It is vital not to
lose sight
of your customers
and colleagues
This week we have the pleasure of getting Up-Close with Sujata Bhatia, Chief Operating Officer at Monzo Bank. Join us as Sujata talks about operators leading through economic challenges, as well as what the future of consumer banking looks like in 2025 and beyond.
What is your career highlight to date? How has this influenced you as a leader?
There’s been many highlights. I started my career in the services industry with roles at Ernst & Young, Goldman Sachs and Bain & Company. I then joined American Express and spent 16 years in a variety of different roles, helping the US merchant-acquiring division reach the publicly stated goal of acceptance parity with Visa and Mastercard. Another highlight was rolling out marketing platforms for card-linked offers for our international customers. In my current role at Monzo, crossing the 7 million customer threshold and gaining momentum in the market are all big highlights that I’ve experienced.
When I reflect on my career, the real moments that stand out for me are about leadership and development - working with talented individuals, watching them thrive and achieve great things. If I could create a highlight reel, it would be about those people - what they’ve gone on to do and the impact they have had. That’s what is truly important to me.
“When I reflect on my career, the real moments that stand out for me are about leadership and development”
In your opinion, what are the top three attributes of a great digital GM / operational leader?
Any great leader must firstly understand and connect with their team, regardless of industry or function. It’s vital to understand each person’s context, superpowers and blindspots to build a strong portfolio of skills across your leaders. Avoid falling into the trap of believing that one person will be all things within the team. Secondly, empower your team by consistently providing context, clarity and focus. You need to be able to answer: “Why are we doing this and why is it important?”. Having the ability to help prioritise is critical in the fast-paced digital world that we live in. Finally, anticipating challenges by seeing around corners and removing roadblocks is something a great leader does.
In your opinion, do you need different GM skillsets for different stages of company growth (i.e. start-up, scale-up, listed, etc)
I think the attributes of a great leader don’t change, but the kinds of expertise you need around these elements differ at each stage of growth. For example, I don’t personally know how to establish product-market fit in a fledgling start up. Equally, some leaders don’t know how to create regular, predictable earnings or link product-market fit with commercialisation in a listed company and public market environment. I think it’s more about different expertise for different stages. Some people manage the transition across those stages successfully while others may find that they prefer a particular stage or level of company. I think that’s also totally acceptable and should never be considered a failure.
“I think it’s more about different expertise for different stages.”
The War-Time operational GM – how has the current economic and market context impacted your strategy?
While it probably feels that way in the tech industry, it has not felt that way at Monzo for a long time. My early days at Monzo were during the pandemic and, to me, that felt more like war-time. Today, we have a really clear vision on what we need to do for our customers. Our mission is to make money work for everyone. We are focused on building a financial control centre that enables our customers to bring together every aspect of their financial life and have insights to drive action and make progress.
The current situation in the world puts an even higher premium on making sure what we build for our customers does make money work for them. Examples include our industry-first gambling block feature, and our trends feature which enables you to budget and save by seeing where your money is going. Additionally, being able to be underwritten for a loan, but with great affordability criteria, and having the ability to flex your transactions. All these things are becoming more important to our customers right now and we have that customer context at the centre of everything we are doing. It doesn’t change the strategy but does inform where we focus on developing the tools that are most helpful to our customers in this macroeconomic climate.
What would be your advice for GMs leading through economic challenges for the first time?
When I was the Chief of Staff to the President at American Express, I went through several economic cycles, including the global financial crisis, and worked through many challenging times. I’ve witnessed great leaders navigating both challenging and prosperous times. From these experiences, I learnt that while all the essential skills remain important, overcommunication becomes crucial. Teams may feel panicked, especially if they haven’t encountered such situations before, and you might get some deer-in-the headlights reactions as a result. As a leader, it becomes even more important to be visible and engaging with the team and help them navigate the challenges they face.
Another crucial aspect is to make sure everyone, including your management team, stays focused on what they can control, and emphasise continuous forward progress, regardless of the scale. Whether it is a small step or a significant milestone, consistent progress is the goal during such times.
Finally, it is vital not to lose sight of your customers and colleagues. How you show up now defines your legacy and how you will be remembered. Good times are easy – it is in difficult times when your actions towards your colleagues, teams and, most importantly, your customers, matter the most.
“Any great leader must firstly understand and connect with their team.”
What trends have you seen in Fintech and in banking more specifically in the last 12-24 months and comparatively, what does the future of consumer banking look like in 2025 and beyond?
I like to think of Monzo as ahead of the curve. I think we have been seeing a lot of people copying Monzo which is flattering. Monzo and some other challenger banks have been instrumental in raising the bar in banking - where great banking means meeting customer expectations and delivering a fantastic customer experience. I believe we are seeing a shift in what customers should be able to expect of their bank, and these expectations will only continue to evolve.
Looking ahead, I think the Banking-Made-Easy movement (with features such as easy signup and easy access to banking) has been delivered. Now, the focus is going to be on Payments-Made-Easy – making payment processes and money management easier for customers. Things like making the movement of your money work efficiently and integrating all aspects of your financial life will become a reality. I think all these elements will come together and empower you to make progress while your bank supports you. It is like having a personal financial advisor in your pocket, enabling you to make informed decisions. That is the future we are building, and it is really exciting.
How do you keep up to date in your sector? And do you have any suggestions of great books / podcasts / that have influenced your career or leadership style that you would recommend?
Firstly, there is no substitute for people, especially post-pandemic where you can actually see someone in person and connect. Externally, I have a great network of people in FinTech whom I regularly engage with to share insights. Many of them are women, particularly COOs from various FinTech companies. Internally, I have individuals in my company who are closely involved in new developments and keep me informed. For instance, my exceptional VP Design gave me a curated reading list of design-related topics. It’s created a de-facto, reverse mentoring opportunity for me to stay updated and at the cutting edge.
In terms of more traditional sources, I subscribe to several newsletters. There are a million and one FinTech newsletters available, so you can end up with an overflowing inbox at times. I’m reading a lot of newsletters and substacks about generative AI. I’m also a huge podcast fan, although not exclusively in the FinTech space. Masters of Scale and How I Built This are two great ones that sit at both ends of the spectrum. How I Built This by Guy Raz really focuses on seed stage companies that succeeded, which I find fascinating. I also listen to a podcast called Business Wars, which is about big brands going head-to-head, like Netflix vs. Blockbuster or Starbucks vs. Dunkin’ Donuts. They’re compelling stories that capture the dynamic between industry giants and disruptors.
I am also a big reader. Although I do not read a lot of business books, Innovator's Dilemma and Creativity Inc. are on my bookshelf. I also adore biographies. Steve Jobs, Team of Rivals about Abraham Lincoln, and Andre Agassi’s autobiography come to mind as some of my top picks. Empire of Pain and The Smartest Guys in the Room are also favourites. I like to read about when things have gone wrong because it’s interesting to see the disparity between what can look so clear in hindsight, compared to what was understood at the time. I like to see if there are learnings to draw from those experiences. I am an insatiable consumer of content from all sorts of different sources.
