Ex-bankers poised to make fortunes at Deliveroo as more quit for start-ups

It's not just U.S. start-ups like Airbnb and Doordash that are making multi-millionaires out of former bankers. There are plenty of ex-banking types at Deliveroo, the London-based food delivery company too. As the company prepares for what's likely to be the City of London's biggest flotation of 2021, worth £5bn ($6.8bn), the bankers who left for Deliveroo stand to earn many years' bonuses at once. 

Who are they? There's Patrick Chen, a former Morgan Stanley pharmaceuticals researcher, who joined Deliveroo in August 2019 and is a senior corporate strategist. There's also: Alexander Cornish, a finance and strategy manager who was a Deutsche Bank TMT junior in a former existence; there's Abel Chernet, a former Goldman healthcare associate; there's Winston Wang, a data scientist who came from KPMG; there's Gavin Weiss, the finance and strategy director who was a former healthcare researcher at JPMorgan and UBS; or there's Juan Diego Farah, who was once a member of Goldman Sachs' EMEA industrials group.

When they and Deliveroo's other ex-bankers cash-in, it may prompt a new round of soul-searching among junior finance types questioning their choices in life. It may also prompt a new round of banking juniors to quit finance for start-ups of their very own. 

Some of this is already happening, with a twist. In the midst of the pandemic, junior bankers appear to be quitting for more socially-oriented start-ups than was once the case. Matt Dabell, a vice president in Goldman's technology team has departed to start socialsupermarket, a site to aggregate purchasing from social enterprises that aims to be a "force for good." Similarly, Julian Molitor, a former Frankfurt corporate finance intern at Roland Berger and senior associate at Strategy& in Frankfurt, recently founded FetoLife, an app to help pregnant women access healthcare. 

"I am extremely grateful for my time in banking and also in consulting. I had very inspiring and motivating colleagues, and I think it was the perfect "school" to learn the required skills," says Molitor. "I can only recommend every graduate start their career in banking or consulting." 

Starting a career in banking and consulting has long been students' preferred option. The real issue is whether banks can keep juniors as their careers progress. Deliveroo's success may make this even more of a challenge. 

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