Board-level judgement for scaling companies.
Support for growth-stage technology companies navigating strategy, governance, capital, distribution and international expansion.
Paul Christensen
Helping ambitious technology businesses scale into trusted companies.
Chair, advisor, founder, lecturer and author with 25+ years' experience across fintech, AI, market infrastructure and regulated markets.
What I do
Four connected lanes.
Commercial architecture for founders.
Hands-on strategic support on enterprise go-to-market, partnerships, fundraising, AI strategy and hard scaling decisions.
Fintech strategy and executive education.
Course Director for Fintech Strategy: A Playbook from the Experts at London Business School, combining academic rigour with practitioner experience.
Ideas that travel.
Author and speaker on fintech, AI, distribution, innovation, climate and the practical work of turning good ideas into scaled institutions.
Purpose
Good people. Good ideas. Further.
The common thread in Paul's work is helping ambitious founders, boards and institutions turn strong ideas into adopted, trusted and useful businesses.
That belief is practical rather than sentimental: innovation only matters when it reaches people, earns trust, finds distribution and scales responsibly. Paul believes innovation and startups can be a force for good when they widen access, improve outcomes and correct for the economic rents that incumbents enjoy.
Proof points
Previse
Co-founder and Exec Chair of an AI-driven B2B payments company whose technology has been licensed to global financial institutions.
Goldman Sachs
Former Global Co-Head of Fintech and Strategic Investments, managing a $1bn portfolio of 55 investments.
Board experience
Board roles across market infrastructure and technology companies including IHS Markit and Tradeweb.
London Business School
Course Director and long-standing contributor in fintech strategy and executive education.
Innovation gets attention, but distribution wins markets.Core thesis from How Fintech Founders Win, forthcoming from Bloomsbury.
Forthcoming book
How Fintech Founders Win
Eight startups. Six continents. One framework.
Co-authored with Gary Dushnitsky of London Business School and published by Bloomsbury in November 2026, the book goes inside eight category-defining fintech companies to show how the best founders turn innovation into impact.
A rare and genuinely global look at how the best fintech founders build category-defining companies.
James P. Gorman, Chairman Emeritus of Morgan Stanley; Chairman of the Walt Disney Company
Current roles
A focused set of roles across governance, venture and academia.
Paul's current work spans Chair and board roles, founder advisory, venture support and academic work, centred on helping ambitious technology and fintech businesses scale with trust.
- Airwallex UKIndependent Non-Executive Director
Global payments and financial platform for businesses operating across borders.
- OtalaChair
FCA-regulated structured-products and investment-technology business.
- DoconomyIndependent Non-Executive Director
Impact-tech company helping banks give customers tools for climate action and financial wellbeing.
- FleetGuruChair
AI-powered fleet-maintenance platform streamlining bookings, approvals and payments for fleet operators.
- AntlerVenture Partner
Global early-stage venture-capital firm backing founders from inception.
Current focus
Where the work fits.
Paul works where the problem is substantial, the people are serious, and his mix of founder empathy, investor pattern recognition, board experience and teaching clarity can materially help.
That typically means growth-stage technology companies, financial institutions, investors, universities and leadership teams facing the same underlying question: how does a good idea get further into the world without losing trust, focus or quality?