September 5 (SeeNews) - European Business Press, an association of leading European business and financial publications, said on Thursday its European Manager of the Year 2019 award goes to Valentin Stalf, co-founder and CEO of fully digital retail bank N26.
The valuation of N26 is 3.5 billion dollars (3.15 billion euro), making them Germany’s highest valued startup, and one of the top three Fintech companies in Europe, EBP said in a press release following the award ceremony held in the framework of its 2019 annual meeting in Sofia.
With its full banking licence, state-of-the-art technology and no branch network, N26 is redesigning banking for the 21st century, it added.
Stalf founded the company in 2013 with his longtime friend Maximilian Tayenthal. Since the initial product launch in 2015, N26 has grown to more than 3.5 million customers across 26 countries. In cooperation with their partner bank Axos, N26 launched in the U.S. in July, making them the first European challenger bank to successfully enter the market, EBP said.
N26 has more than 1,300 employees across five locations.
EBP counts 40 leading European business newspapers and magazines in 27 countries among its members, including publications such as the
The Wall Street Journal Europe, Les Echos, Handelsblatt, Dagens Industri and Milano Finanza. Its members in Southeast Europe are Bulgaria's Capital, Macedonia's Kapital and Slovenia's Finance.
Since 1991, EBP has been presenting the European Manager of the Year award to top European managers and companies based on a vote of EBP editors. Past recipients include Ingvar Kamprad of IKEA, Wolfgang Mayrhuber, chairman of Lufthansa, Luca di Montezemolo, chairman of Ferrari, Tom Enders, CEO of Airbus, and Hakan Samuelsson, CEO of Volvo Cars.
(1 euro = $1.10765)