Wise poaches Delivery Hero finance chief as customers swell and competition intensifies

Money transfer firm Wise has appointed Delivery Hero’s chief financial officer Emmanuel Thomassin as its new CFO as the fintech company has experienced a surge in customer numbers and rising competition.

Thomassin will join London-listed Wise on 1 October 2024, taking over from Matthew Briers, who announced he would step down last May and will now do so with immediate effect after being in the role since 2015.

Kingsley Kemish, currently senior group financial director, will take over from Briers on an interim basis.

Thomassin has served as CFO of Berlin-based online order platform Delivery Hero since 2014, joining shortly after the group was founded in 2011.

He has also served on the board of Delivery Hero’s technology incubator, Team Global Management GmbH, and on the supervisory boards of other companies, including MetaDesign, where he was CFO between 2007 and 2012.

London-listed Wise, which offers current accounts and allows customers to send cash overseas, has enjoyed a boost from higher interest rates and a boom in customer numbers in recent times.

Its active customer base grew 30 per cent to 7.5m between last September and December as revenues swelled to £276.6m, up 23 per cent from £225.2m in the same period in 2022. Wise’s shares have soared 82 per cent over the last 12 months.

Wise is set to be challenged by HSBC’s new international payments app and debit card, Zing, which launched in December.

However, Wise boasts lower transaction fees than Zing and continues to outpace its direct competitors.

Rivals Monese and Revolut both posted losses in 2022, while Wise reported a pretax profit of £194.3m for the half-year ending on 30 September 2023, up 280 per cent from the same period in 2022.

Kristo Käärmann, chief executive and co-founder of Wise, said Thomassin’s appointment would bolster Wise’s efforts to tackle the “slow, opaque, cumbersome and expensive legacy financial system”.

He added: “Matt has been a fantastic partner as we built the foundations of this business, and Emmanuel’s deep experience in leading teams while scaling a fast-growth company globally makes him the ideal candidate to take up this challenge and join us on our mission as we enter our second decade.”

Wise chair David Wells said: “Emmanuel has a proven track record of scaling companies in rapidly evolving industries – from startups to public companies.

“I look forward to working with him as Wise continues on its path to reshape global financial services for the 21st century.”