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Former Monzo CEO Tom Blomfield on falling out of love with your work

Former Monzo CEO Tom Blomfield on falling out of love with your work

FromSecret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter


Former Monzo CEO Tom Blomfield on falling out of love with your work

FromSecret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter

ratings:
Length:
39 minutes
Released:
Mar 2, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

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Tom Blomfield, the former CEO and Co-Founder of Monzo, and Co-Founder of GoCardless, knows a thing or two about the fintech industry. 
“We wanted to create something different than existing banks. We believed that the banks weren't serving customers particularly well at that moment. Customer expectations had been raised dramatically by things like Spotify, Uber and Airbnb, in terms of the user experience and functionality.”
Which is why his announcement in January 2021 that he was leaving Monzo, 6 years after founding the challenger bank, came as a shock to many. 
“When you get to that size, it's about people management. You spend almost no time on product or customers really. It's about process, a lot of process, extraordinary amount of regulation.”
But it takes an outstanding leader to know when to step aside. And in today’s inaugural episode of Season 7, Tom talks about the mounting pressure when you’re at the top and ultimately its impact on your mental health and identity. 
“I've talked about suffering that kind of stress, a build up of stress, it starts impacting your sleep, or at least it impacted my sleep, it became this vicious cycle where not sleeping makes your work worse, make worse decisions.”
From raising £1m from crowdfunding in 96 seconds, to how he scaled personally alongside the bank, to building a culture from the very outset, to what made him leave Monzo - Tom is exceedingly candid in this interview, which was recorded just a few weeks after his departure.
Don’t miss this hugely insightful episode from one of Europe’s top founders and CEOs - it’s something all entrepreneurs need to hear.
We chat about:

Crowdfunding Monzo

Building a culture from the start

Entrepreneurship and mental health

His decision process to leave Monzo

Links:

Monzo

GoCardless

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Released:
Mar 2, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (100)

Find out what it's really like being a top entrepreneur and how to get there. Founders of startups like Monzo, BrewDog, Slack and Jo Malone tell us about their biggest challenges, key decisions and life-defining moments. How would you respond if you arrived in the UK as a penniless refugee? Or had to fire your Mum? Or had a billion dollar deal fall through your hands at the last minute? Learn how to lead from business greats.