- Javed Khattak is an experienced finance and technology leader, with over two decades working across actuarial science, FTSE100 consulting and innovation in digital identity, blockchain and AI.
- As co-founder and CFO of cheqd, Javed brings commercial, financial and technical discipline to building trustworthy, privacy-preserving digital identity infrastructure.
- Javed is driven by a commitment to solving real trust and identity challenges, ensuring cheqd’s solutions are both privacy-centric and commercially viable.
- Javed leads with a values-focused, impact-driven approach, empowering teams and positioning cheqd at the intersection of identity, trust data and emerging AI systems.
Tell Us About Yourself and cheqd
I’m Javed Khattak, Co-founder and CFO at cheqd. I’ve spent two decades working at the intersection of finance, technology, and innovation, from leading multi-billion-pound funds to building ventures in digital identity, blockchain, and AI. I started my career as an actuary and went on to advise senior leadership at FTSE100 companies and global brands including HSBC, Thomson Reuters, GSK, M&S, Aviva, PwC, and PA Consulting.
Throughout that journey, one theme has been constant: the need for trustworthy, privacy-preserving digital infrastructure. That’s what ultimately led me to co-found cheqd. My focus now is bringing commercial, financial, and technical rigour to a space that is transforming how individuals and organisations verify information and establish trust online. Recently, we are extending these capabilities into AI agents, making it possible for agents to verify information, prove provenance, and build trust in automated interactions.
What Inspired You to Start cheqd? What Problem Were You Aiming To Solve?
cheqd began when Fraser Edwards and Ankur Banerjee realised, during their work at Accenture, that self-sovereign identity had strong technical foundations but no sustainable commercial model. Every discussion with clients returned to the same issue: how do you make SSI work at scale? That unanswered question became the spark for cheqd.
What inspired me was simple: digital identity is the backbone of the future, but it must be commercially viable. I still remember when I spoke to them about SSI – which was new to me at the time. It was clear that this was the future. This was not a good thing to have, but a need – for privacy, for security, for giving people their data and sovereignty back. So I was excited to join them on this journey. I, Javed Khattak, joined soon after as Co-founder and CFO.
cheqd exists to make that possible.
What Has Been Your Biggest Challenge So Far? How Did You Overcome It?
One of our biggest challenges was proving that decentralised identity could be commercially viable. For years, the industry focused on principles and privacy, but not on sustainable business models. Convincing organisations that verifiable credentials could create real commercial value required breaking with traditional thinking. We overcame this by building payment and trust-layer infrastructure directly into the technology stack, enabling clear incentives for issuers, holders, AI agents, and verifiers. Demonstrating this in real deployments and showing how identity and trust data enhance AI systems helped shift perceptions. It proved that SSI can scale when it aligns with business drivers.
Describe A Pivotal Moment That Significantly Shaped the Direction of cheqd?
A defining moment came when we recognised that the rise of AI agents introduced the same trust gap we had seen in digital identity. Organisations were excited about autonomous agents but lacked ways to verify provenance, authenticity, or responsible use. This realisation expanded our vision beyond people and organisations to include AI itself. It pushed us to adapt our identity infrastructure to support verifiable AI and content credentials.
That shift opened an entirely new category of use cases, positioning cheqd not just in the SSI market but at the intersection of digital identity, trust data, and the future of autonomous AI systems.
How Do You Define Success?
For Your Business: Success for cheqd is creating technology that becomes genuinely valuable and widely adopted. If organisations can verify data with trust and transparency, and individuals gain real control over their digital identities, then we’re fulfilling our mission. Sustainable growth and meaningful impact are the measures that matter.
As A Founder: Success is building something purposeful that improves how society manages identity and trust. It’s not defined by titles or milestones, but by creating lasting solutions and empowering the teams around me to do their best work. If I achieve that, I consider myself successful. And having fun while doing it is a bonus!
What Advice Would You Give To Someone Considering Launching Their Own Startup?
Start with the problem, not your solution – validate that people actually have the pain you’re solving. Understand your market deeply, talk to potential customers early, and be honest about whether your solution meets their needs. Surround yourself with a strong team whose skills complement yours, no founder can do it alone. Be prepared for setbacks, but stay committed to the mission, not just the metrics.
Finally, think about sustainability from day one: a startup that’s commercially viable and ethically sound will have far greater long-term impact than one chasing hype.
What’s Next For cheqd? Are There Any Exciting Developments We Should Keep An Eye Out For?
Looking ahead, cheqd is focused on expanding the reach and capabilities of verifiable credentials into new markets and use cases. A key area is AI agents: we’re enabling autonomous systems to hold verifiable credentials, prove provenance, and interact with trustable data in a privacy-preserving way.
We’re also strengthening integrations with enterprise and government ecosystems, making it easier for organisations to adopt SSI at scale. Expect to see new partnerships, real-world deployments, and innovations that bridge digital identity, trust data, and AI,creating infrastructure that powers secure, accountable, and verifiable interactions.
Want to be featured as TechRound’s Founder of the Week? Find out more about this weekly feature and how to get involved here.
Founder’s Five with Javed Khattak
Here’s TechRound’s exclusive Founder’s Five with Javed Khattak of cheqd.
1. Favourite Business Tool?
Excel – shows my age – but AI Agents will soon be overtaking it once they are more reliable and trustworthy!
2. One Lesson You’ve Learned the Hard Way?
Market timing beats perfect execution. We built world-class infrastructure years before the market was ready – being right too early looks a lot like being wrong.
3. A Future Trend You’re Watching?
The intersection of AI and blockchain – to me the deterministic nature of blockchain is in fact a necessity for AI to scale due to its probabilistic nature.
4. One Quote You Live By?
“The best of people are those who are most beneficial to others.” Success is measured by the value you create for others.
5. A book/podcast you recommend?
“Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman. As an actuary, I often felt my approach to risk and decision-making was out of step with conventional thinking. This book validated many of my hypotheses and reassured me I wasn’t going crazy. It deepened my understanding of cognitive biases and when to trust intuition versus analysis—invaluable for everything from fundraising strategy to product decisions.
Want to be featured as TechRound’s Founder of the Week? Know someone who deserves to be recognised as a founder making waves in the startup landscape? Find out more about this weekly feature and how to get involved here.
