Fintech firm Wise’s shares fall after announcing CFO is resigning, CEO to go on leave

Shares of British fintech firm Wise slipped Monday, after the company announced its CFO Matt Briers is leaving the company next year, while its CEO Kristo Kaarman will go on paternity leave starting September.

Wise shares were down around 4% as of 9:45 a.m. London time.

Briers will step down as Wise CFO in March 2024, once Kaarman has returned from a sabbatical break, the company said in a press release Monday.

In his time as CFO, Briers took Wise from a scrappy money transfer upstart to a publicly-listed financial technology giant. Wise went public in 2021 in what was at the time London’s first direct listing — an IPO alternative whereby companies offer stock directly to the public without employing financial intermediaries or creating new shares.

Briers is the second CFO of a major U.K. fintech firm to announce his departure this month — on May. 11, British digital banking startup Revolut said its CFO Mikko Salovaara was leaving after only two months in the job for “personal reasons.”