApp CEO

WhatsApp has announced that Kunal Shah, Founder of the Indian fintech startup Cred, has been named as its newest CEO, succeeding Will Cathcart.

Will, who has served as head of WhatsApp for more than seven years, is transitioning to another role within Meta – WhatsApp’s parent company.

Discussing Will’s transition, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Will’s new role will see him building “new products from the ground up”.

Mark added that he was “excited” to work closely with Will.

“WhatsApp is in the strongest position it’s ever been — and that felt like the right moment to step back,” Will says. 

“We scaled end-to-end encrypted messaging to more than three billion people. We brought it to group chats, companion devices, new surfaces — and defended people’s right to a private conversation across the globe.”

Kunal’s tenure in the fintech industry

Prior to his appointment as CEO, Kunal created Cred, a successful Indian fintech company that offers products around payments, lending, insurance, wealth management and lifestyle services.

According to the firm, it has an average of 17 million monthly members and processes more than 40% of India’s credit card bill payments.

Discussing Kunal’s new role, Mark says: “Kunal built CRED into one of India’s most important technology companies, and he brings the kind of builder mentality and global perspective that will serve him well in running the world’s biggest messaging app.”

Kunal’s transition to WhatsApp also comes at a key time for both CRED and Meta.

This week, CRED announced that it had raised around US$900m in a new Series H round overseen by Meta. The deal values CRED at more than US$4bn and gives Meta a minority stake in the fintech company.

As Kunal steps back from CRED’s CEO position, he says he’s “extremely grateful to our members, partners, regulators and investors” who made CRED possible.

He adds: “While it’s come very far, the delta between WhatsApp today and its full potential is massive. I look forward to working with Mark, Chris [Cox, Meta’s Chief Product Officer], and the leadership across Meta for the next step in WhatsApp’s journey. Will, thank you for scaling something the world relies on quietly, and for making this transition smooth.”

WhatsApp’s future growth strategies

Meta acquired WhatsApp in 2014 for US$19bn and since then, the messaging app has become one of the most popular apps of its kind globally, with more than three billion monthly active users.

In May, Meta announced plans for subscriptions services within the WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook platform to diversify beyond its long-time reliance on advertising revenue.

Neil Shah, Vice President of Research at Counterpoint Research, says WhatsApp is currently the world’s most popular most used communication platform, but not for commerce and payments.

Neil adds that one of Kunal’s biggest challenges will be turning WhatsApp from a messaging service into a conversational and commerce-focused platform like China’s WeChat app.

Neil says given Kunal’s experience in building and scaling up payments platforms in India, Kunal is the “best choice” for WhatsApp.