Wallester Expands Management Board to Bolster Technology, Risk, and AML Oversight

Wallester AS has restructured its Management Board, appointing its Chief Technology Officer and Chief Risk Officer to the executive body. For fintech leaders, this move signals a shift toward embedding technical and regulatory oversight directly into the highest level of corporate governance, ensuring that infrastructure and compliance keep pace with rapid European expansion.

What was announced

Wallester, an Estonian-licensed payment institution and Visa Principal Member, has formally expanded its Management Board to five members, effective 1 September 2026. The restructuring sees Andrei Gornostajev, Chief Technology Officer, and Rein Ojavere, Chief Risk Officer, join the executive body. Concurrently, board member Fred Sooläte has been assigned specific responsibility for anti-money laundering (AML), counter-terrorist financing (CTF), and international sanctions compliance.

Gornostajev, who oversees a 70-plus person R&D organisation, brings a background that includes senior engineering roles at Microsoft. He was a key member of the team that developed Wallester’s proprietary Visa card issuing platform in 2017 and returned to the company as CTO in January 2024. His board remit now covers technology, research and development, product, and design.

Ojavere, a CFA charterholder and Financial Risk Manager (FRM) certification holder, joined Wallester in May 2025. His previous experience includes board-level positions at Bondora and Finora Bank. In his new capacity, he holds executive responsibility for the company's second line of defence, encompassing risk management, information security governance, and the MLRO function. Sooläte, who joined in 2020 and is a trained lawyer, will manage the AML framework alongside legal and data protection. This structural change ensures that technology and risk management have a direct vote in the company’s strategic direction as it services clients across the European Economic Area.

"As Wallester grows, the structure of the company needs to grow with it. Our Management Board now represents technology, risk, compliance and AML directly. That changes how decisions get made: the right expertise sits in the room earlier, and responsibilities are clearer across the business," said Sergei Astafjev, CEO of Wallester.

Sergei Astafjev, CEO and Co-Owner of Wallester AS.

The companies involved

Wallester AS is a Tallinn-based payment institution that has held the status of Visa Principal Member since 2018. Since its founding in 2016, the company has focused on providing the underlying infrastructure necessary for businesses to launch and manage their own branded card programmes. Its suite of services is designed to streamline corporate financial management, offering tools that allow companies throughout the European Economic Area to issue physical and virtual cards to employees or customers.

The firm has established a significant physical presence in the Baltic and European regions, with a workforce exceeding 200 professionals distributed across offices in Estonia, Latvia, and France. This regional footprint supports its cross-border passporting capabilities, allowing it to operate as a licensed entity in multiple jurisdictions.

Wallester’s market position has been reinforced by several high-profile industry rankings. In 2025, the company was ranked 6th in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Central Europe. This was followed by a 38th-place ranking in the 2026 FT1000 list of Europe’s fastest-growing companies. Within that list, Wallester was recognised as the fastest-growing company in Estonia and the leader in the Fintech, Financial Services & Insurance category, highlighting its rapid ascent within the competitive European payments landscape.

What this means

Elevating CTO and CRO roles to the Management Board reflects a maturing fintech sector where "move fast and break things" is being replaced by "scale with resilience." For infrastructure providers like Wallester, technical reliability and regulatory compliance are no longer back-office functions; they are the product itself. By integrating these disciplines into the board, the company is responding to increased pressure from European regulators for more robust internal governance. This move sets a benchmark for other mid-tier payment institutions, suggesting that as firms scale across borders, the separation between executive strategy and technical execution must dissolve to manage systemic risk effectively.