My time as the Chief Product Officer at N26
For over 2 years it has been my honour to lead and build the product and design teams at N26. We have built what I believe is a world class product and design organisation, from 15 people in one office in Berlin to a truly global team on 4 continents with 130 talented incredible people. Together we’ve provided brilliant banking from 800k users to almost 6 million and launched many incredible product careers and indeed founders along the way.
The time has come though for me to make a change. With pride in the great work we have done together, I will be leaving the company to join TIER Mobility as their CPO towards the end of the year.
I took the role at N26 with a clear goal, to build the beating heart of a product led organisation. It’s important to note that this also included being very clear that:
“being Product led does not mean the Product team is the boss, it means our Product, and its value to customers, should be at the heart of everything we do.”
For our customers we brought to life a full redesign of an already highly successful product to ensure that as we added new functionality for users we stayed true to the beautiful simplicity of our UX.
All of this came under the goal of empowering people to live and bank their way — “the Feed” (new transaction list) + sharing, spaces, chatbot, enhanced (invisible) fraud prevention, quick actions and info cards to get important information to you when you need it, all contribute to a banking platform that gives the user the self orientation to manage their finances the way they want to- making the app the best everyday digital banking experience in the world.
But the functionality is only a result of the talent and passion of the people who are a part of this team (now and in the past).
One of my favourite examples of what we’ve achieved is Dark Mode — not the delivery, although I do love that, but the way the x functional teams (PD&T + legal, CS, marketing, and many more) proactively self organised around a problem to solve- it was a fantastic example of what talent, passion and teamwork can achieve- and I see it every week in one form or another from the product masterclasses to x-functional dependency conversations :)
Recently I have been thinking about what it is I love most about my role and what is next for me. Empowering organisations to make customer centric business decisions by enabling talented product, design, research and engineering teams is something that I’m really passionate about. I have come to realise that I want to spread these operating principles through more organisations that can make a difference in the world, just like N26 has been able to. With this in mind I’m very excited to join another business in which I can make an impact similar to what I have been able to do at N26.
I will therefore be leaving N26 to join TIER Mobility. With a strong purpose of changing mobility for good, the team at Tier have a passionate focus on rethinking urban transportation and shaping our cities’ landscapes in a way that supports our environment for future generations. This comes through in every conversation I’ve had and I’m looking forward to impacting that purpose with them!
I want to say thank you to everyone I’ve worked with at N26 as well as a few people who have been instrumental in bouncing ideas, talking through challenges and being in it with me for the moments when you really need it Melissa Perri, Nilan, Tami Reiss, Arndt Roller and Eleonore (Noor) Van Boven
To everyone, thank you for making it such an incredible journey.
Georgie
