Stefan Christensen

I own the platform and the P&L, and build the organisation that connects them.

SVP Product & Engineering at Pleo. Fifteen years in European fintech. Most of what I do is the work nobody else wants to own — the migrations, the cleanups, the org designs that decide whether a company scales or stalls.

Open to what's next: executive product and engineering roles in fintechs and scale-ups facing the growth problems I know how to solve.

5 → 15

European markets, 11 months

3×

Engineering throughput, flat headcount

70%

Card scheme cost reduction

20 pts

Margin uplift on a processor migration

The path here

I joined Pleo in 2019 at around 100 people, looking to get hands-on after five years advising banks at McKinsey. My first job was migrating 20,000 customers to a new payment processor and unlocking a 20-point margin uplift. That turned into building the entire payments platform from scratch. We went from five European markets to fifteen in eleven months.

As the platform matured, the scope grew. I took on data, developer experience, infrastructure, security, eventually leading 100+ people through a period where we tripled engineering throughput without adding headcount. What made it work was stripping friction out of the path to production and running platform the way you'd run a product.

Today I lead ~70 people across platform engineering, data, AI infrastructure, and regulated entities. The recent win I'm proudest of: a 70% reduction in card scheme costs through direct negotiation in a duopoly market where you have almost no leverage.

Before Pleo: McKinsey, advising Tier 1 European banks on payments and regulatory strategy. Before that: a PhD in physics at the University of Copenhagen, building atomic clocks beyond the quantum limit.

Full experience →

About

I'm drawn to problems that sit between disciplines — where the cleanest technical answer and the right business answer pull in opposite directions, and someone has to decide which one wins. Physics trained me to work without a textbook; McKinsey, to read a boardroom and a regulator; operating taught me the constraint is rarely the technology.

That pulls me toward the load-bearing work: the systems and teams a company depends on, built to keep working after I've left the room. The point was never to own everything. It was to leave behind an organisation that doesn't need me.

Where I'm strongest

Platform organisations crossing 50 → 200 engineers

Tripled engineering throughput on flat headcount in the last cycle. The unlock was treating platform teams as product teams with real users and real outcomes — and being willing to sit in the org-politics rooms nobody else wanted to be in. This is the threshold where org structure starts driving the product roadmap, and where most companies break.

European payments, end-to-end

Built Pleo's payments platform from scratch, scaled it from 5 to 15 markets in 11 months, and took 70% out of card scheme costs in a duopoly through direct negotiation. The kind of infrastructure work that decides whether the company can scale at all.

Making AI the default way a company operates

I'm in the middle of this transition right now: rearchitecting data pipelines, compliance automation, and internal tooling at a company that started as a card programme. Not the chatbot layer — the pipelines, permissions, and tooling that decide whether AI sticks or stays a side project. Most of it isn't sexy.

Building product organisations through growth-stage

Joined Pleo at 100 people; helped take it past 850. Six years inside the product engine of a Series C fintech, after five at McKinsey advising European banks. Product at growth-stage isn't the discovery loop — it's pricing, packaging, regulatory readiness, and saying no to the things that don't compound. Get it right and momentum survives Series B; get it wrong and the company stalls.

Working with me

"Stefan is one of the strongest colleagues I have ever worked with. He navigates gnarly migrations, is an excellent org designer, and is a leader everyone wants to follow — because he genuinely cares for every individual on his team."

VP Engineering, Pleo

"He doesn't just solve technical problems; he solves business problems with technology. On complex decisions, Stefan brings both the technical rigor and the business judgment needed to get the right outcome."

Senior Finance Business Partner

"One of the most capable leaders I have encountered in fintech engineering. When we were stuck, he made the tough decisions that moved us forward immediately — but never at the expense of long-term stability."

Staff Engineer & Architect

"A true force multiplier. Stefan knew how to ask the right questions and provide the right guidance. He empowered people to do their best work rather than stepping in to do it for them."

Data Lead, direct report

"He knows when to coach, when to challenge, and when to roll up his sleeves and help. Stefan combines strong strategic thinking with deep empathy for the people around him — a rare combination in leadership."

Product Lead, direct report

11 recommendations on LinkedIn →