N26
Leadership History
4 leaders · 2013 to present
Mike Dargan is the CEO of N26, in the role since 2026. The first chief executive was Valentin Stalf, from 2013.
| Name | Role | From | To | Years in role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Dargan | Chief Executive Officer | 2026 | Present | < 1 |
| Arnd Schwierholz | Chief Financial Officer (interim co-CEO late 2025-April 2026) | 2023 | Present | 3 |
| Valentin Stalf | Co-founder & Co-CEO | 2013 | 2025 | 12 |
| Maximilian Tayenthal | Co-founder & Co-CEO | 2013 | 2025 | 12 |
N26 helped define the European neobank category: an account opened on a smartphone in minutes, real-time notifications and a clean app at a time when many incumbents still relied on branches and paper. It grew quickly, then spent nearly three years under a regulatory growth cap while it rebuilt compliance. Today it is a profitable, BaFin-supervised bank with about 1,600 staff, run by a new management team rather than its founders. The company is headquartered in Berlin, Germany.
N26 earns money from two roughly equal engines. Net fee and commission income, mostly premium subscriptions (Smart, Go and Metal tiers) and card interchange on ~$193 billion (€170.7 billion) of 2025 transaction volume, reached ~$208 million (€184.2 million), or 53% of 2025 gross profit. Net interest income from deposits placed with central banks and treasury assets, plus overdrafts and consumer loans, rose 49% to ~$188 million (€166.3 million) (47% of gross profit). A free basic account acts as the acquisition funnel, and investing products (stocks, ETFs, crypto) add trading fees.
Chief Executive Officer
2026 – Present
0 years (current)
Dargan was hired from UBS to completely overhaul N26's severely lacking internal security and IT infrastructure after massive regulatory fines from the German government.
As a senior executive, he aims to professionalize the startup's chaotic internal systems, bringing them up to the standards required by the European Central Bank.
Chief Financial Officer (interim co-CEO late 2025-April 2026)
2023 – Present
3 years (current)
Schwierholz was brought in to enforce strict financial discipline and path-to-profitability mandates following the severe tightening of the European venture capital market.
As CFO, he manages the bank's liquidity and is aggressively working to resolve the severe anti-money laundering (AML) compliance issues that led to growth caps by BaFin.
Co-founder & Co-CEO
2013 – 2025
12 years
Co-founded N26, secured the 2016 banking license with Maximilian Tayenthal and led fundraising up to the $900 million 2021 Series E at about $9 billion.
Led N26 from founding until stepping down as co-CEO in 2025.
Co-founder & Co-CEO
2013 – 2025
12 years
Tayenthal orchestrated the highly complex process of securing a full European banking license from the ECB, separating N26 from its reliance on third-party backend providers.
As Co-Founder and Co-CEO, he manages the massive venture capital funding rounds and internal regulatory compliance structure of the neobank.
These officers report to the chief executive and are not part of the CEO timeline above.
N26's main constraint has been regulation. BaFin capped new-customer onboarding from late 2021 to June 2024 over anti-money-laundering weaknesses and has fined the bank more than once; in 2025 the regulator again raised governance concerns, which preceded the founders leaving executive roles. The bank now has to prove that its rebuilt controls hold while it grows, and it competes against a much larger Revolut, Bunq, Trade Republic and incumbent banks rolling out better apps. Its net interest income is also exposed to falling ECB rates.
Mike Dargan has been sole CEO of N26 SE and N26 Bank SE since April 2026. He was previously group chief operations and technology officer and a Group Executive Board member at UBS.
Co-founders Valentin Stalf and Maximilian Tayenthal ran N26 as co-CEOs from 2013. Stalf stepped down in 2025, Tayenthal at the end of 2025, and CFO Arnd Schwierholz and Marcus W. Mosen served as interim co-CEOs until Dargan arrived.
In 2025 BaFin raised renewed concerns about N26's governance and risk controls, and investors pushed for leadership change. Both founders left executive roles, and the Supervisory Board recruited an experienced bank executive as CEO.
Besides CEO Mike Dargan, the team includes CFO Arnd Schwierholz, COO Aytac Aydin (from 15 July 2026, formerly OLB), Chief Product and Business Officer Daniel Lappas, CTO Marcin Pakulnicki (from 1 September 2026, formerly ING) and Chief Growth and Marketing Officer Nathalie Picquot (from 1 October 2026, formerly Santander).
Andreas Dombret, a former Deutsche Bundesbank executive board member, chairs the N26 Supervisory Board.
Dargan has emphasised making N26 customers' primary bank, stronger operational resilience and governance, and closer focus on core markets; in 2026 the country managers for Spain, Italy and France began reporting directly to him.
In 2026, N26 appointed veteran banking executive Mike Dargan, former Chief Technology and Operations Officer at Swiss banking titan UBS, as CEO. Dargan was brought in to institutionalize corporate governance, optimize capital allocation, and prepare the neobank for a potential European initial public offering (IPO).
Compare executive leadership tenures and strategic transitions
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