Revolut boss: Change is coming in UK boardrooms

Yana Shkrebenkova wants to help women shake up investing

- KARL MATCHETT

Imagine your journey into your current job. Did you have to go through multiple interviews? Perhaps even apply for dozens of roles before you snared the right one? If so, you might benefit from a different approach – at least, according to the experiences of one very successful figure in the finance world.

Yana Shkrebenkova is the chief executive at Revolut Trading UK, the investment product arm of the company you’ll know from app stores, adverts and quite possibly your own accounts.

After undertaking a degree at Exeter University and before moving into her present role, Ms Shkrebenkova had already worked with or alongside Deutsche Bank, Accenture, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs. The sum total of job applications made during her career sits at zero.

“I took advice from all my lecturers to build your network very seriously – my first job found me rather than I found the job. People I studied with referred me to Deutsche Bank,” she explains to The Independent. “None of my jobs I’ve applied for. It’s all about network. You build it not just at work but through people you work with and all the referrals happened through people who worked with me or for me.”

Deutsche was only the beginning of the theme; working alongside employees from Accenture led to another job offer while industry upheaval beset colleagues and the wider firm alike. Then along came a new name on the banking scene.

“Revolut came up. Somehow it found me. I was approached for the role and I’m not going to lie – when I saw CEO on the job spec I was surprised, but the recruiter was convinced, the interviewers were convinced and, by the end of the process, so was I,” she explains. The CEO title is one of two parts to the day job: Yana is also head of wealth and trading at the company, bringing the features most users actually engage with.