With over 15 years of experience in finance, banking, and fintech, Carlesi is the co-founder and CEO of Molo Finance, the UK’s first digitally native mortgage lender. She stepped down this month following the March acquisition of an 80% stake in the firm by Australian non-bank mortgage lender ColCap Financial.Prior to setting up Molo, Carlesi spent five years as chief of staff and global head of regulatory afffairs at Deutsche Bank - experience which will stand her in good stead in her new role at Reveolut. Her time at Deutsche Bank was preceded by a one-year spell at Italian lender Intesa Sanapaolo and two years as head of strategy business planning at Barclays Bank.Her appointment comes as Revolut continues it two-plus year wait for a UK banking licence. The company has been plagued by a stream of senior departures from its compliance team and in September missed the deadline for filing its annual accounts for the second year running. However, last month Revolut finally struck a deal with primary backer SoftBank on a change to the latter’s shareholding, clearing away a key obstacle in the fintech’s long-running battle to obtain the UK banking licence. Chairman of Revolut UK, Richard Holmes, says of the appointment: “As we continue to build out our leadership team, her extensive experience across the banking and fintech sectors makes her the perfect CEO to drive our UK business forward.“As a founder of her own fintech, and having spent many years across the banking industry, Francesca knows what it takes to challenge the banking incumbents, and I look forward to celebrating her successes here in the months to come.”