The digital business banking provider Penta is expanding its management team. Marko Wenthin joins as CEO the four-member management team consisting of Jessica Holzbach, Chief Customer Officer (CCO), Luka Ivicevic, Chief of Staff (CoS), Lukas Zörner, Chief Product Officer (CPO) and Matteo Concas, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).
This step was announced at the Money20/20 international conference in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Prior to joining Penta, Marko Wenthin co-founded solarisBank, a banking-as-a-service platform with banking license, which Penta also uses as a banking provider for its digital business banking model. Wenthin was a member of the Management Board and Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of solarisBank.
In his new leadership role at Penta, Wenthin will lead the international expansion of the business banking provider, as well as to open up the next larger customer segment for Penta. The team already offers very successful business banking solutions for companies in formation and especially digital companies. In the future, the focus will be also on traditional medium-sized companies.
Marko Wenthin, CEO Penta, says: “I am very much looking forward to my new role at Penta. On the one hand, digital banking for small and medium-sized companies is very important to me, as they are the driver of the economy and I have spent most of my career in this segment. On the other hand, I have known Penta and the team for a long time as successful partners of solarisBank. Penta is the best example of how a very focused banking provider can create real, digital added value for an entire customer segment in cooperation with a banking-as-a-service platform. Now is the time to get Penta’s fast and easy business banking solution to appeal to the traditional mid-sized companies as well.”
Wenthin spent 16 years in various management positions at Deutsche Bank, with 10 of those years in Argentina and Poland. In Poland, at 30, he was the youngest member of a bank’s Management Board and responsible for IT, Operations, Back and Middle Office. After his time at Deutsche Bank, he founded several Software-as-a-Service companies and helped Asseco, one of Poland’s largest IT software companies, to expand into Western Europe. In 2009 he established SOFORT Bank – the sister company of SOFORT Überweisung, an instant payment service, which was later sold to Klarna. SOFORT Bank became the Deutsche Handelsbank. To implement the concept of Banking-as-a-service Platform, he founded solarisBank in 2016 together with Andreas Bittner and the company builder finleap.
Jessica Holzbach, Co-Founder and CCO Penta adds: “With Marko Wenthin, Penta’s team has gained a very experienced leader who will decisively advance Penta through his many years of expertise in international banking, both in the traditional and digital areas. Our goal is to establish Penta as a one-stop financial solution for SMEs in the European market, by integration of financial services and local adaptations in each market. With Marko, we have found the right CEO for this mission.”
Penta has already taken its first steps into the Italian market. In autumn, the full Penta service will also be made available to Italian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with simple business account opening, fully digital and in just a few minutes. In Germany, Penta continuously integrates new partners for its more than 6,000 business customers, most recently the Debitoor invoicing program.
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