A commission that arrives late has a wonderful ability to spoil a successful sale. The customer has what they wanted. The shopkeeper has another sum to chase. Abdul Akel’s company grew by paying attention to this rather unglamorous interval, where the celebration of a sale gives way to the arithmetic of staying open.
In T-Cetra’s early days, its founding team went calling on independent wireless dealers. They found retailers tracking inventory and commissions manually, with too little certainty about either. Questions followed: why did payments take so long, where did the existing process fail, and what would actually help? Hundreds of dealer conversations gave the company a concrete brief: protect the stock and get the retailer paid.
Akel co-founded T-Cetra with Gus Hashem in 2007. Today he remains its chief executive, responsible for growth strategy, innovation and the company’s longer-term direction. Its VIDAPAY platform serves approximately 10,000 retail locations. Behind that network is a recurring interest in people whom a convenient digital checkout can quietly inconvenience: customers who bring cash, and merchants whose businesses depend on serving them.
The commission was late. The lesson stayed.
The early retailer problem had two sides. Stock needed to be accounted for; earnings needed to become available. VIDAPAY and the introduction of Instant Spiff addressed that combination, giving dealers a way to receive commissions immediately. The appealing part of the story is how modestly the question begins. Before a business can talk about changing payments, a shopkeeper would quite reasonably like to know what happened to theirs.
That origin also puts some discipline around the word innovation. In this case, a better process had to mean something to a person managing a wireless store. A system could look handsome on a screen and still leave the dealer doing the same old bookkeeping. The practical test was whether the transaction, the inventory and the commission became easier to manage together.
Akel’s work has grown around that relationship between software and the counter where it is used. The company now combines payment and activation capabilities with device procurement, logistics, incentives and dealer support. These functions have an everyday connection: a merchant needs something to sell, a way to process it and a clear account of what the business earned. Efficiency has a less theatrical face when someone must reconcile the numbers.
Damascus, Ohio, and the people in between
Damascus is the hometown Akel named in his 2021 40 Under 40 profile. His public education record places him at Ohio State from 2001 to 2006. The next year, he co-founded T-Cetra in Ohio. The outline is concise, but the people he credits make it less solitary than the usual founder biography.
Asked who helped him early in his career, Akel named his father, Hasham Akel; IT consultant Michael Baraz; lawyer James Zitesman; and Doug Andrews, his banker of 14 years at the time. It is an admirably practical collection of advisers. A technology business can find use for all four kinds of counsel, preferably before a difficult decision becomes an expensive one.
The same Q&A offers a glimpse beyond the job title. Akel wanted to take his children to Lebanon to see his in-laws. He preferred working in the office, with some flexibility at home. Asked about an event he looked forward to, he chose trade shows, where he could meet customers and partners. In a career devoted to connections, he apparently still valued the version that requires being in the same room.
A neighborhood store has a second job
Akel has made a public case for treating independent wireless shops as neighborhood institutions. When T-Cetra joined the National Wireless Independent Dealer Association in 2020, he emphasized their contribution beyond wireless sales and the importance of equipping dealers to serve their customers. That view gives the retail network a role beyond distribution: the local store is also a point of access.
Consider the basic arrangement. A customer has cash and wants a supported digital service. A participating retailer uses a transaction platform to connect the payment to that service. The physical visit is part of the design. For someone who prefers cash, the presence of a shopkeeper can be the useful feature that a wholly online process leaves out.
One counter. Three participants.
- 01 / CustomerBrings cash for a supported service.
- 02 / RetailerProcesses the transaction through VIDAPAY.
- 03 / ProviderReaches customers through the retail channel.
A simplified view of the model; available services depend on the participating retailer and provider.
Prepaid wireless supplied the starting point. Other applications have included online shopping and public transportation. Akel has shared the example of a program with the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority that allowed cash payments for bus passes at participating retailers. A bus pass is a particularly concrete expression of access: the transaction is useful because someone has somewhere to go.
There is organizational work behind such straightforward outcomes. In discussing an expansion of T-Cetra’s logistics capabilities in 2021, Akel described the aim of streamlining processes and supporting customers’ different supply needs. The idea of a single portal depends on a number of tasks happening around it. Devices must move, dealers need help, and the payment system must fit the service being sold.
An olive tree beside the payment portal
In 2020, Akel and the company’s leadership team launched the T-Cetra Foundation. Housed as a donor-advised fund within the Columbus Foundation, it took financial literacy and access to technology as its focus. Early support included Fugees Academy and NeighborRelief. Its symbol is an olive tree, an image with more patience in it than most business diagrams.
The foundation’s premise is that financial knowledge and technology access can give young people more opportunities. It offered grants and technology support, with priority consideration for organizations working in underserved communities in Ohio and beyond. The work adds another dimension to Akel’s interest in access: helping someone complete a transaction and helping them understand financial choices are different, complementary tasks.
NeighborRelief supplied a separate use for the company’s technical capabilities. T-Cetra became a technology partner for a program helping people with payments for essential services. Support could be directed toward practical needs such as utilities and phone service. Akel described the partnership in terms of applying the company’s technical aptitude to community assistance. Software built to connect payments had another job to do.
Recognition, with more work attached
Columbus Business First included Akel in its 2021 40 Under 40 class. Columbus CEO selected him for the Future 50 class of 2022, a program that brought local professionals together to work on projects intended to produce measurable regional change. The latter honor came with a useful obligation: gather with other people and attempt something together.
His national business recognition followed a precise sequence. In June 2022, Akel was named an EY Entrepreneur Of The Year East Central Award winner. That November, he became a national finalist, selected from a field of 206 regional winners representing 190 companies. A regional award and a national finalist place are distinct achievements; his record includes both.
“We are continually building payment solutions to bridge the digital divide.”
Abdul Akel · November 2022
Akel’s emphasis on people also appears in how he talks about the company’s setting. He has credited Dublin’s networking opportunities and community programs with helping connect executives and support talent attraction and retention. Growing a business requires relationships outside its own walls. A city can help by making those introductions possible.
Inside the company, a smaller exercise gave employees a say in how the work was described. Akel shared that every team member had been invited to vote on the final mission statement. The chosen language centered on better serving underserved people. A vote does not tell us how every decision will turn out. It does show a particular choice about authorship: the statement explaining the company’s purpose was something the team could help select, rather than simply receive.
The distance back to Damascus
More recently, Akel’s public work has taken on a second business geography. In June 2025, he was identified among the founding board members of the U.S.-Syria Business Council. Discussing its plans, he stressed banking connections, the experience of Syrians abroad and the possibility of commercial relationships moving in both directions.
The council’s proposed tools included roundtables, conferences and business delegations. Akel discussed helping American companies understand opportunities in Syria and helping Syrian businesses reach American markets. Banking was a priority because commercial ambition needs a workable way for transactions to happen. The vocabulary is international; the requirement remains practical.
The July 2026 U.S.-Syria Business Forum in Damascus listed him among its speakers. His biography identified him as the council’s founder and vice chairman and as founder of VeriCodia, a Damascus software development and technology services company. SYNC also lists him in its Founders Circle for 2025-2026. These activities extend his work into software development and business networks connected to Syria.
Across these settings, the scale and the participants change. A small retailer needs reliable commissions. A household needs a way to pay for a service. Businesses exploring another market need contacts, knowledge and functioning financial connections. Akel has built organizations around those practical requirements. The ambitions can be large; the work still comes down to making the next exchange possible.