Europe’s largest fintech departures in the past year

Revolut

Alan Chang

Role change? Chief Revenue Officer at Revolut → CEO and founder at Tesseract

Long referred to as Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky’s “right-hand man,” Chang joined the company in 2015 as the neobank’s third employee. He worked his way up the ranks to chief revenue officer in 2021 before striking out on his own last year. The result is Tesseract, a renewable energy company that Chang co-founded with former Revolut employee Charles Orr. They say they want to disrupt the energy market the way the neobanks shook up the banking sector, raising a $78 million round led by Balderton and Lakestar last September. More on all that here.

Victoria Stubbs

Role change? Chief risk officer at Revolut → CEO, compliance at Barclays

Stubbs joined Revolut as chief risk officer in November 2021 with significant experience under his belt overseeing risk in retail banking. Prior to joining Revolut, Stubbs had served in the same role at Cambridge Building Society for eight years. She resigned from Revolut in August after only ten months in the job. The move was part of a series of resignations last summer from executives in Revolut’s compliance team, against a backdrop of the neobank’s long wait for a UK banking license and slap on the wrist from regulators. Perhaps this was enough to put some out of fintech: Stubbs has now moved back into the incumbent banking world, overseeing compliance at Barclays.

Adriana Restrepo

Role change? COO in Revolut Bank → Co-founder of Deblock

Restrepo started as head of staff at Revolut before moving into the role of COO of its European banking operations in 2021. In this role, Restrepo launched ten Revolut bank branches across Europe, and granted the European banking license it received from Lithuanian regulators in December 2021. Restrepo left Revolut in September to co-found a new crypto startup called Deblock, along with the neobank’s former crypto chief Jean Myer. The startup is currently under wraps, but it focuses on providing crypto-rich individuals with banking services and the ability to cash out in fiat. In accordance pitchbook, it raised a seed funding round from Headline and Hoxton Ventures last October.

N26

Adrienne Gormley

Role change? COO in N26 → CEO in Setforth

Back in January of last year, Charge reported that Gormley resigned, the latest in a series of high-profile departures from the German unicorn over the past three years. Her departure left the company with no full-time women at the C-suite level. According to a statement released at the time, Gormley left the neobank to “pursue other challenges,” and now we have an idea of ​​what that represents. According to her LinkedIn, Gormely is now the CEO of Setforth, a new startup that specializes in acquiring B2B software companies. The company’s website is not yet live and there is no publicly available funding information – but Sifted is looking into this area.

Jan Kemper

Role change? COO and CFO at N26 → Various

Last month, Kemper let the cat out of the bag that he would be leaving the German neobank after nearly two years in the C-suite to focus on “other ventures.” A well-connected member of the German tech scene, Kemper has quite a few of these to keep busy. According to his own LinkedIn post, they include non-executive director roles at companies including express delivery startup Flink and VC firm Hedosophia; co-founding roles in companies including Ryzon and greenAir GmbH; and a professorship at RWTH Aachen University in Germany.

Klarna

Koen Köppen

Role change? CTO at Klarna → CTO at Mollie

After more than a decade at Europe’s biggest buy-now, pay-later startup, working his way up the ranks from a senior solutions engineer to CTO by 2017, Köppen stepped into the equivalent role at Dutch payments giant Mollie last May. And last week he was promoted to CEO to replace Shane Happach. During his time as CTO at Klarna, he oversaw the growth of the region’s highest-valued fintech – and he’s now hired to bring this hyper-growth expertise to Mollie. Köppen has had a relationship with the payment company for some time, having sat on the supervisory board and audit and risk committee since January 2020.

Marcus Granström

Role change? Senior director of engineering at Klarna → SVP product at Pleo

Another veteran by European fintech standards, Granström spent seven years working his way up through Klarna’s engineering team, eventually leading 850 product and engineering staff at fintech. After leading Klarna’s SME-focused business, he has now taken all that product and engineering knowledge to corporate card fintech Pleo, where he oversees the product.

