Scaling IT from 2,000 to 8,000 employees
Wise is a fast-growing fintech. During its growth period the headcount rose from 2,000 to 8,000 and new offices opened. Growth like that does not load IT linearly: every new person means an account, a device, access rights and support requests, and every new country brings its own requirements.
In this role Meiko Neuman was responsible for the internal IT function: devices, accounts, access, support and the security of internal services. The work fell into six broad areas: the employee lifecycle, identity and access management, the device fleet, the support model, vendor consolidation, and security and compliance. All of it had to be done without growing the IT team; the levers were automation and self-service, not hiring.
- ~€4 million saved in the first year
- The IT team stayed the same size while the company grew from 2,000 to 8,000 employees
- IT cost per employee fell 26% a year
Most of Meixit's clients will never grow to eight thousand people, but the same patterns (open access, undocumented processes, services that piled up by accident) exist in smaller companies too, only better hidden. That is why our IT management work always starts with mapping, and why IAM is often the first thing to put in order.