Hospitality technology company Mews has appointed veteran technology executive and legal strategist Kirupa Pushparaj as its chief legal officer, positioning the global platform for its next phase of expansion across more than 85 countries.
He brings more than two decades of combined experience across law and technology engineering. Reporting directly to Mews founder Richard Valtr, Pushparaj will oversee the organization’s global legal, regulatory compliance, and policy functions as Mews expands its payments infrastructure and cloud operating system for more than 15,000 hotel and lodging customers worldwide.
Pushparaj’s background spans fintech, artificial intelligence, digital assets, and consumer hardware. He spent more than eight years at Square (now Block Inc.) as deputy general counsel, guiding the payments company through its 2015 initial public offering and the rollout of new financial products.
Read: Columbia names Pallavi Gogoi ED of Knight-Bagehot Fellowship (July 24, 2026)
He later served as chief legal officer at fintech unicorn Step, where he managed legal affairs, compliance, human resources, government affairs, and strategic partnerships prior to its acquisition by Beast Industries. Earlier in his career, he worked as legal counsel at Amazon Lab126 and spent six years as a hardware engineer at Intel.
Beyond his executive duties, Pushparaj holds advisory and board roles across artificial intelligence and legal-tech organizations. He also serves as an adjunct professor at Stanford Law School and the University of California, Davis, School of Law.
Pushparaj’s career path is grounded in a deep commitment to technical and legal education that traces back to his Indian roots. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from PSG College of Technology in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. He subsequently moved to the United States for graduate studies, completing a Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Read: WHOOP appoints Indian American cardiologist Ami Bhatt as CMO (July 24, 2026)
While working full-time as an engineer at Intel, Pushparaj attended evening classes to pursue legal studies, ultimately earning his Juris Doctor from the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law before transitioning into corporate law.
He maintains active ties to the professional community as a member of the California bar and speaks Tamil and Hindi.
As Mews operates across complex international markets, Pushparaj’s dual focus on engineering systems and financial regulation will guide the enterprise’s corporate governance and compliance initiatives worldwide.