PODCAST: Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO & Founder, Klarna
IN DETAIL: the Podcast from TheIndustry.fashion in which we get under the hood of the industry and examine the business & consumer trends that are driving change and take a look at some of the brands and people that are shaping the future of fashion.
In this series we will interview industry watchers, analysts, experts and writers who are all leaders in their field.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski is the CEO and Founder of disruptive payments provider Klarna. With its buy now, pay later, pay in 3 and other flexible, or as Klarna likes to call it smoooth, payments options, this business has shaken up the way we shop, having been adopted by more than 250,000 retailers worldwide.
It’s also fair to say it has ruffled a few feathers among the traditional banking sector with its bright pink, sometimes frankly oddball, advertising and its celebrity backers.
But it has found favour among a largely millennial consumer base that is shunning credit in favour of debit and, despite its stunning success, Siemiatkowski is still hungry for more.
For the latest episode of the IN DETAIL podcast, Lauretta Roberts, Editor in chief of TheIndustry.fashion caught up with Sebastian in London recently when he was in town to visit Klarna’s new offices and to announce the launch of a new app that allows Klarna customers to shop across all brands whether they are Klarna merchants or not.
The son of Polish immigrants to Sweden, Sebastian grew up in very modest circumstances and gone on the become one of Sweden’s best known and most wealthy public figures, and he’s not yet 40 years old.
Sebastian tells Lauretta why he has no intention of slowing down, reckoning that he has another 50 years of work left in him, what his ambitions are for Klarna (and no, an IPO is not as imminent as others would have us believe), what he thinks of the intense media scrutiny he’s under, and, even, what he has for breakfast and what he’d like for his birthday.
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