Safwan Shah, Ph.D., is an Pakistani-American business executive and entrepreneur. He is the founder and chief executive officer of Payactiv. Safwan founded Payactiv as the first provider of Earned Wage Access services, and is credited with coining the term "Earned Wage Access."
Shah earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from NED University of Engineering & Technology. He later received a master's degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Shah has worked in various industries, including time with BioServe Space Technologies, where he worked to support the NASA space program.
He has taught classes at Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and Baskin School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz. Shah has spoken at numerous events, including TEDx.
In 1997, he co-founded Chowk, a news website focused on Indian and Pakistani current affairs.
Before founding Payactiv, Shah worked in payments technology and founded Infonox, a payments company, where he was CEO from its founding in 1999 until its acquisition in 2008. Infonox was acquired by TSYS for $50 million.
Shah founded Payactiv in the 2012 as the first provider of Earned Wage Access. He remains CEO of the company, a role he has held since the company's founding.
In 2024, Fortune reported that Payactiv was had previously been valued at more than $500 million in 2020.
Shah released a book in 2019.
In 2019, Shah received the George Norlin Award from the University of Colorado Boulder.