Markus Braun (born 1969) is an Austrian tech investor, the former CEO and CTO at the now insolvent payment processor, Wirecard AG from January 2002 until his resignation and arrest in June 2020. Braun stepped down from Wirecard amidst fraud allegations, but has denied any wrongdoing. Braun was in pre-trial detention at the Augsburg-Gablingen prison and was transferred to Stadelheim prison in Munich on November 10, 2022. On December 8, 2022, the criminal proceedings against him and two other former Wirecard managers began at the Munich regional court. Court cases were pending as of 2024.

Markus Braun was born in Vienna. He is the son of a director of a Folk high school and a school teacher.

Braun graduated from the Technical University of Vienna with a degree in commercial computer science and business studies, and then went on to earn a PhD in social and economic sciences from the University of Vienna in 2000.

Braun started his career as a consultant at Contrast Management Consulting GmbH, a position he held until November 1998. Between 1998 and 2001, he worked with KPMG Consulting AG in Munich.

In 2002, Braun joined the management board of Wirecard AG and became CEO and CTO of the company. Wirecard was one of the world's largest digital platforms in the area of financial commerce and is headquartered in Germany. It was one of Germany's Top 30 most valuable companies on the German stock market (DAX) and has been ranked in the “Top 100 Most Innovative Growth Companies in the World” by Forbes Magazine.

Much of what Braun said was questioned long before Wirecard admitted fraud in June 2020. In 2017, for example, Braun told investors that Wirecard was using the latest artificial intelligence technology to analyze data. However according to third parties, staff were instead cobbling together spreadsheets of customer information. Braun owned more than 7% of Wirecard shares, making him the largest single shareholder of Wirecard at the time.

In 2017, Braun was reappointed as a CEO of Wirecard. He responded to his reappointment by stating: "We will drive the digitization of payment processes using internet technology on a global level, and we will make Wirecard a global leader in this sector." In 2018, Braun was introduced as having more than 15 years of experience in the digital payment industry and was a regular speaker at industry related events and different national and international media.

According to Braun in 2018, the entire retail payment infrastructure was to be replaced by technology merging all payment streams into a single, fully digital system within the following decade. The FAZ reported in 2018 that according to Braun digitalization, if done right, would generate an increase in sales for the brick and mortar business similar to the expanding online commerce. He considers cash to become an exception and says, that technology can never be justified by itself and can only be successful when it delivers visible value-added for customers and merchants.