CLI joins Natural as Chief Compliance and Regulatory Officer
Today, CLI joins Natural as Chief Compliance and Regulatory Officer.
While she keeps a low profile online, her impact on the payments industry is unmistakable. If you’ve been around the industry, you’ve heard her name.
She was the first regulatory hire at Square, Stripe, and Ramp, where she most recently served as Chief Compliance Officer of Ramp Payments Corporation.
Natural is on the path to becoming the most important financial institution in the agentic world.
To execute on that vision, we have to fearlessly build the financial systems of the future from the ground up. That means owning the technology and payments stack both horizontally and vertically, and becoming a directly regulated entity in every jurisdiction where we operate.
It means owning everything from ledgering, to risk and underwriting, to money movement internally, with as few dependencies as possible.
CLI has been around fintech longer than most. In the rapidly evolving world of autonomous payments, it is critical to own your destiny, and she is an enormously important hire in securing that right for Natural.
Companies that rely on thin wrappers around third parties will not have the durability, margin profile, or regulatory maneuverability required to win. The path we’re taking is complex, expensive, and time-consuming. It is also the only path that gives Natural the ability to define the standards by which agentic payments operate. It’s worth it.
Natural has always been built around seeing opportunities early and moving with conviction and speed. Our decisions are built around retaining the right to win not just today, but every day in the future.
We take legal and compliance seriously at Natural. It is now our second-largest function behind engineering, and that will remain true for the foreseeable future.
When we were recruiting Natalie, our Head of Legal from Stripe, we kept hearing about CLI — that she would be the perfect compliance counterpart to our broader legal function. Then we heard it directly from Natalie. Now it’s become reality.
We hold an unwavering standard for excellence and winning at Natural. When I met CLI for the first time, it was immediately obvious that she was built the same way. She moves quietly and absolutely dominates.
At the end of our conversation, I told her: “I hope it’s obvious how large the ambition is here. I don’t want to do one thing. I want to do everything. I hope this is a place where you can do more than you’ve ever done in payments.”
Her response: “We’re on the same page.”
CLI is three for three in choosing companies on the short list of fintech heavy-hitters. Today, she becomes employee number 12 at Natural.
Time to win.
