Sanjeev Dheer

Founder & CEO CENTRL (Centrl Inc.)

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Sanjeev Dheer has built two fintech companies around the same underlying idea: that the parts of finance nobody wants to think about — moving money between accounts at different institutions, or establishing whether a counterparty is safe to deal with — are where durable infrastructure businesses live. CashEdge, which he founded in November 1999, became the account-aggregation and account-to-account transfer layer used across US retail banking, and Fiserv bought it in 2011 for a reported $465 million. CENTRL, founded in September 2015 and based in Mountain View, automates third-party risk, due diligence and privacy management for financial institutions — the diligence questionnaires, vendor assessments and data-privacy obligations that regulated firms must complete and that were, until recently, run on spreadsheets and email. He has sat on the board of the NYSE-listed insurer Primerica since October 2019, spent the 1990s as a principal at McKinsey, and is named on more than fourteen patents.

Career Highlights

• Founded CashEdge in November 1999 and led it as chief executive until Fiserv acquired it in 2011 for a reported $465 million.
• Continued to run the CashEdge business division inside Fiserv from September 2011 to June 2013.
• Founded CENTRL in September 2015 and has been its chief executive since, building a due diligence and risk platform used by banks, asset managers and other regulated institutions, with offices in Mountain View, New York, the UK, Australia and India.
• Elected to the board of directors of Primerica, Inc. in October 2019 and still serving.
• Principal at McKinsey & Company in New York from September 1992 to October 1999, serving financial and technology clients.
• Consulted for Apple on payments from July 2014 to August 2015.
• Named as an inventor on more than fourteen patents.
• Arjay Miller Scholar at Stanford Graduate School of Business, with three further postgraduate degrees across computer science, economics and history.

Professional Journey

Dheer’s career began at the United Nations Development Programme in New York, an unusual starting point for a payments entrepreneur, before he joined McKinsey & Company in September 1992. He spent seven years there, rising to principal and working with financial services and technology clients — the period in which he acquired both the industry knowledge and the institutional relationships that the next two decades drew on.

He left McKinsey in October 1999 and founded CashEdge the following month. The business addressed a gap that consumers experienced as friction and banks experienced as leakage: moving money between accounts held at different institutions, and seeing balances across them, was slow and unreliable. CashEdge built the transfer and aggregation infrastructure that banks then offered under their own brands. It became a foundational piece of US retail banking plumbing, and Fiserv acquired it in 2011 in a deal reported at $465 million. Dheer stayed on to run the CashEdge division inside Fiserv until June 2013.

A gap followed, during which he consulted for Apple on payments between July 2014 and August 2015 — a period that coincides with the early years of Apple Pay.

CENTRL followed in September 2015. The problem it addresses sits on the other side of a financial institution from CashEdge: not moving money, but deciding whom to trust. Banks, asset managers and insurers are obliged to conduct due diligence on vendors, counterparties and investment managers, and to demonstrate to regulators that they did. That work had historically been conducted through emailed questionnaires and spreadsheet trackers. CENTRL’s platform automates the assessment lifecycle across third-party risk, due diligence and privacy management, and the company has expanded from Mountain View into New York, the United Kingdom, Australia and India. Susquehanna Growth Equity lists it among its portfolio companies.

In October 2019, Primerica’s board elected Dheer as a director. Primerica distributes term life insurance and investment products through a large independent sales force in the United States and Canada, and his technology and payments background is the relevant expertise there. He remains on the board.

Education

Stanford Graduate School of Business

MBA, Arjay Miller Scholar

Queens College, City University of New York

Master of Arts, Computer Science

Washington State University

Master of Arts, Economics

University of Delhi

Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts, History