Experience

Physics → Payments → Platform. Different domains, same muscle: building systems that work when nobody's solved it before.

Pleo · 2019 — Present

Pleo is a corporate spend management platform — Series C, ~850 employees, operating across 15+ European markets. Joined at ~100 people to get hands-on after years in an advisory role.

SVP Product & Engineering (Sep 2024 — Present)

Leading ~70 people across platform engineering, data, AI infrastructure, and regulated entities. Achieved 70% reduction in card scheme costs through strategic renegotiation. Driving the company-wide AI agenda: internal productivity tooling and infrastructure for future product capabilities. Formal accountability to UK financial regulator (EMD licence); member of executive committee and risk committee.

VP, Head of Platform (Aug 2023 — Sep 2024)

Led 100+ people across payments, data analytics, developer experience, core infrastructure, security, and TechOps. Part of the transformation that delivered 300% increase in engineering throughput with flat headcount. Built the platform systems that product teams depend on to ship fast.

VP, Head of Payments (Jun 2021 — Aug 2023)

Built Pleo's payments organisation from scratch with ~25 people across engineering, partnerships, compliance, and operations. Scaled from 5 to 15 markets in 11 months. Shifted engineering from end-to-end features to modular platform architecture.

Director, Head of Business Development (Jan 2021 — Jun 2021)

Built the business case and initial operating model for Pleo's standalone payments organisation. Key member of our Series C round.

Entrepreneur in Residence (Aug 2019 — Jan 2021)

Migrated 20,000+ corporate customers to a new payment processor; unlocked 20 percentage point margin uplift. Led PSD2 compliance on a compressed timeline.

McKinsey & Company · 2014 — 2019

Five years advising European financial institutions. Learned how banking works, what regulators care about, and why most transformations fail. Led the founding of a pan-European payment infrastructure company across 5+ jurisdictions. Built AML transformation programmes and payment product roadmaps for Tier 1 banks across the Nordics and Western Europe.

Education

PhD in Physics · University of Copenhagen · 2014

Built atomic clocks beyond the quantum limit and foundational components for quantum computing networks. Physics teaches you to work with ambiguity — designing experiments, interpreting contradictory data, building frameworks when none exist.

M.Sc in Physics · University of Copenhagen · 2011

B.Sc in Physics · University of Copenhagen · 2009