INTELLIGENCE · PERSON DOSSIER
UPDATED 2026-08-13Kristo Kaarmann
Founders & CEOs
Wise · United Kingdom
Net worth
US$2.4bn
Sunday Times Rich List 2026
89th
Voting rights in Wise Group plc
Holds over 50% of total voting rights; exercisable votes capped just below 50% while he is CEO
Wise share capital context
1,023,375,602 class A shares and 204,338,749 class B shares in issue
Shareholder status at Wise
Co-founder, director and largest shareholder
Identity & Ownership
Full name
Kristo Käärmann
Recorded at Companies House without diacritics as 'Kristo KAARMANN'. The FCA, Wise's own filings and his blog byline all use the Estonian spelling Käärmann.
Current role
Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Wise Group plc
Title as given in Wise Group plc's own FY2026 results release of 25 June 2026. He has been chief executive since the company was founded as TransferWise in 2011.
Date of birth
August 1980
Month and year as disclosed on the Companies House officer record. Estonian business register Inforegister gives 3 August 1980; Forbes gave his age as 45 in August 2026.
Nationality
Estonian
Recorded as Estonian on his Companies House officer record. Forbes lists his citizenship as Estonia.
Country of residence (statutory record)
United Kingdom
Country of residence as recorded on his Companies House officer record; correspondence address given as First Floor, Worship Square, 65 Clifton Street, London EC2A 4JE.
Based
London, United Kingdom
Forbes gives his residence as London. He moved to the UK in the early 2000s to work in consulting and co-founded Wise there.
FCA individual reference number
KXK01525
Individual reference number as given on the FCA's 2024 Final Notice.
Senior manager functions held
SMF1 (Chief Executive) at Wise Assets UK Ltd since 25 February 2020
The FCA approved him to perform the SMF1 (Chief Executive) and SMF3 (Executive Director) roles at Wise Assets UK Ltd on 25 February 2020. He ceased to perform the SMF3 role on 27 October 2022 and continues in SMF1.
Company co-founded
Wise, launched as TransferWise in 2011
Co-founded in London in 2011 with fellow Estonian Taavet Hinrikus. The operating company, Wise Payments Limited, was incorporated as TransferWise Limited on 31 March 2010 and renamed on 19 September 2021.
Listing tickers
WSE (Nasdaq, primary) and WISE (London Stock Exchange, secondary)
Wise Group plc's primary listing moved to Nasdaq on 11 May 2026, with London retained as a secondary listing.
Personal Wealth & Holdings
Net worth
US$2.4bn
Forbes real-time estimate as at 12 August 2026, ranking him 1,767th in the world. Source of wealth given as payments and banking, self-made. Forbes figures are estimates derived from his Wise stake.
Sunday Times Rich List 2026
89th
Reported by Estonian World in May 2026 as entering the UK's 100 wealthiest, with Taavet Hinrikus joint 161st. Rich List valuations are newspaper estimates.
Voting rights in Wise Group plc
Holds over 50% of total voting rights; exercisable votes capped just below 50% while he is CEO
Wise Group plc's total voting rights announcement of 3 August 2026 states he holds over 50% of total voting rights through his class A and class B shares, and that his exercisable class B votes are reduced to one vote below 50% of votes eligible to be cast while he remains chief executive.
Wise share capital context
1,023,375,602 class A shares and 204,338,749 class B shares in issue
As disclosed on 3 August 2026. Class A shares carry one vote each; class B shares carry nine votes each. The class B structure is the mechanism through which his voting control runs.
Shareholder status at Wise
Co-founder, director and largest shareholder
The FCA's 2024 Final Notice describes him as CEO, director, co-founder and majority shareholder of Wise plc, the ultimate parent of the group's regulated UK subsidiaries.
Estonia's first billionaires
With Taavet Hinrikus, one of Estonia's first two billionaires
Forbes describes the pair, who met while working in London, as Estonia's first two billionaires.
Background
Master's degree, University of Tartu
Forbes records a master's degree in computer engineering from the University of Tartu, Estonia. Other profiles describe bachelor's and master's study in mathematics and computer science completed in 2002; the discipline description varies by source.
Management consultant at Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers
Worked as a management consultant advising banks and insurers on technology and operations before founding TransferWise. Reported consistently across profile sources; exact dates and titles are not confirmed by a primary record.
Frustration at bank fees on transfers between the UK and Estonia
Forbes records that he and Hinrikus started the company after becoming tired of losing money to banks in fees when sending money to Estonia. The founding workaround was a private swap arrangement between the two men.
Taavet Hinrikus, Skype's first employee
Hinrikus was Skype's first employee before co-founding TransferWise with Käärmann in 2011. He stepped down from the Wise board in December 2021 and remains a shareholder.
Writes under his own byline on the Wise blog
Author of Wise's quarterly Mission Updates from 2018 to 2022, the fee review posts of 2024, and the 2025 note on the proposed listing move. The archive is one of the fuller first-person records kept by a listed fintech chief executive.
Took his first sabbatical in 2023
Announced in a post on the Wise blog dated 10 May 2023, written under his own byline.
Publicly introduced four Wise non-executive directors between 2021 and 2023
Wrote the blog posts welcoming Clare Gilmartin and Tan Hooi Ling (March 2021), Terri Duhon (December 2021) and Libby (April 2023) to the Wise board.
Accepted that his inclusion on the HMRC defaulters list damaged his and Wise's reputation
In interview with the FCA he accepted that being added to the defaulters list brought reputational damage to himself, to Wise and its subsidiaries, and to the wider financial system.
Told the FCA he believed his HMRC dealings were a personal matter
The Final Notice records that he explained he did not believe he needed to inform the FCA because he viewed his dealings with HMRC as personal and unrelated to his fitness and propriety. The FCA characterised his approach as careless rather than deliberate or reckless.
Notable Coverage
23 items
Wise reports FY2026 net revenue of US$2.5bn and launches a US$500m buyback
Käärmann enters the top 100 of the Sunday Times Rich List
Wise's primary listing moves to Nasdaq
OwnWise extends customer share ownership to the United States
Shareholders approve the US listing move and the extension of the dual-class structure
Käärmann acknowledged his co-founder's objection in a note the same day, said shareholders had responded overwhelmingly in favour, and argued the structure supported sustainable, profitable long-term growth.
Wise proposes moving its primary listing to the United States
US regulator orders Wise to pay over remittance disclosure failures
FCA fines Käärmann £350,000 for failing to notify it of his tax penalty
Käärmann said: 'After several years and full cooperation with the FCA, we have brought this process to a close. I remain focused on delivering the mission for Wise.' Chair David Wells said the board continued to take Wise's regulatory obligations very seriously and was pleased the FCA's conclusions were consistent with Wise's own 2021 assessment.
Käärmann publishes a review of Wise's own price rises
Käärmann announces his first sabbatical
Wise reports its first full-year results as a public company
FCA opens an investigation into Käärmann's conduct
Chair David Wells said the board took the tax default and the FCA investigation very seriously, and that it had required Käärmann to take remedial actions on his personal tax affairs.
HMRC adds Käärmann to its published list of deliberate tax defaulters
Wise's board conducted its own investigation, assessed that he remained fit and proper to continue in his roles, and required him to take remedial steps including appointing professional tax advisers to manage his personal tax affairs.