European BaaS player Vodeno appoints new CEO and Chairman

European banking-as-a-service (BaaS) provider Vodeno has made two key recruitments, announcing the appointment of a new CEO and Chairman.

Noah Sharp becomes CEO and Philip McHugh becomes Chairman as part of an executive shake-up at the Polish-based firm. It comes after British bank NatWest paid over €50m to acquire a minority stake in Vodeno’s parent company, which also owns Belgium’s Aion Bank. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has also invested €50m in Vodeno.

The business has been led since January by Interim CEO Helen Smith.

Who are Vodeno’s new leadership team?

The two new hires tasked with “steering Vodeno’s next phase of growth” are Philip McHugh and Noah Sharp. Sharp, Vodeno’s new CEO, joins the company from UK-based payments company BCB Group, where he was Deputy CEO. He is also the former Chief Banking Officer of Paysafe, responsible for global financial partnerships and operations across international, digital banking, card acquiring, e-money wallets and embedded finance.

Prior to that, Sharp boasts a career in fintech and banking, having held senior roles within global banks such as Standard Chartered, where he was responsible for advising the bank’s fintech client franchise in Europe and North America; and Deutsche Bank, where he spent more than a decade in total.

Philip McHugh, who becomes Vodeno Chairman, also has history at Paysafe; he was the company’s CEO for three years and, before that, spent 20 years working for two of the world’s largest banking groups – Barclays and Citi.

The pair will be seen as statement appointments for Vodeno, which is striving to become Europe’s leading BaaS provider.

What have they said about Vodeno appointments?

Wojciech Sobieraj, Founder and Board Member at Vodeno, says: “Philip and Noah bring deep payments, banking and financial services expertise to Vodeno. Their impressive track record of scaling businesses, alongside an intrinsic understanding of how to successfully support large-scale BaaS projects, positions the company well for its next phase of growth.”

Talking about his appointment as Chairman, Philip McHugh says: “Wojciech and team have built an incredible business at Vodeno. The technology the team has built is second to none, and the client wins and partnerships created to date are truly impressive. Additionally, everyone – from the internal teams to the board to the investors – is highly focused and energised on making Vodeno a major BaaS player. I look forward to building on the team’s great progress to date and working together to achieve Vodeno’s growth ambitions.”

And new CEO Noah Sharp adds: “BaaS and embedded finance are not only changing the way people access banking and card products, but they are also creating an entirely new financial ecosystem for banks, fintech and ecommerce. Vodeno’s platform is unique; it can work with multiple partner banks across many countries and with companies across multiple sectors to enable a comprehensive suite of embedded banking, payments and lending products. I want to thank Helen Smith for her contributions as Interim CEO, and she leaves the company in a very strong position to scale. I am looking forward to working with Vodeno’s talented teams to establish us as the core, reliable BaaS provider in Europe.”

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