Danish fintech Pleo hires Meri Williams as new CTO

Danish fintech Pleo has appointed Meri Williams as its new chief technology officer (CTO).

Pleo appoints Meri Williams as new CTO

Williams, who joins from healthtech Healx, was formerly CTO at UK challenger Monzo, where they helped scale the engineering and data team by 500% and led “significant” investment in platform resilience and business continuity as Monzo’s customer base grew to more than 4 million.

Pleo co-founder Nicco Perra says Williams’ “background in utilising technology and data insights to generate value for companies aligns perfectly with Pleo’s growth plans”.

Since February 2021, Pleo has expanded into six European markets, and in the past year, the company says the number of users on the platform across the continent has doubled, while transaction volumes have tripled.

In December 2021, Pleo extended its Series C round by $200 million, bringing the total raised to $350 million. The company is currently valued at $4.7 billion.

But the fintech unicorn is not immune to the wider market uncertainty.

Last month, Pleo CEO and co-founder Jeppe Rindom told staff that 15% of its workforce, 150 employees, will be affected by layoffs as the company is no longer operating under a “growth first mandate” but rather one of “growth through focus and efficiency”.