Khalil Alami, founder and CEO of Telr: Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Khalil Alami (LinkedIn), founder and CEO of Telr. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

My name is Khalil. I’m the founder and CEO of Telr, or what I like to call Telr 2.0, because I joined in 2019, a few years after it was founded, and helped reshape the business into what it is today. I’m a husband, and a father of two beautiful daughters, and I’ve been in financial services — or what is now called fintech — for the past 25 years.

I started my career in the US with American Express, then moved to Jordan to set up the US trading desk at ABC Bank. After that, I launched a payments startup in Jordan, exited in 2019, and moved to the UAE.

Telr started in 2014, founded by former PayPal regional general manager Elias Ghanem because he saw a need for a payment gateway that was from this region, for this region, as the e-commerce market began to boom in the region. Back then, online merchants often had to rely on costly, distant payment providers with little customer service.

When I joined in 2019, the business needed reshaping. That was Telr 2.0; I re-engineered and innovated what I could to make sure we regained our leadership position in the market. This year marks Telr 3.0 — a technology-first payments processor licensed directly by the Central Bank of the UAE, independent from banks, and agile enough to be able to innovate at the speed merchants need.

That means offering things like a single dashboard for merchants to track all their sales — social, online, in-app, or in-store — in one place. We also just launched Telr Incepta, which lets anyone worldwide set up a UAE company in three or four hours, open a bank account, integrate payments, and access over 50 services, from tax and accounting to travel booking.

The UAE’s rollout of open finance is another shift we’re part of. Soon, Telr merchants will be able to accept payments made directly through merchants’ customers’ bank accounts — also known as pay by account — through this open banking infrastructure. With that also comes the new national debit card Jaywan and instant payments platform Aani, as well as the digital AED, which are all very important payment methods being introduced to the market. I see a huge transformation in the market over the next three to four years as these initiatives come to life.

We’re headquartered in the UAE, with a full team in Saudi Arabia, and serve clients in 11 markets, including Jordan and Bahrain. The UAE, KSA, and Egypt alone account for about 95% of the region’s e-commerce transactions, and we have Egypt in the pipeline along with other regional markets like Qatar and Kuwait. Our expansion follows our merchants’ growth, not just a desire to plant a flag.

My day starts with coffee, which is probably a common theme for this column. I check emails for overnight spillovers, then open Enterprise to scan industry headlines. I use my mornings for deep work: a quick brain dump, reorganizing yesterday’s unfinished tasks, setting goals for today and tomorrow. By noon, the office buzz begins.

I set Telr’s vision and strategy, work closely with the tech team to drive innovation, and foster a culture of agility, compliance, and creativity. I delegate heavily. I’m lucky to have a team of masters at their craft, and I try not to meddle in daily operations unless absolutely necessary, because I think that can actually mess things up rather than let things take their natural course.

Outside the operational side, my day also involves investor relations, partnerships, and keeping our public presence aligned with our values. I monitor key KPIs every morning, looking for unusual spikes or dips and digging into the why behind them.

Weekends are sacred family time. Saturdays and Sundays are important for me to spend with my wife and daughters, whether that’s at home or out doing activities together. Travel is another way I like to disconnect, although in reality, I’m never truly disconnected; I’ll still take calls on weekends if needed. One thing I look forward to every year is going camping out in the desert where there’s no reception at all. It’s just one night, so about 24 hours of a complete technology detox. It’s short, but it’s enough to reset.

On a personal level, right now I’m focusing on health and longevity, and how technology can play a role in that. I use a lot of gadgets to track my health. I also try to get to the gym as much as I can, though a heavy travel schedule sometimes gets in the way. My goal for 2025 and 2026 is to consciously maintain a better work-life balance.

I also spend time mentoring startup founders, especially in technology, which exposes me to new ideas. I maintain strong relationships with other CEOs in my space, even competitors. I don’t see them purely as rivals. We share insights, flag potential risks, and try to maintain the overall health of the market.

I measure whether our strategy is working through merit-based recognition — not awards you can buy, but ones you earn. Being named one of the UAE’s Future 100 companies by the Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of Technology, or making it into Forbes’ Fintech 50, means a lot because we didn’t apply for or pay for them. They’re based purely on merit, and that’s the kind of validation that tells me we’re moving in the right direction.

I’m currently reading Money Men by Dan McCrum, about a payment gateway that grew from a startup to a multi-bn multinational before collapsing overnight due to fraud. It’s fascinating because it’s from my industry. I listen to a lot of podcasts, some about entrepreneurship and scaling up, others completely unrelated to work just to unwind. And like everyone else, I watch Netflix. I like Black Mirror and I’m also a fan of Yellowstone.

Two pieces of advice have stuck with me. The first, from my father, who has over 50 years of experience in financial services: Always have a strong accountant or accounting department. In payments, money is emotional and unforgiving. Without strong systems, you’re lost. The second, from a former bank CEO: Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. It sounds obvious, but few leaders do it well. I regularly play devil’s advocate, challenging our processes from a merchant’s perspective to keep the customer at the center of every decision.

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