Gerd Schenkel

Gerd Schenkel is an Australian-German businessperson. ^[1] He is the founder of UBank, ^[2][3][4] former Chair ^[5] of Credit Clear (ASX.CCR),^[6] a former non-executive Director of Helia (ASX.HLI), ^{[7] [8]} and Senior Adviser at Kearney, a global consultancy. ^[9]

Gerd Schenkel
Born	Germany
Nationality	Australian/German
Children	2
Website	http://www.gerdschenkel.com

Education

Schenkel has a master's degree in Engineering and an MBA from the Columbia Business School in New York.^[9][10] He is the co-author of several scientific articles in the field of robotics.^{[11] [12]}

Career

In 2008, Schenkel launched UBank, the direct bank of National Australia Bank which has grown its balance sheet to approximately $20b.^[13][14][15] Before launching UBank, Schenkel was general manager of NAB's CRM system.^[16] Prior to that, Schenkel worked for The Boston Consulting Group.^[17]

Until June 2017, he was the CEO of Tyro Payments, an Australian EFTPOS services company, aiming to "disrupt" the incumbent banks.^{[18][19][20][21]} In December 2019, Tyro Payments listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.^[22] As of 15 July 2020, the company's market capitalisation was approximately A$1.85b ^[23]

On 13 June 2017 Tyro announced that Gerd Schenkel had resigned because he wanted to "pursue other business opportunities and spend more time with his family".^[24] The Australian Financial Review reported that Schenkel was pursuing "a new banking venture”.^[25] Schenkel is the Managing Director of consultancy "BGA Digital".^[26]

Prior to Tyro, Gerd Schenkel was the founder and Executive Director of Telstra Digital, the digital division of one of Australia's largest corporations.^{[27][28][29][30][31]} At Telstra, he led the launch of Belong, Telstra's low cost broadband business which as of June 2017 had over 150,000 customers.^[32][33]

A regular contributor to the Australian business community,^[34][26] in November 2017 was appointed to the Federal Treasurer's Small Business Digitisation Taskforce,^[35] which led to the federal Government to provide $37.3 million (over four years from 2018) to support small business' adoption of digital tools and methods.^[36][34]

In December 2018, Gerd was appointed chairman of Australian FinTech Credit Clear.^[37]

In October 2020, Credit Clear listed on the Australian Stock Exchange via an initial public offering under the ticker symbol CCR.^{[38][39][40][41]}

In December 2021, Schenkel was appointed to the Board of Helia (formerly Genworth), an ASX listed insurer.^[42]

In 2021, Credit Clear announced that it acquired ARMA, a debt collections services business to grow its revenue at a cost of $45m.^[43]

In 2021, Schenkel was reported to be part of a "consortium" wanting to acquire ME Bank,^[44] but ME Bank was ultimately acquired by Bank of Queensland.^[45]

Since 2010, Schenkel has been providing independent consulting services to global organisations. ^{[46] [47]}

Personal

Gerd was married and has two daughters, Faedra and Lillie.^[48]