PAULO, Brazil, July 7, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) – Neon, a fintech company and digital bank focused on improving the lives of working Brazilians, today announced the appointment of André Madeira as the company’s new Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Madeira brings extensive knowledge in engineering to the role, along with expertise in building scalable products for the masses from his stints at Google, Snap and Coinbase. Madeira will lead the work of transforming Neon into a technology-driven financial product powerhouse, starting with a teleworker who recruits to build its team with the world’s best technology talent, regardless of location.
Madeira successfully sold its AI-powered fintech startup Meemo last year to Coinbase, where it recently oversaw crypto-related consumer-facing computing products. He has also built a career and led major engineering and computer initiatives and teams for over a decade at Google Search and Snap, creating scalable and highly personalized products that affect billions of people daily. He will now focus on helping Neon reach new potential with its growing customer base.
Neon’s mission is to reduce inequality in Brazil, where the gap between the affluent and the low-income population has been persistently large.
“People’s relationship with money is quite emotional, especially at the low end of the income spectrum. Building trust through fair, understandable and useful financial products is the key to creating a loyal bridge between consumers and products and services, says André Madeira, Neon’s new CTO. “I was captivated by Neon’s mission and impressed by its commitment to using technology to provide fair deals to sub-banks in Brazil, while striving to deliver a first-class customer experience that has only been reserved for the affluent.”
Neon plans to invest heavily in areas such as large-scale computer technology, computer science, distributed systems and machine learning to create products that significantly improve and adapt the customer experience. The appointment of Madeira and the goal of structuring the team in a more globally distributed way not only means that Neon thinks differently about technology, it motivates the company to embrace a modern technological way of thinking.
“To succeed in this increasingly competitive market, all areas of technology such as engineering, data, product and design must work extremely well together,” emphasizes Madeira. Traditionally in Brazil, and in the financial industry more specifically, the interaction between these areas is a constant challenge as a company grows. I am committed to ensuring that all of these fronts work seamlessly together to promote scalable value creation with repeatable innovation at Neon.
“In addition, I’m happy to have the opportunity to build a product with such an incredible purpose – to reduce inequality in Brazil – this is why Neon really caught my attention. I was also impressed with the excellent professionals who make up Neon- the technology team. »
Neon embraces its strategy of remote-first work, and plans to continue hiring in Brazil and expand its talent pool worldwide to increase its 1,800 employees.
“One of my immediate goals is to transform Neon into a global leader in technology by bringing world-class talent into the company, wherever they are,” said Madeira, who was very successful in attracting top talent while on Snap and founded Meemo.
“I am ecstatic about André’s arrival. All of us at Neon believe that his international experience and technical prowess in building joyful products for hundreds of millions of people will be a vital resource for the company. I look forward to working with him to build a world-class team on Neon, says Pedro Conrade, Founder and CEO of Neon.
Neon also recently hired another US-based C-level leader based in Silicon Valley – Koji Pereira, Chief Design Officer. Pereira was most recently senior product design manager at Twitter after stints at Google and Lyft.
About Neon
Neon is a Brazilian fintech founded in 2016 whose mission is to combine technology and design to redesign and simplify people’s financial experience, reduce inequalities, show simpler and fairer economic paths. With more than 15 million customers, including individuals and companies, Neon recently achieved a valuation of $ 1.6 billion after its Series D fundraiser, in which the Spanish bank BBVA invested $ 300 million. Neon’s rapid expansion has been made possible in part by strategic acquisitions such as MEI Fácil, which offers financial services and education to individual micro-entrepreneurs, in 2019; and the acquisition of Magliano Invest, which was the first stockbroking house on Bovespa – Brazil Stock Exchange Index, in 2020. The same year, Neon strengthened its payday loan portfolio with the acquisition of ConsigaMais +, the main company in the sector, and with the recent acquisition of Biorc, the company licensed to the Credit, Finance and Investment Society (SCFI). For more information visit www.neon.com.br or spring LinkedIn page.
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