Gerd Schenkel MS, MBA, born on 27th May 1974, is an Australian business person, chairman of Credit Clear, and Director and digital practice leader at Partners in Performance, a consultancy. In July 2020, Credit Clear confirmed that it was preparing for an Initial Public Offering on the Australian Stock Exchange. Until June 2017, he was the CEO of Tyro Payments, an Australian EFTPOS services company, aiming to "disrupt" the incumbent banks. In December 2019, Tyro Payments listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. As of 15 July 2020, the company's market capitalisation was approxiamtely A$1.85b On 13 June 2017 Tyro announced that Gerd Schenkel had resigned because he wanted to "pursue other business opportunities and spend more time with his family". The Australian Financial Review reported that Schenkel was pursuing "a new banking venture”. Schenkel is the Managing Director of consultancy "BGA Digital". Prior to Tyro, Gerd Schenkel was the founder and Executive Director of Telstra Digital, the digital division of one of Australia's largest corporations. At Telstra, he led the launch of Belong, Telstra's low cost broadband business which as of June 2017 had over 150,000 customers. In 2008, he launched UBank, the direct bank of National Australia Bank which has grown its balance sheet to approximately $20b. Before launching UBank, Schenkel was general manager of NAB's CRM system. Prior to that, Schenkel worked for The Boston Consulting Group. Schenkel has a master's degree in Engineering and an MBA from the Columbia Business School in New York. He is the co-author of several scientific articles in the field of robotics. He is a regular contributor to the Australian business community and in November 2017 was appointed to the Federal Treasurer's Small Business Digitisation Taskforce which led to the federal Government to provide $37.3 million to support small business' adoption of digital tools and methods. In December 2018, Gerd was appointed chairman of Australian FinTech Credit Clear. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/financial-services/fintech-credit-clear-taps-ai-social-media-to-cut-cost-of-debt-collection/news-story/3d04e39d2c951ad949f122d26ebb3e5c
