# Karim Atiyeh

> Karim Atiyeh is the Beirut-born co-founder and co-CEO of Ramp, where he has turned a software engineer's dislike of needless steps into a broad finance-automation company. Before Ramp, he co-founded the consumer savings service Paribus, took it through Y Combinator and sold it to Capital One. His recurring idea is simple and unusually demanding: good business software should quietly remove work rather than create more of it.

- **Role:** Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Ramp
- **Organizations:** Ramp, Paribus, Capital One, Oliver Wyman, Y Combinator, Harvard University, Research Science Institute
- **From:** Beirut, Lebanon
- **Nationality:** Lebanese
- **Education:** BA in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Harvard University, MS in Computer Science; Siebel Scholar, Harvard University, S15 cohort, Y Combinator, RSI scholar, Research Science Institute at MIT
- **Known for:** Co-founded Paribus, which at its peak served about 10 million customers and was acquired by Capital One in 2016., Co-founded Ramp in 2019 and led its technology organization as CTO through June 2026., Helped define Ramp's product around saving businesses time and money rather than encouraging greater card spend.

## Career timeline

- **2006** — Attended the Research Science Institute at MIT as a scholar from Beirut.
- **2009-2010** — Served as a teaching fellow for Harvard's CS50 course.
- **2011** — Completed a BA in Electrical and Computer Engineering and an MS in Computer Science at Harvard.
- **2011-2014** — Worked at Oliver Wyman in New York before returning full-time to software building.
- **2014** — Co-founded Paribus with Eric Glyman and Gene Lee to automate price-drop refunds for online shoppers.
- **2015** — Paribus joined Y Combinator's Summer 2015 cohort.
- **2016** — Capital One acquired Paribus; Atiyeh continued at Capital One and learned the card business from inside a large financial institution.
- **2019** — Co-founded Ramp with Eric Glyman and Gene Lee in New York.
- **2025** — As Ramp's co-founder and CTO, articulated its push toward autonomous finance and launched finance-focused AI agents.
- **2026** — Became co-CEO of Ramp alongside Eric Glyman; Rahul Sengottuvelu succeeded him as CTO.

## Achievements

- Co-founded Paribus, which at its peak served about 10 million customers and was acquired by Capital One in 2016.
- Co-founded Ramp in 2019 and led its technology organization as CTO through June 2026.
- Helped define Ramp's product around saving businesses time and money rather than encouraging greater card spend.
- Expanded his operating remit at Ramp to include risk, operations and marketing before formally becoming co-CEO in 2026.
- Introduced Ramp's finance-focused AI agents and AI spend intelligence products in public product essays.
- Was named a Siebel Scholar while completing his MS in Computer Science at Harvard.

## Latest updates

- **2026-09** — Ramp launched in the United Kingdom, extending its cards, expenses, bill payments and accounting automation to UK businesses.
- **2026-06** — Atiyeh became co-CEO of Ramp alongside Eric Glyman; Rahul Sengottuvelu became CTO.
- **2026-04** — Atiyeh announced Ramp AI Spend Intelligence for connecting model usage, invoices and card spend.
- **2025-10** — He announced that developer-tools company Jolt was joining Ramp to strengthen its AI platform and internal engineering systems.
- **2025-07** — He announced Ramp's first finance-focused AI agents for expense-policy enforcement, fraud detection and policy improvement.

## Links

- Website: https://ramp.com/authors/karim-atiyeh
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karimatiyeh
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/karimatiyeh

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/karim-atiyeh
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-26