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Mr. Braun, a tall 50-year-old computer scientist from Vienna with an intense manner of speaking, had been Wirecard’s CEO and chief technology officer since 2002. Mr. Braun made a formidable double act with the company’s chief operating officer, Jan Marsalek.“Markus was the one who spoke to investors, he was the storyteller, Jan went around the world doing deals.”
He would evangelize for the company’s products, hitting on the point that different from its rivals Wirecard offered a single interface to the company’s payments platform. He was proud that Wirecard was a rare European tech success, but also saw it as a global force. “We’re active on all five continents,” he said in a 2019 company video. Mr. Braun attracted an ardent bunch of detractors who said the company’s uncanny consistency in growing its sales from year to year was too perfect to be true. When the Financial Times published a series of stories on the company’s accounting, Mr. Braun was the chief rebutter, dismissing the allegations and assuring investors the scrutiny would soon be over.
