In August, Tracy Abraham joined the Mondo team as Chief Marketing Officer. In the second of our series of interviews with the team, I chatted to her about Ali G, AirBnB and Amsterdam.
Can you tell us a bit about your work here?
I’m responsible for making sure that the world knows about Mondo. Day to day that involves juggling a variety of tasks – in the last week I’ve hit the streets to road-test our new logo, arranged demos for journalists and bloggers, and prepared for launch of our alpha preview. Luckily everyone I speak to is hugely excited about Mondo which makes my job a great deal easier.
What drew you to join Mondo?
I always describe Mondo as the most audacious idea imaginable. So many startups these days describe themselves as “the Uber for x” or “the AirBnB for y” (in fact I recently heard about a startup pitching themselves as “the AirBnB for AirBnb!”) but Mondo doesn’t need to use those type of analogies. It’s a bank. Everyone understands the concept, everyone needs one, and there is immense dissatisfaction with what is currently being offered. It is the most simple and yet most complex proposition there could possibly be. We’re taking on some of the biggest and oldest institutions in the country, our ambition is vast, our energy boundless, and the early versions of the app make customers reconsider their preconceptions and say “wow – of course banking should be this way.” What could be more exciting?
What were you doing before you joined the wonderful Team Mondo?
I’ve had a very diverse background. It includes launching Ali G, Sex and the City, Channel 5, MSN Messenger, and Channel 4’s 4oD; running one of the UK’s oldest newspapers; and most recently launching a cookery school and reviews website for Good Housekeeping Magazine.
What do you do when you’re not telling people about Mondo?
Being a mum to 5- and 6-year-old sons keeps me pretty busy! When I’m not organising birthday parties for 45 children or going on trips to the London Transport Museum, I enjoy photography, making books, and blogging about the best places to eat in Amsterdam (being married to an Amsterdammer means I’m lucky enough to spend a fair bit of time there). That said, the question was what do you do when you’re NOT telling people about Mondo and I find myself telling people about Mondo on most of those occasions as well!
What’s your favourite Mondo feature?
I’ve become somewhat obsessed with the “freeze card” feature. Every time I demo it to people, it makes them question why banking has always worked a certain way and creates a lightbulb moment when they realise that it can be better.
What does the future hold for Mondo?
Here at Mondo we talk about features which are “wow now” and features we are developing which will be “future wows”. We have an unofficial “badass ideas” list with hundreds of mindblowing suggestions and seeing just a fraction of these come to light will make for an incredibly exciting next few months.
We recently updated our name to Monzo! Read more about it here.