Coding school Cypher has appointed the Commercial Finance Director at Monzo as CFO.
After Caroline Viles joined the EdTech – founded by Elizabeth Tweedale – 80% of its leadership team are now female.
Viles was the third finance hire at renowned FinTech Monzo and part of the Money D&I committee, pushing for greater representation at senior levels and transparent and inclusive hiring practices.
After three and a half years, she will now be using her experience to help with Cypher’s digital growth and global expansion plans.
At Cypher, Viles will build on the company’s vision of driving diversity and equality in tech by educating children and challenging the perception of coding by encouraging girls into technology.
In the newly created role, Viles will be working with the leadership team across operations, insights and growth from a financial perspective. This will include building the foundations of an efficient finance team, generating business performance insights to hone the expansion strategy, fundraising and developing new offerings.
“Within my role on the D&I Committee at Monzo, we were responsible for driving diversity and inclusion across the entire business and this is a passion I want to bring to Cypher as it tackles the deep-rooted issue of diversity within coding and STEM at its core, rather than simply curing the symptoms,” said Viles.
“Cypher provides inclusive opportunities for children to learn skills that will be essential for their future working lives, as well as teaching them to think critically from a young age, and I’m delighted to be helping the business take this mission to the next level.”
Tweedale said: “Caroline is joining Cypher at an exciting time for the business as we’re looking to scale and expand into new territories following the successful pivot to Live Online classes in the pandemic.
“Caroline’s years of experience at Monzo, helping to build the business from the very beginning, will be invaluable to Cypher as we are looking to expand and raise additional funds.
“We’re delighted to have her join the team and she will play a key role in delivering our mission as we prepare the next generation for the future workforce.”
With the pandemic driving a digital change, Cypher pivoted its business model within days of the first lockdown, accelerating plans for the new product line of Live Online classes.
Over the last year, its team of 65 teachers and employees have taught over 2,000 children via the online platform.