A visionary entrepreneur, Chris Hughes is the founder and CEO of Sinder, a pioneering Shariah‑compliant, 0 % FX travel card. Transforming the UAE’s fintech landscape, Sinder offers an AI‑enabled financial super‑app for the region, empowering premium travel perks tailored for the region’s residents. With deep expertise in cross-border payments and growth‑driven product design, Chris Hughes is an acclaimed active angel investor and mentor within the region’s fintech ecosystem.
Career Trajectory of Chris Hughes
Facing tough years as a kid and missing several years of school due to illness, made Chris Hughes determined to double down on academics and he completed a Master’s in Mathematics at the University of Southampton. After graduating, he qualified as an accountant but soon realized he didn’t enjoy accounting at all. Chris reflects, “I moved from accounting to a hedge fund where I taught myself Python, then to Revolut as the Head of Finance during the COVID pandemic, and later at Tamara as the Head of Core Product.” These roles, especially building at speed during high-growth phases, set his foundation to redefine the fintech sector by founding Sinder.
Evolution of Sinder
Since the inception of the idea, Sinder has evolved from a concept to building a regulated-ready operating model with a licensed partner bank to ensure scaling safely, quickly, and cost-effectively. With each passing day, Chris split his time and expertise across refining products, partnerships, compliance, and early investor engagement while preparing to bring the travel-first payment experience to market.
Contribution to the Business Ecosystem
Building a business in the Gulf region is all about building trust with the banks, regulators, and processors. Chris Hughes is building a UAE-native, Shariah-compliant, travel-first money experience with transparent pricing — helping modernize offerings in a region where outbound travel spend is high but services have lagged. By partnering with local banks and processors for Sinder, he is also strengthening the fintech–bank collaboration model that accelerates responsible innovation.
With a transparent approach and unique design, Sinder’s Shariah-compliant products are designed particularly to cater to the requirements of the UAE residents.
Qualities for Success in the Field
The top three qualities that Chris Hughes believes are critical for success in his industry, include learning to be resilient and adaptable to make the mission turn into reality. As plans may change and market trends never remain the same forever, adaptability is the key to success in this field. He even mentions, “To accelerate the path of success, be quick to ship and gather feedback, helping your business to enhance agility and adapt to the changing needs.”
Despite AIntools being the future of the industry, he believes in prioritizing deep customer trust, transparency, premium UX, and always-available human support for the customers.
Key Innovations at Sinder
Sharing their strategy on adapting to technological changes, Chris Hughes shares, “We lean into AI and modern tooling like Replit and LLMs, to draft docs, spin up prototypes, and test ideas in hours instead of weeks, compressing cost and error-rates.”
Balancing this strategy with 24/7 human support, so technology amplifies quality rather than replacing people, defines the success behind Sinder.
Words of Wisdom for Beginners
Guiding aspiring professionals through similar key challenges as Chris faced while establishing himself in this industry, he adds, “Start with the right operating model for your market, build trust with regulators and banks, and, if needed, be the tech layer while a licensed institution safeguards funds. Ship the smallest proof fast, validate before scaling, use AI to do more with less, and design hyper-local solutions rather than importing generic ones.”
With resilience, adaptability, and starting sooner than ever, Chris Hughes reflects is the best way to get through the challenges in his industry.
To learn more about Chris Hughes, connect with him on LinkedIn.
Find Sinder on LinkedIn, Instagram, and visit their website https://sinder.ae/
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