Kristo Käärmann

Kristo Käärmann
Birthplace	Estonia
Nationality	Estonian
Occupation	Business executive, entrepreneur
Title	Chief Executive Officer of Wise
Known for	Co-founding Wise (formerly TransferWise)

Kristo Käärmann is an Estonian entrepreneur and business executive who co-founded Wise (formerly known as TransferWise), a global financial technology company that provides international money transfer and multi-currency account services. Alongside co-founder Taavet Hinrikus, Käärmann built Wise into one of Europe's most prominent fintech companies, with a valuation of approximately £11 billion at the time of its 2021 London listing. The company listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2021, becoming one of the United Kingdom's largest quoted financial technology firms, before shifting its primary listing to the Nasdaq in New York following shareholder approval in July 2025. As CEO, Käärmann has overseen Wise's growth from a peer-to-peer currency exchange platform into a broad-based international financial services provider. In 2025, Käärmann became the subject of significant corporate governance debate when Wise proposed shifting its primary stock listing from London to the Nasdaq while simultaneously extending his supervoting share rights — a proposal that drew both shareholder support and criticism, including public opposition from his own co-founder. Shareholders approved both measures in July 2025. Käärmann has appeared on the Forbes World's Billionaires list, reflecting the substantial personal wealth he accumulated through his founding stake in Wise.

Early life and education

Kristo Käärmann was born and raised in Estonia. He studied at the University of Tartu, one of Estonia's leading research universities, before moving to the United Kingdom to pursue his professional career. After completing his studies, he worked as a consultant at Deloitte, where he gained experience in the financial and technology sectors. Estonia, which regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, developed a reputation for advanced digital infrastructure and e-government services, earning the informal designation "e-Estonia," and became a notable breeding ground for technology startups — a context that informed a generation of Estonian entrepreneurs including Käärmann and his future co-founder Taavet Hinrikus, who had been an early employee at Skype.

The founding concept of Wise originated from Käärmann's personal frustration with the high fees and poor exchange rates associated with traditional international money transfers. Working in London and receiving his salary in pounds sterling while needing to send money to Estonia in euros, Käärmann experienced firsthand the significant hidden costs embedded in cross-border currency transactions by traditional banks. He and Hinrikus devised an early solution by effectively swapping their own funds directly: Hinrikus, who held euros from his Skype salary, would deposit euros into Käärmann's Estonian account, while Käärmann deposited the equivalent in pounds into Hinrikus's UK account, each using the mid-market exchange rate and bypassing international wire fees entirely. This personal workaround became the conceptual seed for what would eventually become one of Europe's most significant fintech ventures.

Career

Founding of TransferWise

Käärmann co-founded TransferWise in 2011 together with Taavet Hinrikus, who had been an early employee at Skype. The company was built on the peer-to-peer currency swap concept the two had applied to their own finances: by matching people who needed to send money in opposite directions across borders, TransferWise avoided the need for traditional international wire transfers and the associated costs. The model allowed customers to transfer money internationally at the mid-market exchange rate, charging a small, transparent fee rather than the opaque markups commonly applied by banks.

The company was headquartered in London and quickly attracted attention from technology investors. TransferWise grew rapidly through the 2010s, expanding its service to cover an increasing number of currency corridors and countries and attracting venture capital funding from prominent investors. As the company evolved, it expanded beyond simple money transfers to offer multi-currency accounts, debit cards, and business accounts, positioning itself as a broader alternative to traditional banking for international financial transactions. In February 2021, the company rebranded from TransferWise to Wise, reflecting its broader ambitions beyond peer-to-peer money transfers.

Transparency campaigns

As part of its mission to highlight the hidden costs charged by traditional banks, Wise developed a public marketing campaign emphasising fee transparency. Käärmann appeared prominently in Wise's "Nothing 2 Hide" advertising campaign, which ran in London and featured the CEO alongside Wise employees — in deliberately minimal clothing — to reinforce the company's message that its fees were fully disclosed and straightforward, in direct contrast to the opaque foreign-exchange margins applied by incumbent financial institutions. The campaign attracted widespread public attention and became one of the more memorable fintech marketing moments in the United Kingdom. It was consistent with Wise's broader brand positioning, which from its earliest days centred on publicising the difference between the mid-market exchange rate and the rates offered to customers by banks.

London Stock Exchange listing

In July 2021, Wise went public through a direct listing on the London Stock Exchange, in what was seen as a significant moment for both the company and London's technology sector. The listing made Wise one of the largest technology companies quoted in London and was viewed as a vote of confidence in the city's ability to attract and retain major tech firms. The company's valuation at the time of listing was substantial, and it became a flagship name among London-listed fintech companies.

