About
I am Ivan Sharov, CEO of Crassula, a white-label digital banking platform serving licensed EMIs and fintechs across Europe, the United Kingdom, Canada, and MENA.
This site is where I write about fintech and operational leadership.
Most writing about banking infrastructure comes from analysts, consultants, and vendors with something to pitch. The view from a CEO's desk gets written down less often: what actually breaks, what closes a deal, what a contract looks like after the third renegotiation. I started writing partly to fill that gap, and partly to think more carefully about my own decisions by being forced to articulate them.
The essays here cover five areas I work in directly:
- BaaS infrastructure,
- operational turnarounds,
- B2B SaaS pricing and commercial discipline,
- market entry across EU,
- and CEO leadership and governance.
They aim to be specific. Where I have data, I show it. Where I hold an opinion shaped by pattern recognition rather than data, I name it as such.
Background
Before Crassula, I spent fifteen years in executive roles across fintech, SaaS, banking, insurance, and AI. I have led commercial and operational work in eight markets, built and exited three companies, and managed P&Ls up to €50M.
I lecture at ISDI Business School on strategy and operations, and angel-invest in a small portfolio of European companies in fintech, mobility, and consumer-tech.
Disclosure
I am a sitting CEO of a fintech vendor. My commercial interests show up in what I choose to write about. I do not name clients, contracts, or specific competitors. The frameworks here generalise from patterns repeated across multiple companies, not from any single one.