Pay by Bank specialist Trustly appoints Randy Kern as Group CTO and Chantelle Zemba as Group CLO

Trustly has announced the appointment of Randy Kern as its new Group Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chantelle Zemba as Group Chief Legal Officer (CLO). 

Kern has overseen technical engineering projects at major technology and software firms including Microsoft and Salesforce. Most recently, he spent more than three years in the role of Chief Product and Technology Officer at Marqeta.

He has also held senior roles at Salesforce, where he served as CTO for several years. Prior to that, he worked as an advisor for Microsoft’s c-suite on the development of Windows Azure.

Zemba, meanwhile, spearheaded the legal team at Deliveroo from 2019 ahead of its Series H fundraise. 

Johan Tjärnberg, CEO at Trustly, says: “Randy and Chantelle’s appointments mark an important step in Trustly’s next phase of growth. The fact that they have chosen to join Trustly shows the huge opportunity ahead of us.”

“As Open Banking payments become increasingly data driven, having a technology leader with deep experience scaling global platforms will be critical. Randy brings an exceptional track record from the US market, and his leadership will help ensure our platform continues to deliver the performance, reliability, and intelligence our merchants and partners expect, across both Europe and the United States.” 

Kern says: “I’m thrilled to be joining Trustly, a company that is redefining payments through instant account-to-account transactions and data driven insights that help merchants to refine their business models and better compete.”

“Over the past 20 years, my career has underscored the transformative power of data, and I’m excited to help Trustly unlock even deeper customer and consumer insights across the payments journey. With an established leadership position across Europe and the US, Trustly has a powerful foundation to rapidly scale - accelerating growth, expanding its impact, and unlocking the next phase of value from its platform and insights capabilities.”

Zemba comments: “I’m excited to join this leading, fast growing company. As the leader in Pay be Bank, I look forward to making the arguments that customers should be in control of their data and enjoy all the benefits that data driven payments can deliver, while ensuring that Trustly has best in class customer security operating systems in place.”

 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards

Payments will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.

The awards are now open for entries and celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.

Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.

Check out our 2025 winners here.

Our 2025 hall of fame entrants were revealed during a sold out event which took place at The HAC on 16th October and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.

In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “This is the awards’ fifth year as a physical event. We started off with just 30 people at the South Place Hotel not far from here, then moved to London Bridge Hotel, then The Barbican, and last year RIBA’s HQ in the West End.”

“But I’m conscious of the fact that, to quote the legend that is Taylor Swift, You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby. So, this year we’ve moved to our biggest venue yet, and also pulled in our largest number of entries to date and broken attendance records.”

He added: “This year’s submissions have without doubt been our best yet. To quote one of the judges: The examples of innovative developments across both traditional and digital retail spaces were truly remarkable.”

Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Tiff Stevenson, and all those who attended our 2025 gathering.