Yolt, Europe’s leading third party provider (TPP) of open banking technology in Europe, has announced the appointment of Cristel Lee Leed as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). In a newly created position, Cristel joins the executive team as Pauline Van Brakel takes on her new role as Chief Product Officer (CPO) in Amsterdam. Pauline’s move follows over three successful years as Chief Customer Officer (CCO) and reinforces Yolt’s commitment to putting customers at the heart of product strategy.

Cristel brings over 15 years’ of global marketing experience, having led successful brand launches, scale up’s and transformational marketing efforts on executive teams for high profile brands such as Nutmeg, WWF, giffgaff, Lulu.com, Virgin and Centrica Telecoms operating in the UK, Australian and European markets.

Cristel joins Yolt from Europe’s largest digital wealth manager, Nutmeg, where she was Chief Marketing Officer (interim) during 2018. Cristel led the marketing, communications and acquisition teams at Nutmeg, overseeing growth to over 60k customers and £1.5bn in AUM, product launches such as socially responsible investment portfolios and personal financial advice.

At Yolt, Cristel is responsible for leading the brand’s growth in key global consumer markets by overseeing the strategic planning, development and execution of Yolt’s marketing and customer initiatives for all its B2C and B2B activities.

Her appointment follows Yolt’s European expansion in 2018, which saw the money app enter both Italy and France, and reach over half a million registered users. Most recently the app announced the Yolt Pay Beta feature, their partnership with leading energy comparison platform MoneySuperMarket in the first integration of its kind and a new business proposition – Yolt for Business API – which will see the app increase its offering beyond the consumer to provide a single and secure API for businesses.

Joining Pauline, who is one of the four passionate people who started Yolt in 2016, Cristel’s appointment significantly increases the female representation on Yolt’s executive team. Along with further moves for Leon Muis who takes on a new role as Chief Business Officer (CBO) and Mattijs de Waard as Chief Operations Officer (COO).

Pauline van Brakel, CPO, at Yolt says:

“2018 was a record year for us, and 2019 is set to be even bigger. Hiring quality talent is vital for achieving our goals in becoming the smartest money platform, so I am delighted to welcome Cristel to the Yolt team, as I am confident her wealth of experience and knowledge will be invaluable.

Frank Jan Risseeuw, CEO, added:

Cristel and Pauline’s appointments, coupled with other Executive role changes, reflect our greater ambition to give everyone the power to be smart with their money and I am very excited to work with such a talented team.”