UBank founder Gerd Schenkel takes helm at Tyro

Gerd Schenkel, Telstra’s former digital guru, has been appointed CEO of Tyro Payments.

Telstra’s former digital guru Gerd Schenkel is returning to his financial services roots, with the former founder of UBank set to take the helm at Tyro Payments.

The appointment of Mr Schenkel as the chief executive of the fintech company comes as part of a new leadership structure that will see Tyro’s current boss Jost Stollmann move to a full-time executive director position.

Mr Schenkel brings a unique combination of skills to the table at Tyro, given his consultancy background with Boston Consulting Group, his role in launching Australia’s first digital deposit and mortgage bank, UBank, and his tenure as executive director at Telstra Digital. He also served a stint as Citigroup’s director strategy and business development for Australia.

Mr Stollmann said that Mr Schenkel was a rare talent and well suited to further developing Tyro’s next generation platform.

“When someone of Gerd’s talent becomes available you grab the opportunity with both hands,” he said.

“Now that Tyro has a bank licence and $100 million in new capital, Gerd joining the Tyro team as new CEO is the last piece needed to deliver very strong growth in the years ahead.”

Mr Schenkel said Tyro was the perfect synthesis of a technology and financial services business coming together.

“Tyro is a new kind of company with a uniquely attractive culture, it’s a technology company that happens to be a bank, not the other way around,” Mr Schenkel said

“Australia needs a viable and strong banking sector which is customer centric and technology literate, a Tyro delivering fair, transparent and smart banking.”

Tyro currently serves more than 16,000 small businesses and processed $8.6 billion of transactions and generated more than $95 million in revenue in fiscal 2016.