Klarna CFO Search Targets New York as Neglén Heads to Adyen

A finance chief exit with a forwarding address

Klarna is replacing its chief financial officer, and the company has said where it wants the next one to sit. On August 18, the buy-now-pay-later lender said that Niclas Neglén, its CFO for six years, and David Sandström, its chief marketing officer for nine years, would both leave in early 2027. The same announcement said the search for a New York-based CFO was already underway.14 Klarna said Neglén would keep running the finance organization and investor engagement through the handover, including in his role as a board member. It also stated that neither departure came from any disagreement over the company's operations, policies or practices.14

Within about five weeks, Neglén's next job was public. On September 22, Amsterdam-based payments processor Adyen named him its chief financial officer and a member of its management board, starting February 1, 2027.15 The appointment still needs shareholder approval at an extraordinary general meeting and sign-off from the Dutch Central Bank.5 Hwa Tsao, Adyen's interim CFO since Ethan Tandowsky left on August 31, will hold the post until Neglén arrives. He will then go back to leading finance operations as senior vice president of group finance.17 Klarna, meanwhile, had no update on its own search when asked.17

The location requirement says the most about where Klarna's leadership is headed. Everything else in the story points the same way.

Why the New York requirement matters

Klarna is still a Stockholm-headquartered company, but its shares trade only on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker KLAR.4 The listing came in September 2025, when shares were priced at $40 in an offering of more than 34 million shares, most of them sold by existing holders.4 Its corporate announcements, including the transition notice itself, now carry a New York dateline.14

The outgoing CFO, by contrast, has been based in London according to several professional directories.1315 His career ran through GE Capital, including CFO roles in the UK and Korea, and through HSBC's private bank in Europe.1620 That background suited a European fintech building a banking-grade finance function and preparing for a listing. Klarna's chief executive, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, said as much, crediting Neglén with building "the finance organization that took us public."14

A company that has finished its listing needs something different from its CFO. Fortune ran the story under the framing that a New York CFO is a message to Wall Street. Executive recruiter Cowen Partners, whose president Shawn Cole was quoted on the subject, describes the location choice the same way: a post-IPO signal to American investors.2 The reasoning is simple. US analysts, institutional holders and the sell-side desks that cover KLAR are concentrated in Manhattan. A finance chief who lives in that time zone and network can do the steady relationship work that a listed company relies on, especially one whose largest growth engine is the United States.

The numbers back up the US emphasis. In the second quarter of 2026, US gross merchandise volume grew 27%, compared with 18% for the company overall. US revenue rose 37% to $376 million.2122 US transaction margin dollars, the profitability measure Klarna focuses on, more than doubled to $88 million, and the region's margin went from 14% of revenue to 23% in a year.29 Management said its US volume assumptions were unchanged even as it cut the global outlook.22 For a CFO, being close to the business's fastest-growing market and close to its shareholders is the same goal.

The credibility problem the next CFO inherits

The timing makes this more than an office move. Klarna announced the CFO transition on the same day it reported second-quarter results. Payments Dive and several shareholder-litigation firms have both pointed to that overlap.1710 The quarter itself was strong. Revenue rose 27% to $1.042 billion, adjusted operating income more than tripled to $91 million, and the company swung to a $9 million net profit from a $53 million loss a year earlier.2125

The guidance cut overshadowed it. Klarna lowered its full-year GMV forecast to $149–151 billion from more than $155 billion. It cut revenue guidance to $4.08–4.16 billion from more than $4.34 billion, and the midpoint fell well below the roughly $4.42 billion analysts expected.2528 The company blamed weaker consumer spending in Germany, about $600 million of currency-translation pressure, and an accounting change that books certain Fair Financing loans at fair value.2529 The stock fell more than 19% that day, which several outlets called its worst one-day drop since the listing.2428

Coverage of the result agrees on the facts but splits on what they mean. One group stresses improving unit economics. Klarna raised its transaction-margin guidance to $1.62–1.65 billion and kept adjusted operating income guidance at $280–300 million. Management also argued that much of the revenue cut is a presentation change that understates the underlying business in the third and fourth quarters.2829 The other group focuses on trust. BMO Capital cut its price target to $15 from $19 and called the quarter another setback for management's credibility, adding that the explanation pinned on Germany was hard to reconcile.26 Goldman Sachs analyst Will Nance warned that the second-half volume reset would weigh on the shares and that the implied second-half margin could raise concerns.

The better reading is that both views are right, and the second matters more to the CFO search. Klarna's reported numbers are getting harder to read: revenue is being reclassified, loan books are being held for sale, and prior periods are not restated.29 That increases the value of a finance chief who can explain the accounting to US investors face to face, quarter after quarter. Some of the reporting even shows how confusing it has become. One widely circulated earnings-call transcript rendered dollar figures as Swedish kronor, while the company's own release reports in dollars.2122

The market has not given Klarna much benefit of the doubt. By the end of September the shares were around $12.39, about 72% below their 52-week high and a market value of roughly $4.7 billion.8 Payments Dive, citing Cantor Fitzgerald, put the decline since the IPO at close to 70%.17 Law firms have opened investigations into whether the company's disclosures misled investors. One firm specifically cited the lowered forecast and the executive departures announced together.10 These are investigations, not findings, but the next CFO will step into that environment. Siemiatkowski's purchase of about $10 million of shares in late August shows the CEO is willing to put his own money behind the turnaround.38

The Adyen side of the trade

Neglén's move to Adyen is also unusual. Cantor Fitzgerald's Ramsey El Assal called the long transition "somewhat unorthodox": Neglén will remain a top executive at a large fintech peer for about five months after his next employer has been named. El Assal still said the hire itself was unsurprising given Neglén's background in finance and payments.117 Adyen is in its own period of change. Tandowsky left for ElevenLabs, according to one report.19 Adyen also brought in a new head of North America and a new chief product officer this year and agreed to buy Orb for $335 million and Talon.One for €750 million.17

The CFO-focused publication The CFO reads the move as a finance leader going from a consumer balance sheet tied to credit cycles to a cash-generating enterprise platform.9 That is a plausible reading. It also suggests the skills Klarna needs next are not necessarily the ones Neglén was hired for. Building the plumbing for a regulated, multi-jurisdiction lender ahead of an IPO is one job. Defending a public valuation is another.

What to watch

Some background details are inconsistent across the coverage. Some profiles date Neglén's arrival at Klarna to 2020, while the company's own filings and board announcement say March 2021.1120 None of the reporting names candidates for the New York post, and Klarna has not given a timeline beyond "early 2027."1417

That leaves the important questions open. A long overlap between an outgoing CFO who has already accepted a job at a peer and a successor still being recruited could test the continuity Klarna has promised. Whoever is hired will be judged on how quickly they can restore guidance credibility in a market that sent the shares down by about a fifth on a quarter that beat estimates. Klarna has chosen New York for the role. Whether that rebuilds investor trust will depend on how reliable its guidance proves after the new CFO arrives.