After about a year Lisa Nowell joined Monzo as its first chief risk officer, she decided to leave to work as an SME lender Ashman Finance, Sifted reported.
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Nowell was replaced by Iain Laing, this replacement is still subject to regulatory approval. Laing was CRO at TSB Bank and Nationwide Building Society.
As CRO, Lisa Nowell’s responsibilities were consisting of handling compliance issues on the product side, as well as overseeing Monzo’s nascent lending scheme.
Monzo appointed Nowell in November last year. She moved to the digital bank from ClearBank, where she spent half a year as chief risk and compliance officer. She also previously worked at another UK challenger, Masthaven Bank, as well as Barclays, RBS and Nationwide Building Society.
In a comment to Sifted, Monzo’s CEO TS Anil said Nowell’s departure had been amicable: “We’re extremely grateful to Lisa who’s been an integral part of Monzo and helped us build a world-class risk and compliance team. She continued to lead our risk and compliance function and support our executive team to hire a successor.”

Regarding the new CRO Iain Laing, Anil added: “Iain has over 20 years’ experience managing risk at some of the UK’s most established retail banks and lenders, and today we’re fortunate to welcome him as our CRO (subject to regulatory approval). The range of his experience and depth of his expertise will be crucial as we continue to build out our business.”