Wise CEO and Co-Founder Christ Kaarmann.
Ian Noonan | Sports Archives | Getty Images
Shares of UK fintech companies Sensible Shares slipped on Monday after the company announced that its chief financial officer, Matt Briers, will leave the company next year, while its chief executive, Kristo Kaarman, will take paternity leave starting in September.
Wise shares were down about 4 percent by 9:45 a.m. in London.
Once Kaarman returns from leave, Briers will step down as Wise CFO in March 2024, the company said in a news release on Monday.
During his tenure as CFO, Briers took Wise from a scrappy remittance upstart to a publicly traded fintech giant. Wise to list in 2021, at the time the first direct listing in London — An IPO alternative in which a company issues shares directly to the public without hiring financial intermediaries or issuing new shares.
Briers is the second chief financial officer of a major UK fintech company to announce his departure this month (May). On September 11, British digital banking startup Revolut said its chief financial officer, Mikko Salovaara, had left after just two months on the job due to “personal reasons”.
