Wissam Barakat

Chief Revenue Officer Tipalti

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Wissam Barakat, who goes by Sam, is Chief Revenue Officer of Tipalti, the finance automation company founded in 2010 on the observation that business had begun moving faster than the payment systems underneath it. Tipalti automates the accounts payable and global payments process end to end — supplier onboarding, tax compliance, invoice processing, cross-border payment — for fast-growing companies that have outgrown manual finance operations but are nowhere near large enough to build the machinery themselves. The company now processes more than 90 billion dollars in payments a year, employs over a thousand people and has raised 750 million dollars. Barakat carries the revenue number across that business. He arrived in 2019 from BlackLine, where he had built the mid-market business from nothing and taken it to half the company’s customer base in the run-up to its initial public offering — the closest available analogue to what Tipalti is attempting.

Career Highlights

• Listed on Tipalti’s own leadership roster as Chief Revenue Officer, alongside co-founder and chief executive Chen Amit and President Rob Israch.
• Joined Tipalti in 2019 with over eighteen years of sales and management experience in financial and enterprise SaaS technology.
• As Vice President at BlackLine, the financial close software company, built the mid-market business from the ground up.
• Scaled that business in a little over four years to become the fastest-growing sector in the organisation and to represent half of BlackLine’s entire customer base.
• Was part of the BlackLine executive team that grew the company from 50 million dollars in revenue to a 2016 initial public offering valued at 3 billion dollars.
• Previously General Manager and Vice President of Sales at Infor, the enterprise resource planning and cloud software company.
• Publicly represented Tipalti in its 150 million dollar growth financing round in 2023.
• Holds an M.B.A. from Simon Fraser University and a B.S. from Concordia University.

Professional Journey

Barakat was educated in Canada, taking a B.S. at Concordia University in Montreal and an M.B.A. at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, and his career has been spent almost entirely in enterprise software sales leadership rather than in general management or finance.

He spent his early career at Infor, the enterprise resource planning and cloud software company, rising to General Manager and Vice President of Sales. Infor sells complex operational software into mid-sized and large businesses, which is a demanding school for a sales leader: long cycles, technical evaluation, and a buyer who is replacing a system rather than adding one.

His defining stretch was at BlackLine, the financial close and accounting automation company. He was hired as a Vice President to build a mid-market business that did not yet exist, and in a little over four years made it the fastest-growing sector in the company and half of its customer base — a structural change in who BlackLine sold to, not simply a bigger number. He was part of the executive team through the period in which the business went from 50 million dollars of revenue to its 2016 initial public offering at a 3 billion dollar valuation.

He joined Tipalti as Chief Revenue Officer in 2019. The strategic fit is close to exact. Tipalti, like BlackLine, sells finance automation, and like BlackLine its growth depends on reaching companies below the enterprise tier — businesses scaling fast enough that manual accounts payable becomes a constraint, but which will not run a procurement process lasting a year. He carried that responsibility through Tipalti’s 150 million dollar growth financing in 2023, and continues to hold it at a company now moving more than 90 billion dollars of payments annually.

Education

Simon Fraser University

M.B.A.

Concordia University

B.S.