$9 billion payment startup Stripe lands Google veteran to lead UK business

LONDON - Silicon Valley payment technology company Stripe has hired a six-year veteran of Google to be its new UK country lead.

Iain McDougall has worked for Google in both Australia and the UK, most recently holding the position of head of sales for Google Cloud in the UK and Ireland. Prior to joining the search giant he worked at IBM and began his career at Cisco.

Stripe builds payments processing tools pitched at developers and its payments platform is popular with startups. Deliveroo, Boohoo, and Asos are customers in the UK, as well as more traditional businesses such as Oxford University Press and even the UK Government

Claire Hughes Johnson, Stripe's COO, said in an email sent to BI: "Stripe works on advancing the state of developer tools, driving innovation that arms upstarts and helps larger businesses reinvent themselves. Iain's leadership at Stripe will be a crucial part of that mission, helping more diverse users flourish on our platform, with a particular focus on the UK's leading enterprises."

The hire comes as Stripe beefs up its leadership team globally. The seven-year-old payment company recently hired Barack Obama's former Global Entrepreneurship Chief Sarah Heck and named Twitter's former VP of global online sales Richard Alfonsi as its head of global revenue & growth. McDougall will report to Alfonsi.

Stripe was valued at $9.2 billion in its most recent funding round in November. The company was founded by two Irish brothers, the Collisons, and Forbes named 26-year-old Stripe President John Collison the "world's youngest self-made billionaire" last year.