Ex-NICE CEO Barak Eilam to Join Wise Board, Become Chairman

Barak Eilam, who stepped down as CEO of NICE nearly two years ago, is set to take on a senior role at another Nasdaq-listed company. The British fintech firm Wise Group announced Eilam's appointment to its board of directors, with plans for him to become the Chairman. Wise, headquartered in London, operates as a money transfer service and is listed on both the London Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, where it recently joined with a market capitalization of approximately $11.7 billion.

Eilam will initially join the board as a director and is expected to succeed the current Chairman, David Wells, who is slated to retire in April. Wise described Eilam as a "highly experienced technology executive and director with nearly three decades of experience in building and scaling global technology businesses." Eilam led NICE as CEO for a decade, from 2014 to 2024, and was succeeded by Scott Russell.

During his tenure at NICE, Eilam received total compensation valued at around $147 million, including $122 million in equity. In addition to his prospective role at Wise, Eilam serves on the boards of other companies, including Israel's Similrweb and the Israeli-American firm Payoneer, which is currently in the process of being acquired by Canada's Nuvei for $2.75 billion.

Wise CEO and Founder Kristo Käärmann expressed admiration for Eilam's accomplishments at NICE over 25 years, noting that Eilam "joined the company as an engineer and transformed it into a global leader in cloud-based enterprise software." Eilam stated that Wise is "one of the most unique and important technology companies in global financial services," praising the team for building an exceptional business with a strong customer value proposition, a technology-driven model, and a model that enables expansion. Wise has not yet disclosed details regarding Eilam's compensation package.