About Us
WHO WE ARE
Who
we
are
T-CETRA is a leading financial technology enabler that converts cash payments into secure, auditable, cashless transactions at over 10,000 independent retailers in the U.S. and Puerto Rico that primarily serve underbanked customers. Our payment solutions bridge the digital divide for these underserved communities and are used by Fortune 500 companies within various sectors, connecting them to the 84.8 million un/derbanked individuals in the U.S via an independent retail network.
VIDAPAY, our proprietary cloud-based payment portal, helps these retailers mitigate risk and increase sales. Its intuitive interface enables retailers to manage customer accounts in real-time within a safe, secure payment transaction framework.
Our Values
Since T-CETRA’s founding in 2007, we have prioritized our customers and our employees. It’s this passion that drives our core values everyday:
T-CETRA is and has been committed to the application of continuous improvement methodology, enhancing its proprietary, disruptive, game-changing technology. Our constant focus and extremely strong relationship with the customer allow us to develop new and creative approaches to serve their needs.
Our laser focus on our employees creates a collaborative, creative environment where everyone’s ideas are valued. We have worked to create a culture that cultivates and encourages open dialogue across the organization. Every single employee gets to be a part of the process.
Our leadership team is comprised of genuinely good people that care about people, experiences, and relationships. They don’t just talk the talk, but walk the walk, as evidenced by the founding of the T-CETRA Foundation.
We hail from 30 countries and speak 20 languages. Organizations vastly larger than ours are playing catch-up to accomplish what we have established from day one — to bring diverse values and mindsets to our team. Simply put, we believe diversity improves our working environment, our product, and our community.
T-CETRA is and has been committed to the application of continuous improvement methodology, enhancing its proprietary, disruptive, game-changing technology. Our constant focus and extremely strong relationship with the customer allow us to develop new and creative approaches to serve their needs.
Our laser focus on our employees creates a collaborative, creative environment where everyone’s ideas are valued. We have worked to create a culture that cultivates and encourages open dialogue across the organization. Every single employee gets to be a part of the process.
Our leadership team is comprised of genuinely good people that care about people, experiences, and relationships. They don’t just talk the talk, but walk the walk, as evidenced by the founding of the T-CETRA Foundation.
We hail from 30 countries and speak 20 languages. Organizations vastly larger than ours are playing catch-up to accomplish what we have established from day one — to bring diverse values and mindsets to our team. Simply put, we believe diversity improves our working environment, our product, and our community.
LEADERSHIP
Abdul Akel
Gus Hashem
Ghazwan Tarabishi
Jamey Halsey
Steven Ascher
Mohamad Al-Souqi
Samer Bazerbashi
Kristine Gross
Christy Peterson
Amar Zedan
Cindy Johns
Zaher Al Sabbagh
Olimpia Dawidowicz
Jennifer Kaser
Todd Walberg
Abdul Akel
As Co-Founder and CEO, Abdul leads an extremely diverse team of world-class talent to constantly address the underserved’s barriers to accessing premium products and services. In addition to conceptualizing and bringing to fruition all T-CETRA’s cutting-edge technologies, he continues to be the strategic visionary and innovator for T-CETRA’s sustainable growth in new sectors.
Childhood Aspiration: To work in the construction industry
Akel was named an Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2022 East Central Award winner, a preeminent competitive business award for entrepreneurs and leaders of high-growth companies.
Kristine Gross
As Vice President of Growth and Marketing, Kristine plays a vital role in T-CETRA’s expansion into new verticals such as healthcare, education, charity, government and transportation to strategically drive sales and develop stronger ties to the business community. Kristine also manages the T-CETRA Marketing Team and is focused on elevating the T-CETRA brand in addition to ensuring our dealer network and carrier partners successfully grow their business.
Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Advertising from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Childhood Aspirations: Kristine wanted to be a lot of things: an adventurer/explorer, artist, author, business owner, to work in advertising and to be a race car driver. Somehow, she got lucky and was able to cram a bit of each into her career: founded a business developing professional race car drivers, had an opportunity to travel much of the world, worked in advertising, was a contributing published author, and very occasionally dabbles in painting.
Social Responsibility
T-CETRA supports and respects our employees, partners, and external communities by fostering an environment committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. We have recently been recognized for our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts with the Vanguard Award for Corporate Citizenship, the Diversity in Business Award, and a Top Workplace Award. But we don’t adopt socially responsible initiatives for the accolades, we do it because it is the right thing to do.
A natural extension of this ethos was the establishment of
The T-CETRA Foundation to philanthropically address the evolving needs of the un/derbanked. We believe in equity, access, compassion, and innovation, particularly for ethnically diverse and economically depressed communities. Like the 6,000-year-old olive tree featured in our logo, The T-CETRA Foundation provides a lasting legacy to empower the underserved through technology and financial education grants.
T-CETRA UNDERSTANDS THE UNDERBANKED MAY NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THE SAME PRODUCTS AND SERVICES AS THE FULLY BANKED — BUT THEY DO HAVE THE SAME ASPIRATIONS AND SKILLS.