Tom Burton

Role change? Head of public policy, UK and EU at Klarna → Director of public policy at GoCardless

Burton spent just over a year and a half overseeing Klarna’s policy strategy, during which time regulators in the UK and EU began making moves to regulate the buy-now, pay-later industry. During this time, the fintech made its most significant policy change yet, announcing last June that it would begin reporting consumer data to credit rating agencies – a move made in anticipation of upcoming regulatory requirements in the UK. Now he has switched buy-now-pay-later regulatory hurdles to open banking regulation, after switching to GoCardless in August as the B2B payments fintech began ramping up its open banking strategy.

Checkout.com

Nick Worswick

Role change? Head of Revenue at Checkout.com → Senior Advisor at Oak HC/FT

After four years of rising sales and growth at WeWork from 2016 to 2020, witnessing the infamous failed IPO attempt in 2019, Worswick joined Checkout.com in February 2021 to oversee its growth. According to a blog he wrote at the time, Worswick focused specifically on the payments giant’s quest to grow its presence in North America, partnering with US-based businesses. Now he has moved to the venture side of the tech ecosystem, working as a senior growth advisor for the Oak HC/FT VC firm’s portfolio companies.

Monzo

Mike Hudack

Role change? Chief product officer at Monzo → CEO at Avian Labs

Hudack is what you might call a true European technology veteran. After founding his own internet video company called Blip in New York in 2006, which he subsequently sold to the Walt Disney Company, Hudack worked on product at Facebook in Silicon Valley from 2012 to 2016. He then jumped across the Atlantic to join Deliveroo in his early days, where he spent two and a half years responsible for product, engineering, design and growth as both CTO and CPO. In May 2019, he began advising Monzo, rising to the role of CPO in February 2020.

He quit last February and has since launched another of his own ventures: Avian Labs, a payments startup that, according to his LinkedIn post, he started with some other former Monzo operators. Not much else is known about the startup at this stage: according to job postings on its website, it builds its product on top of crypto rails. According to Hudack’s LinkedInAvian has raised seed investment from Ribbit Capital, Slow Ventures and angel investors, including the founders of Circle and Paxos.

And the rest…

Checkout.com

• Riaz BordieSVP engineering at Checkout.com → CTO at Avant Arte
• Olivia Broderick, General counsel and regulatory manager at Checkout.com → Legal manager at Bitpanda
  

Monzo

• Kathy Griffindirector of compliance at Monzo → Chief risk officer at Target Group
• Oscar Osvaldo CamachoHead of liquidity and financing in Monzo → Head of Treasury in Ahli United Bank
• Matthew Fisherhead of policy and ESG in Monzo → Head of policy in Watershed

Molly

• Marco dos Santos, CTO at Mollie → Consulting co-founder at ChatLicense

• Feico MolVP for partnerships in Mollie → Managing Director EMEA in SafetyCulture

Blockchain.com

• Lewis TuffChief technology officer at Blockchain.com → CTO at Brevan Howard Digital
• CJ Rinaldi, Chief compliance officer at Blockchain.com → CCO at “confidential” company

• Charles McGarraughChief strategy officer at Blockchain.com → Chief investment officer at Altis Partners
• William CollinsTalent Manager at Blockchain.com → Talent Manager at NOAH

Summarize

• Steve DelpyHead of SumUp payments → Bank Manager at Paysafe
• Jennifer Heinze, Head of human development at SumUp → Head of people at Gigs

Trade Republic

• Mladen Pilipovichead of engineering at Trade Republic → head of engineering at Einride
• Akash Kediahead of growth product at Trade Republic → Product at CheQ
• Sara Fee Kirschhausenmarketing manager at Trade Republic → Career break

Mambu

• Diana DinisProduct director, day-to-day banking in Mambu → Director of fintech product in Remote
• Kavin TrilliChief product officer in Mambu → Advisor in Quench

Amy O’Brien is Sifted fintech’s reporter. She tweets from @Amy_EOBrien and writes our fintech newsletter — You can register here.