Personally, I think it’s a good move. I get the desire to avoid hiring “suits” and perceived industry veterans as they might not have the same ethos but I think that’s probably not a huge risk.
Sartorial choices aside, Monzo wouldn’t have sought out someone they didn’t think would buy into their approach. Likewise, I doubt that someone with entrenched industry views would accept the job.
I think having someone who is perceived by the industry as a serious heavyweight can only benefit Monzo. It adds to their credibility and they’ll have someone who’s been through some of the challenges they’re going to face in the future.
We need to remember her has been brought in as a Non-Exec i.e. he is not a DIRECT employee of Monzo.
Further he will not occupy a management position (unlike the Directors who make the day to day decisions). Non-Execs are usually a “guiding” figure - akin to a consultant, someone who has been around the block and can impart some crucial knowledge and experience.
I can see real positives from bringing in someone like Gary Hoffman and I don’t think that it will change the way in which Monzo operate - they just want to have someone independent of the company who knows when to say “this could be done better” or “hang on a minute”.
I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that because they have brought someone who has experience in the Banking Industry that this will cause Monzo to go ‘Legacy’.
A Non-Executive Chairman is very different to a CEO. From what I understand the Chairman will direct the Board by setting the agenda and making sure the board are working effectively. A Chairman will also be there to impart specific knowledge and act as a type of consultant should the company need it. Just by putting a Chairman in doesn’t mean that the direction in which the company is going in will change.
If it weren’t for veterans like Paul Rippon, Gary Dolman & Denise Kingsmill being on the board then the regulators would have just been staring blankly at a group of wide-eyed 20-somethings with no banking experience when deciding whether to grant a banking license.
Tom and Jonas are inspirational people and great leaders, but this is not a social network looking for permission to share peoples photos, it’s a finance company looking for permission to manage billions of pounds of consumers’ money in a highly regulated and entrenched industry.
These veterans are crucial to winning the approval of regulators as well as guiding the company in the direction of prudence.
I can’t see any problem with this appointment, and many people have provided excellent points in their responses so far.
If I would add one point (and apologies if it has been mentioned already and I missed it), it’s that wanting to create a brand new bank is clearly something we support and to be applauded, but there are plenty of areas around ‘how banks work’ where having someone experienced to provide support, guidance and advice is a good thing. The alternative would be having to reinvent every single wheel, which would be exhausting and a terrible use of time.
Therefore it’s great to have experienced banking industry people available who can say “This is what the wheel looks like” or “This is why the wheel is this way” so Monzo can better target their reinventions. As it were.
As a person who works as a founding employee of a company with a chairman, I can comfortably say that Gary is going to be a welcome addition to Monzo and definitely won’t have enough steering power to drastically change anything about Monzo in the way of culture or direction. As @JustJordds says, this is actually a really positive move and his experience will help guide the Directors without changing the company vision.
Sounds like a good appointment to me, as others have said, the Chairman/Non-Exec Directors don’t make decisions, they play a very different and more advisory role. I work at another high-street FS company, and our Board have very little influence over the day-to-day running of the company, our culture, etc.
What they do well, is provide challenge, external perspective (FS seems to find it easier than other sectors to become far too internally-obsessed and lose the external view), and experience/expertise.
Hopefully Gary and any other Non-Execs will be curious and interested about Monzo as an employer, e.g. how they look after their people not just their customers. That’s something I’ve often seen Board members ignore - and as someone who works in Organisational Development, selfishly I’d like them to be more curious about!
