About

Team size: 9
Major law firms used: Hogan Lovells, Simmons & Simmons, Taylor Wessing

Monzo Bank has seen meteoric growth since being founded in 2015, having already become the UK’s most popular mobile-only bank. Perhaps it is unsurprising then that its GC, Dean Nash, has experienced a similarly rapid transformation.

Nash joined Monzo as head of legal and compliance in 2016 when it was, as he describes it, ‘a tiny little company’. Eight more lawyers and 1.4 million customers later, Nash has now taken on the titles of GC and interim chief risk officer.

‘It’s not been too bad a transition,’ Nash observes. ‘Once you get to a certain level, once you are senior enough in a particular specialism, the job is to essentially build and lead a team. The day-to-day running of risk and compliance is done by the respective heads. My role is just helping the function to grow out with more people.’

Despite playing down the shift in skills, Nash does believe it is indicative of a wider trend. ‘The rise of risk and compliance functions is a result of the regulation that requires it. There’s no regulation or law that says: “You must have a GC.”’

It has been a typically busy breakout year for Monzo. The start of 2018 saw the lifting and shifting of the bank’s current-account customers from Monzo’s beta product to the full version, something Nash describes as a ‘huge technical exercise’.

There was fundraising, over £100m in fact. A total of £85m was raised from a host of venture capital firms, while a further £20m was crowdsourced from Monzo’s customers and other investors. It reflects dizzying growth: Monzo now numbers around 500 employees and moved to a new 40,000 sq ft London headquarters in August 2018.

The growth of the company necessitates new lawyers, but how does Monzo retain that entrepreneurial start-up vibe that made it unique in the first place? Nash contends: ‘It’s the Russian dolls concept. If you are a leader and the next person you hire is quite good but not as good you, you end up getting smaller and smaller Russian dolls until you end up with people who aren’t particularly good. You have to hire someone markedly better than you and it takes a brave person to do that!’

Does that make Nash the worst lawyer at Monzo? ‘Don’t print that!’, he says. ‘There are better lawyers than me at Monzo without doubt. Obviously we’re all very good, but there are some exceptional lawyers.’