Meet the Team

A true entrepreneur at heart, Valentin has always been close to the startup community. Before N26, he 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.

His experience working in strategy consulting and investment banking, along with a passion for solving problems with technology, led him to found N26 and challenge an industry ripe for change.

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. He is also a member of the advisory board at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Their vision is to create a bank that 100 million people around the world love to use, giving people the power to live and bank their way.

Max was also Chief Financial Officer of The Mobile Bank before taking on the co-CEO role alongside his co-founder. Previously, he 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 from the University of Vienna. Max is a CFA charterholder.

While Max is based in Berlin he enjoys skiing in the mountains of Austria and Switzerland.

He played an instrumental role in obtaining N26’s European banking license in 2016. After that, he assumed the role as Director of International Expansion, where he was in charge of making N26 available across 24 European markets.

In today's role as Chief Growth Officer, Alex is responsible for International Expansion, Marketing and European markets, focused on driving business impact and writing the next chapter of N26’s growth story.

Alex is an entrepreneur at heart, passionate about solving meaningful problems at a global scale. Alex studied at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and the Vienna University of Economics and Business from where he has a degree in international business administration.

With over 20 years of experience working with some of the world’s most respected technology leaders, including Dropbox, Google and Microsoft, Adrienne has deep expertise across customer experience, business operations and scaling and growing international teams.

Prior to joining N26, she was VP of Global Customer Experience and Head of EMEA at Dropbox, driving global customer strategy, experience and operations across a 600 million-strong customer base, and scaling the business across multiple offices and functions with the key goal of making Dropbox “A Great Place to Work”.

Adrienne is a passionate advocate of diversity and inclusion in the workplace, with a keen understanding of how to get the best out of international teams in fast-growing environments. She is also an active member across Diversity, Equity and Inclusion networks and organizations, as well as a mentor to female entrepreneurs in EMEA and beyond.

With diverse experience in retail, private equity, capital markets and strategy consulting, Gino has always had a passion for data and all things technical.

He joined the company in June 2015 as Head of Data, before becoming Chief Data Officer two years later. He continues to bring a strong focus on data-driven insight and innovation to his role today.

Gino holds a degree in Accounting & Finance (M.A. HSG) from the University of St. Gallen.

Thomas has a wealth of expertise and experience in the space where banking and technology converge. Before joining N26, he was Industry Leader Banking at Google Germany, responsible for partnerships with German banks and fintechs, and closely involved in the market rollout of Google Pay.

Previously, he was a member of the Board at Wüstenrot Group as well as a director at Deutsche Bank for their private and business clients. He started his career as a consultant at McKinsey serving the banking and insurance industry.

Thomas has a degree in business from the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

With two decades of entrepreneurship and product leadership experience in the consumer internet industry, Gilles has founded two venture-backed companies in Silicon Valley - FanTV, the first multi-service discovery app for video streaming which was later acquired by Tivo, and Vuze, the largest open-source BitTorrent application.

Prior to N26, Gilles was the CPO of SoundCloud, where he transformed and scaled the product organization, re-centering its strategy around direct artist-fan connections, supporting strong revenue growth. Before that, he also held the CPO position at Samsung Electronics, overseeing content and services for Samsung Smart TVs globally, including its smart voice assistant, streaming services and new product and category launches.

At N26, Gilles leads all product teams based across the company’s international offices in Berlin, Barcelona, Vienna and New York. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Masters of Science from the École Pour l'Informatique et les Techniques Avancées (EPITA) in France.

Jan joins N26 from Berlin-based travel scale-up Omio Corp., where in his role as Managing Director, he built out the company’s governance model and its operational backbone, completed the acquisition of Rome2Rio, and organized a US$100M funding round in the midst of a global pandemic. Prior to that, Jan was Group CFO at German DAX 30-listed entertainment company ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE, where he oversaw a strict efficiency program, refinanced a €3bn credit facility and led the formation of the Unicorn NuCom Group through a series of M&A deals. Before that, Jan was CFO at Zalando SE, where he led the company’s successful €526m IPO in 2014.

A veteran of Berlin’s vibrant tech ecosystem and a passionate start-up investor himself, Jan brings two decades of experience in dynamic, high-growth environments, as well as a solid background in complex capital market transactions such as M&A and IPOs. He holds a PhD in Business Administration and Economics from RWTH Aachen University, where he continues to teach as a lecturer and Assistant Professor for the institution’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group. He is an active triathlete and loves to play the piano (whenever time and family allows).