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Nikolay Storonsky, CEO of Revolut, speaks at the Web Summit on November 7, 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal. REUTERS/File Photo/Pedro Nunes (Reuters) – LONDON, July 15 (Reuters) – Revolut, a British banking app, just received a $33 billion value following a new investment round, putting its cofounder and CEO Nik Storonsky on the verge of becoming a billionaire multiple times over. Storonsky, who started his career as a derivatives trader at Lehman Brothers before switching to Credit Suisse two years later in 2008, was already on paper one of Europe’s wealthiest CEOs thanks to Revolut’s quick rise. In an interview with the Financial Times in 2018, the 36-year-old said he lost about half a million pounds ($694,450) when his then-employer Lehman Brothers went bankrupt during the financial crisis, an occurrence he said taught him to “back up decision making with evidence and reasoning.” Storonsky left the banking business in 2013 to create Revolut, one of the first of a slew of digital-only banking applications vying for market share with services like fee-free foreign exchange for vacationers. It set itself apart from the competition by being one of the first to provide cryptocurrencies, attracting millions of clients in the process. “The fact that Revolut’s valuation has soared 6x in a year when they’ve also revealed significant losses will add fuel to the fire that fintech valuations have become inflated,” Adam Davis, director of client services at fintech consultant 11:FS, said. Revolut’s success was fueled by a high-octane atmosphere that Storonsky himself seemed to instill. In media interviews, he has rejected the importance of work-life balance, claiming that he works from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. When Revolut has been questioned about its risk measures, severe workplace culture, and freezing of some client accounts, Storonsky has always defended the company. When challenged about the concerns in a 2019 interview, he told Reuters, “We are a different organization than we were two to three years ago, we’ve learnt lessons.” In November 2019, he appointed former Standard Life Aberdeen co-Chief Executive Martin Gilbert as chairman, and former Goldman Sachs banker Michael Sherwood in March last year, to enhance the company’s credentials. According to the company’s website, he is a skilled kite surfer, mountaineer, and championship swimmer who studied physics at Moscow’s Institute of Physics and Technology. Revolut is co-founded by Storonsky and Vladyslav Yatsenko, a software developer who formerly worked at UBS and Deutsche Bank. (1 pound = 0.7229 pound) Lawrence White, Anna Irrera, and Iain Withers contributed reporting, while Kirsten Donovan edited the piece. The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles are our standards./nRead More

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