Australia based Neobank Volt recently revealed in an announcement that it has hired a new advisor. As per statement released by the bank, it has hired a new Mr. Julian Sawyer – co-founder of UK based neobank starling to serve as its advisor. Australia based emerging challenger bank has recently boosted its efforts to bolster its team & bring in experienced executives to support its operations. Prior to taking up his new role as an advisor at Volt, Sawyer had been serving as Chief Operating Officer at Starling and held the role since the founding of the bank until he resigned from the role in June of 2019 cutting his ties with the firm post serving at the firm for 4 years. Alongside his role at Volt, he is also serving as an honorary senior visiting fellow at UK based Cass business school and as Managing Director of leading Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini for its European division.
Julian’s role as Advisor to the board is more like a part time job given his role at Gemini Exchange which began in December of 2019. As per the information in his LinkedIn account, Julian’s primary full-time job seems to be MD of the cryptocurrency exchange unless there is an emergency or pre-scheduled visit to Australian start-up challenger bank. Before his term as Chief Operating Officer of Starling, Sawyer served as Chief Executive Officer of Piran Consulting Limited – a firm dedicated to providing consultancy services in the Payments verticals to clients who are primarily based out of Europe and USA. Before Piran Consultancy, he did a brief stint as Managing Director at Weald Management Limited prior to which he served as Chief Executive Officer of Bluerock Consulting – a firm he founded to provide financial services management and consulting services and also held the role of Director of Cards & Payments division at the firm.
His tenure with Bluerock Consulting was his longest tenure at a firm in his career history given the fact that he served at the firm for more than 13 and a half years. In his early phase of career, he serves as an intern at IBM and Consultant at Ernst & Young and Andresen Consulting. In his new role as advisor to the board, Sawyer is expected to leverage his experience from digital banking sector in European market to help bolster and support the firm’s operations in Australia given the fact that he began his term with a challenger bank a full two years ahead of the debut of Volt.
Commenting on Sawyer’s appointment at the firm, Volt CEO Steve Weston said, “Sawyer’s global experience and detailed knowledge of processes and systems in digital banking will provide Volt with invaluable insights on our own journey to 1 million+ customers”.
