TRAILBLAZER
A DEGREE IN FINANCE AND BUSINESS Kjellén worked at Prodocon by day and studied at night . It was a juggling act that he maintained for a further four years . “ Nobody in my class even knew that I was studying the course because I did most of the work in the evenings .”
The university course did offer some social perks as it resulted in Kjellén meeting his wife . “ I met my wife , there in my class , so I think that ' s the biggest achievement ,” he recalls .
Soon after graduation , Prodocon was bought out , and in 2008 , at the height of the financial crash , Kjellén joined the Investment Banking Division at Carnegie – the leading investment bank in the Nordics at that time , where he stayed until 2012 .
“ It was supposed to have been one of those ‘ make motherproud jobs ’. It ended up not making mother so proud because it was taken over ,” he says of the position .
But the role ended up being a sharp learning curve in the world of finance as Kjellén embraced investment banking from a beginner ' s perspective . “ The bank was going bankrupt as a result of the financial crisis … And I think that for me , those four years were extremely educating , because as a junior investment banker , you work around the clock . You need to be almost a secretary , everything in order , papers in order , Excel sheets in order . And as a small-time entrepreneur , that wasn ' t a top priority before . It was completely untested waters for me , but also extremely rewarding .”
“Stars were definitely aligned for someone to disrupt payment and banking out of the Nordic countries for a bunch of reasons ”
THE LAUNCHPAD FOR TINK By now , the financial technology scene in Sweden was making strong headway . Contactless payments were commonplace and the market was ripe for disruption . Kjellén ’ s entrepreneurial drive led him to a new place of inspiration – and his co-founder , Frederik Hedberg .
He believes timing was crucial in establishing the business because innovation was starting to mature the industry . “ I think that timing in entrepreneurship is probably underestimated . Stars were definitely aligned for someone to disrupt payment and banking out of the Nordic countries for a bunch of reasons . Being cashless was one of them – and the fact that mobile bank APIs were just starting to emerge in the Nordics .”
A tech-savvy population , an appetite to innovate and a functioning ecosystem in terms of funding were all aligned . " It was the right time , and a perfect starting point for building the type of business we envisaged ,” he says .