Fintech “liberated” me from legacy banks

Revolut is often seen as a young person’s game, but Hugh Kindon disagrees. On a recent podcast by the fintech, Kindon announced he was the first employee to retire at Revolut, and appeared very thankful for the four years he spent there.

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Working at Revolut was “liberating” for Kindon. “I felt more at home working in a fintech than I did in a legacy bank with stove-pipes between each of the teams.” In place of “the boring beareaucracy” of traditional finance, fintech has an “egalitarian, can-do attitude.” Kindon worked at a number of established finance firms, including Barclaycard, Visa and Mastercard, and was planning to retire before joining Revolut until it allowed him to become its first remote employee.

Joining just before the pandemic, Kindon’s role “proved the path” for remote working at Revolut, and the company is now remote-first. The fintech said that roughly 50% of people who joined last year did so in a remote capacity. Kindon says this approach enables Revolut to “get the best talent from all the way around the world,” and says working with these teammates is “one of the joys” about a Revolut career.

There have been complaints that younger employees at Revolut are afforded too much authority, but Kindon – who has been working for 28 years – says he’s not had to sacrifice his autonomy for less experienced coworkers. Kindon says companies like Revolut need more experienced employees “who have ability and experience to get things done.”

He may be one of the people encouraging these younger employees to step up, however. Kindon prided himself in helping “leaders within Revolut extend their capabilities and extend their comfort zones.”

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