Maurizio Poletto, Managing Director George Labs, Erste Group Bank AG  

Maurizio earned his spurs in the ‘motherland of design’, Italy. Ending up in Vienna in 1996, he helped to shape some of the leading brands in the region such as BMW, Procter & Gamble, Deutsche Bank and Red Bull.

In 2012 Maurizio was approached by Erste Group Bank with the ultimate task: to build the group’s own fintech, which would transform the bank from the inside. George Labs was born as an internal ‘creativity lab’ aiming to breed a culture of experimentation and challenge conservative banking mindsets from the inside-out. George, the lab’s brainchild, is now a pan-European banking platform with more than 5 million users across 4 markets.

Designed to uncomplicate money across generations, George was designated a true “Master in Openness” (Innopay’s Open Banking Monitor), “Europe’s best online banking” (Süddeutsche Zeitung) and “possibly the most transformational  development of the last few years in CEE” (Euromoney).