Welcome to The Engine Room @ payabl., a series dedicated to showcasing the incredible talent behind our success. We're pulling back the curtain to introduce you to the dedicated team members who build, secure, and refine our world-class solutions.
Learn about their challenges, triumphs, and what it truly means to make it fun while fostering a culture where teamwork flows first and every individual's potential is ignited.
Next in the series: Breno Oliveira, Chief Product Officer.
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When Breno joined payabl., his task was clear: build strong foundations for payabl. business accounts. When he started, the scope was narrower, the team smaller and the platform still evolving.
Over time, that changed as he grew into the role and the business.
Breno joined payabl. as a product manager, and over time, the role expanded. He then became Head of Product. Today, he leads as Chief Product Officer.
For Breno, this shift is less about title and more about scope.
“This role is a continuation of the work I’ve been doing, rather than a change in direction. I joined payabl. to build core business account capabilities, and over time, my responsibilities expanded as the product organisation grew in scope and maturity.”
The step up only enhances his stellar reputation within the payments industry, and spotlights the opportunity he has taken to build extraordinary products. “Stepping into the CPO role formalises that progression for me. It reflects how the company has always been focused on products that drive growth. This gives me the opportunity to consider how everything we build serves our clients reliably over time.
His perspective on building products has evolved since he first joined payabl. too, with an appetite to understand and target different verticals driving his ambitions. “Early on, my focus was very much on individual products and domains, getting the foundations right and delivering working solutions. As the platform grew, the challenge shifted towards orchestration; how products interact, how teams collaborate, and how decisions made in one area affect the whole payabl. product suite.”
Building a leader in Breno
Breno’s approach to leadership has changed since he joined payabl, choosing to take things as they come, and react strategically to any challenges. Previously working in senior roles at leading banks and working on everything from IT risk to core banking platforms, his role and responsibilities have since evolved to meet demand from emerging trends within the payments industry.
“Today, product leadership for me is about zooming in and out constantly. You need to understand architecture, UX, compliance, and commercial impact at the same time, while keeping the organisation aligned around shared priorities.”
Breno has always been a man of principles, and that’s reflected in his approach to making the important decisions at payabl. “The starting point is always a real problem worth solving. Payments can look simple from the outside, but operational reality is complex. If something disrupts money flows, that’s a problem worth solving properly.”
He adds “nowadays we’re very deliberate about not chasing speed for the sake of it. We have tried it before and it is not worth pursuing. Quality, reliability, and long-term scalability matter more than launching something quickly and fixing it later. In payments, trust is built over time, and our product decisions have to reflect that responsibility.”
Breno's product philosophies
His approach to Product wasn’t formed overnight. He’s tried many approaches. However, if you asked Breno what product that most clearly captures his broad influence at the company, it is payabl.one. It started with the idea of creating a single “moneyspace”, with the central themes drawing from what customers want and need from a payments solution.
“As our product portfolio has grown, visibility and control have become critical,” Breno says. “payabl.one brings the entire payabl. experience into a single focal point, giving clarity across payments, accounts, cards, and data.”
And for Breno, the unification represents how the products payabl. builds are internalised and brought to life through his vision. “Internally, vision and control shapes how we think about product design,” he adds. “It forces us to connect data, actions, and workflows in a way that reflects how money actually moves. That discipline improves decision‑making across the entire platform.”
When asked about how handles multiple teams and their differing demands, he drills on collaboration, and why team alignment helps build and develop products that become market leaders. “Strong collaboration is non-negotiable in payments. Product decisions only work if they are technically sound, compliant by design, and commercially viable.
I spend a lot of time making sure teams like our rebranded IT team, Product Engineering and wider teams such as Compliance, Commercial and Product are aligned early, not just during delivery.”
He’s also quick to pay homage to the builders that work behind the scenes to get products ready and shipped to our audience. With a familial smile on his face, he proudly says “we can count on our product engineers, who have proved so many times how we can push the boundaries of what is possible. The best outcomes occur when constraints are understood upfront and teams work together to solve them, rather than handing problems downstream.”
Breno then reflects on the personal rules he follows that have helped shape the father, man and leader he has become today. “Nothing lasts forever, neither the good times nor the bad, so we’d better focus on controlling what we can. I never doubt what dedicated and focused product engineers and supporting teams can achieve when things go south. This is when our challenges become opportunities.”
How sport and competition drive his ambitions
To help understand his philosophy further, Breno advises that we look beyond the office and take a closer look at what he dedicates his life to “on the outside” — sport and the desire to compete.
Like many kids growing up in Brazil, his first dream was playing football on the big stage. Watching famous Brazilian footballers perform at the highest levels made a professional career feel both exciting and attainable. Eventually, he chose to focus on school over sport; a decision that has led him on his path.
“Watching Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, and Cafu perform on the world stage made it feel not just exciting, but genuinely possible. I gave it serious thought, but ultimately had to choose between football and focusing on school. In hindsight, that choice served me well. My career found its way into technology and payments, which aligns far better with what motivates me day to day.”
Sport, though, never left his thoughts, and his desire to compete has since manifested itself in the ultimate challenge; Ironman and the gruelling world of endurance sports. “I would definitely be doing something sports-related if I weren’t in product and payments,” he says. “Maybe I’d try pursuing triathlon professionally and aim to qualify for the Ironman Championships.”
Last year, he signed up for and completed a half Ironman in Krakow. The appeal, he explains, was not just physical. “The discipline it demands mirrors many of the principles I live by: knowing when to push, when to pace yourself, and how to stay focused on the long game while managing the intensity of the moment.”
And as if luck would have it, that mindset is shared by many at payabl. Eleven of the payabl. team are currently training together for Ironman 70.3 Hawaii, and he speaks proudly at the influence this challenge has on the company and employees.
“As a company, we see strong parallels between business and sport, and the same principles that make you successful in an Ironman; consistency, balance, endurance, adaptability, and recovery, are just as critical in business, and values we actively live by.”
The next phase at payabl.
Looking ahead, Breno is clear about the stakes when it comes to growth and competition. “We’re entering a phase where growth really matters; new markets, new products, and more complex use cases,” he says. “That’s where good product foundations start to pay off.”
Now, with competition rife and consumer demand seemingly changing every quarter, his focus as CPO has shifted towards ensuring that payabl.’s products are battle-ready.
“What excites me is building products that are resilient enough to grow without constant reinvention, while still improving the experience for clients,” he says. “That balance is difficult, but it’s also where product engineering makes the biggest difference.”
Breno’s perspective has been shaped by decades of work that has laid the foundations of modern payments systems, along with countless hours on the road and in the water training. Much like his approach to work, the pacing, preparation and patience required in sports help decide the outcome long before the finish line appears.
In both arenas, which have become two pillars of his life, he returns to the same core ideas; get the fundamentals right, remain grounded and in control, and treat every constraint as a challenge rather than a limitation.