Käärmann served as CEO throughout the listing process and continued in that role afterward. The listing structure included dual-class shares that gave Käärmann enhanced voting rights — a "golden share" arrangement that provided him with supervoting power disproportionate to his economic ownership stake. Such structures, while common among technology companies listed in the United States (where firms like Meta Platforms, Alphabet Inc., and Snap Inc. employ similar mechanisms), are more unusual in the London market and would later become a point of contention. Käärmann holds both Class A and Class B shares in Wise, a structure disclosed in regulatory filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission following the company's move toward a US listing.

Growth and operations

Under Käärmann's leadership as CEO, Wise grew into a globally recognised financial services company, processing billions of pounds in international transfers annually and serving millions of customers worldwide, including both individuals and businesses. The Guardian described Wise's approximately £10 billion valuation as making it "a big fish in London's small pool of quoted financial technology" companies.

Käärmann's wealth grew substantially through his stake in Wise. The Wall Street Journal referred to him as a "fintech billionaire" in its coverage of the 2025 shareholder vote, and he has appeared on the Forbes World's Billionaires list alongside fellow Estonian Taavet Hinrikus. Forbes maintains a dedicated profile for Käärmann reflecting the significant personal fortune he accumulated through his founding ownership of Wise shares.

In 2021, UK tax authority HM Revenue and Customs investigated Käärmann over an undisclosed tax liability, a matter that attracted press coverage and prompted a formal response from Wise's board. The episode added to scrutiny of Käärmann's personal conduct at a sensitive period in the company's public life following its listing.

2025 US listing proposal and governance controversy

In 2025, Käärmann and the Wise board proposed a significant corporate restructuring that would shift the company's primary stock listing from the London Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq in New York. The proposal was bundled together with a separate governance initiative: extending Käärmann's supervoting rights, the enhanced "golden share" voting structure that had been in place since the company's 2021 listing. Under a dual-class share structure of this kind, a founder's shares carry substantially more votes per share than those held by ordinary investors, allowing the founder to retain decisive control over major corporate decisions even as the company's public float grows.

The decision to bundle these two proposals together — the US listing and the supervoting extension — proved controversial. The Guardian's editorial board argued that the company "deserves to lose" the vote, criticising the tactic of combining the listing move with the governance change, which effectively forced shareholders who wanted the US listing to also approve the extension of Käärmann's enhanced voting power. Bloomberg reported that the plan to shift the listing out of London had "gathered momentum after some existing shareholders rebuffed a proposal that would" have extended the dual-class share structure independently, suggesting that the American market's greater familiarity with and acceptance of such governance structures played a role in the decision to seek a US venue.

The proposal generated a public split between Wise's two co-founders. Taavet Hinrikus, who had co-founded the company with Käärmann and had served as its first chairman before stepping back from an active role, publicly urged investors to vote against the proposal. According to the Financial Times, Hinrikus "condemned governance changes within the company's proposals to shift its primary listing," leading to what the newspaper described as a "shareholder rebellion." Yahoo Finance described the situation as the "founders split over plan to abandon Britain for US," characterising Wise as a "fintech champion" of the UK market. Banking Dive reported that Hinrikus specifically criticised the initiative to extend "golden share" voting rights to Käärmann, making the disagreement between the two founders one of the more notable public fractures between founding partners of a major publicly listed technology company.

Despite the opposition from Hinrikus and concerns raised by institutional shareholders and governance commentators, the proposals ultimately passed. On 28 July 2025, Wise shareholders voted to approve both the move of the primary listing to the United States and the extension of Käärmann's supervoting rights. Bloomberg reported that "Wise Plc shareholders approved a proposal to shift its primary listing out of London, a move that will also allow Chief Executive Officer" Käärmann to retain his enhanced voting power. The Wall Street Journal summarised the outcome with the headline "Fintech Billionaire Beats Co-Founder in Fight to Keep Voting Superpowers," noting that "shareholders in Wise, a rare U.K. tech success, voted in favor of moving its main stock listing to New York and extending dual-class shares."

Move to Nasdaq

Following shareholder approval in July 2025, Wise proceeded with plans to complete its move to a primary listing on the Nasdaq. In May 2026, Käärmann discussed the rationale publicly in an interview with CNBC, citing the opportunity to access a larger and deeper pool of technology-focused investors in the United States and the Nasdaq's greater familiarity with founder-led governance structures as key reasons for the move. Käärmann reflected on the milestone publicly, characterising the listing on Nasdaq as a significant moment in the company's international growth journey. FinTech Weekly reported that the vote and subsequent relisting reflected "global shifts in tech" regarding corporate governance and listing preferences, noting the broader trend of technology companies seeking US listings for their perceived benefits in terms of valuation multiples, liquidity, and investor familiarity with dual-class share structures.

The decision to leave London was viewed by