N26 loses chief product officer Georgina Smallwood
N26 chief product officer Georgina Smallwood is leaving the challenger bank to join scooter start-up Tier Mobility.
Georgina Smallwood leaves N26 after just under two years in her role
According to local publication Finance Forward, Smallwood is to leave N26 at the end of the month. She will be replaced temporarily by N26 co-founder Valentin Stalf.
Smallwood’s departure is the seventh from N26 in less than a year. In an email seen by Finance Forward, Smallwood says she wants to work at an early-stage start-up again.
Stalf has said in the past that prominent executives are leaving the neobank due it its growth beyond start-up status.
The chief product officer’s departure comes at a rocky time for the German neobank.
Employees published a notice earlier this month that their “trust and confidence in the management of N26” was at an all-time low.
Last autumn, N26 experienced a data breach which saw an unknown number of employees gain unencrypted access to users’ current accounts.
As many employees bank with N26, it meant workers could – for an unclear amount of time – see what their peers were earning.
Finance Forward sources – unnamed employees – said management knew about the breach and was slow to react.
The N26 founders obtained an injunction against its employees trying to establish a works council to voice their issues.
Valentin Stalf and Maximilian Tayenthal said the elected body would go “against almost all values that we believe in at N26”.
Prominent German union Verdi stepped into the matter to resolve things and the first few meetings went ahead last week.
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