About N26

The N26 history

2013

N26 was founded in 2013 by Valentin Stalf and Maximilian Tayenthal—reimagining the retail banking experience for today’s mobile lifestyle.

2015

Since the initial product launch in 2015, over 1.5 Million customers across 17 European markets have signed up for N26—with plans to enter the US and the UK in 2018.

2018

The firm has raised a total of USD 215 million from some of the world’s most well-known investors, including Allianz X, Tencent Holdings Limited, Li Ka-Shing’s Horizons Ventures, Valar Ventures, members of the Zalando Management Team, and Earlybird Venture Capital. N26 employs more than 500 people and has offices in Berlin, New York and Barcelona.

Our Management Team

Valentin Stalf: Founder and CEO

Valentin Stalf is co-founder and CEO of N26. In 2013 he founded N26 with his longtime friend Maximilian Tayenthal. Back then already, both shared a vision of building a bank that the world loves to use.

Since the initial product launch in 2015, N26 has grown to include more than 1.5 million customers across 22 European markets — with plans to enter the US in 2019. The firm has raised a total of USD 215 million from some of the world’s most well-known investors, including Tencent, Allianz X, Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, Li Ka-Shing’s Horizons Ventures, Earlybird Ventures, Battery Ventures, in addition to members of the Zalando management board, and Redalpine Ventures. N26 has more than 500 employees based in in Berlin, New York and Barcelona, who are concentrated on reinventing the banking experience for the digital generation. With its full banking license, state-of-the-art technology and no branch network, N26 is redesigning banking for the 21st century.
Before N26, Valentin was an Entrepreneur in Residence for Rocket Internet, an incubator and investor in online startups. There he helped to develop several companies in the mobile payments industry, including payleven and Paymill GmbH. Moreover, he worked in strategy consulting and investment banking.

Valentin has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and management and a master’s degree in accounting and finance from the University of St. Gallen in Vienna. He is currently a member of the advisory board at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Maximilian Tayenthal: Founder and CFO

Maximilian Tayenthal is co-founder and CFO of N26. Together with his business partner and friend Valentin Stalf, he built one of the first and now fastest-growing mobile banks in Europe. Their vision was to create a retail bank that's flexible, transparent and speaks to today's digital lifestyles.

Previously, Max worked in a variety of consulting and financial roles at leading professional services firms, including CMS and Booz & Company. Max holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics and business administration from the University of Vienna. He also has a master’s degree in economics from the Community of European Management Schools, as well as a law degree form the University of Vienna. Max is a CFA charterholder.

While Max is based in Berlin, he always makes time for his passion outside of personal finance: skiing in the mountains of Austria and Switzerland.

Eleonore (Noor) van Boven: Chief People Officer

Noor has over 15 years of experience in international Human Resources, specifically building, scaling and transforming organizations. Before joining N26, Noor was the VP People at SoundCloud; led the Recruiting, Talent and Organizational Development initiatives at TomTom and worked as a HR Business Partner for several international tech companies, including Dell. Noor is a Dutch native with a passion for travel. Work has given her the opportunity to live in New York, India and now Berlin.

Gino Cordt: Chief Data Officer and CMO

Gino joined N26 in June 2015 after working on pricing for online and offline retailers, where he discovered his interest in data. Before that he gathered experience in the areas of private equity and capital markets and realized that strategy consulting was not for him. Having always had a passion for anything technical, Gino now works on enabling everyone at N26 to make decisions based on data and adding as much (not so secret) data sauce to our products as possible. He holds a degree in Accounting & Finance (M.A. HSG) from the University of St. Gallen.

Markus Gunter: CEO N26 Bank

Markus studied Business Administration after finishing a banking apprenticeship. He pioneered the first internet platform of the German bank HYPO-BANK AG. As managing director of Activest and Pioneer Investments, he built the company up to be one of the top five asset management companies in Germany. While working as CEO of stock exchange listed DAB Bank AG, Markus realized that mobile banking is a superior solution to financial services, he then joined N26 Bank as its CEO.

Robert Kilian: General Counsel and Chief Representative

Robert joined N26 in 2015. He previously worked as a lawyer, focusing on the areas M&A, corporate and finance law. He studied in Germany, Switzerland and the U.S. Robert holds a PhD in law and is visiting lecturer at Humboldt-University in Berlin.

Nicolas Kopp: U.S. CEO

Nicolas Kopp is the U.S. CEO of N26 in New York. He is responsible for bringing N26’s mobile-first banking app to the U.S. market. As one of the firm’s early employees, Nic joined N26 in 2015 as Head of Business Development and Operations. In this role, he built the team from the ground up, established the firm’s partnership with TransferWise, and was instrumental in developing the premiere N26 Black account. Previously, he spent five years in London and Hong Kong in investment banking at Morgan Stanley. Nic holds a bachelor’s degree from University of St. Gallen in Switzerland and a master’s degree in accounting and finance from the London School of Economics.

Patrick Kua: Chief Technology Officer

Patrick has been working in technology for over 15 years and had his first taste of extreme programming before joining the international consulting firm ThoughtWorks, pioneers in agile software development and continuous delivery. Patrick left as a Principal Technical Consultant where he helped many companies replatform and restructure both technical and organizational architectures to optimize for the delivery of the value and established the European-wide Tech Lead Development Program. He is the author of three books, The Retrospective Handbook, Talking with Tech Leads and most recently, Building Evolutionary Architectures. He is frequently invited to keynote and speak at many technology conferences and is passionate about bringing a balanced focus between people, organizations and technology.

William Kunter: Director of Finance

William joined N26 in September 2016 after working several years in investment banking for Goldman Sachs in London. William focused mostly on Capital Markets and Merger & Acquisition operations for European financial institutions. Over the years he developed a keen interest in FinTech, which eventually led him to N26. William is a French native and former wrestling champion. He holds a master’s degree in Management from HEC Paris and a master’s degree in Quantitative Economics and Finance from ENSAE ParisTech.

Matthias Oetken: CFO/CRO N26 Bank

Matthias Oetken was trained as a banker at Commerzbank before studying Business in Göttingen. Afterwards he worked as a risk and portfolio management expert for several banks such as Nord/LB, LB Kiel and HSH Nordbank AG with stations in Germany, Luxembourg and UK. Before joining N26 Bank, he was responsible for building up the spin-off HSH Financial Markets Advisory S.A. as CFO / CEO.

Martin Schilling: Chief Operating Officer

Martin was a strategy consultant for over 13 years. Before joining N26, he was the Managing Director of the implementation consultancy Orphoz, a subsidiary of McKinsey & Company. Prior to this, he worked at McKinsey & Company, advising top management clients in Europe and Middle East in the areas of digital transformation, operations and strategy. Martin studied Economics, Psychology and Decision Science in Berlin, London and Buenos Aires. He is convinced that N26 is re-defining banking experience for the benefit of customers.

Alexander Weber: Head of International Markets

Alex joined N26 in 2014 and has been involved in the development of the company from the beginning. He was leading the efforts in obtaining the banking license for N26 as well as the subsequent transfer of accounts to the newly established N26 Bank. In his current role as Head of International Markets, Alex is responsible for the development of existing markets as well as the expansion to new markets. Alex studied International Business Administration at the Vienna University of Economics and Business as well as the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.