Klarna Names Robinhood VP Chris Koegel as Chief Financial Officer

Klarna named Chris Koegel, a vice president at Robinhood, as chief financial officer on November 12, 2026, with the appointment taking effect on January 1, 2027, subject to regulatory approval. He takes over a company whose Klarna card base and credit book are both growing fast.

Koegel succeeds Niclas Neglén, who stays in the role until the end of 2026, Klarna said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The release gives no reason for Neglén’s departure. Klarna said in August that Neglén and chief marketing officer David Sandström would leave in early 2027, and that it wanted a finance chief based in the United States.

The hire matters to finance teams because Klarna is now a listed lender as much as a payments brand. Its second-quarter profit was $9 million on $1.04 billion of revenue, a margin thin enough that credit performance and spending decisions will set the result. The new CFO inherits a full-year volume forecast that was cut in August and a third quarter the company has already described as an investment period.

Klarna names a new CFO from Robinhood

Koegel is vice president and head of corporate finance and investor relations at Robinhood Markets, where he has worked since 2022 and sits on the leadership team. Klarna’s release says Robinhood’s valuation grew from under $10 billion to more than $100 billion during his tenure.

Before Robinhood he was head of investor relations at LPL Financial from 2015 to 2022. He spent 13 years at Bain & Company before that. He holds a mathematics degree from Williams College and an MBA from Dartmouth College, and is based in the Boston area.

The profile is that of an investor-facing finance executive rather than a controller or treasurer. Most of his recent career has been spent explaining a listed consumer fintech to shareholders.

Klarna’s co-founder and chief executive Sebastian Siemiatkowski said Koegel’s “experience as a Finance leader at a US-listed consumer fintech business” would be valuable for the company’s next phase of growth. Koegel said Klarna had built a large-scale global network that customers love.

Klarna credit card growth and losses at 0.52%

The Klarna Card is the product that most changes the credit picture. Active users reached 6.5 million across 16 countries in the second quarter, up from 1.3 million a year earlier, while credit loss provisions fell to 0.52% of gross merchandise volume from 0.56%.

That ratio is the figure a CFO answers for. Klarna lends to consumers on short terms, so provisions are taken against volume as it is written, and a small move in the rate shifts quarterly profit by tens of millions of dollars.

Gross merchandise volume was $36.6 billion in the quarter, up 18%. Active consumers reached 120 million, and revenue per active consumer rose 24%. Klarna Memberships had 2 million paying subscribers.

Finance teams that reconcile card spend will recognise the shift. A card tied to a credit line produces more transactions to match and more exposure to monitor than a pay-later checkout. Firms writing their own credit control policy face a smaller version of the same trade-off between approval rates and bad debt. The mechanics of credit control are the same at any scale, even where the balance sheet is not.

Klarna credit card profit and a lowered outlook

Klarna reported net income of $9 million for the second quarter, against a loss of $53 million a year earlier. Operating income was $27 million, compared with a $46 million loss.

Adjusted operating income rose 214% to $91 million. Transaction margin dollars, which are revenue less transaction costs including credit losses, rose 42% to $446 million, or 42.8% of revenue.

The profit swing came with a lower forecast. Klarna cut its full-year volume guidance to between $149 billion and $151 billion, from more than $155 billion. It cited about $600 million of currency effects and a more cautious view of Germany.

It raised full-year transaction margin dollars to between $1.62 billion and $1.65 billion. Adjusted operating income is expected to be between $280 million and $300 million for the year.

The gap between those two revisions is the case for a finance chief with investor relations experience. Klarna is telling the market it will write less volume at a better margin, and it needs shareholders to accept that trade.

Why the Klarna card investment quarter matters

The third quarter is guided to be weaker. Klarna expects volume of $35 billion to $36 billion, revenue of $940 million to $980 million and adjusted operating income of only $5 million to $15 million.

Management has said spending on payment-platform and card launches will precede the volume those launches generate. Adjusted operating income is therefore expected to fall from $91 million in the second quarter.

The comparison with last year is still favourable. Klarna posted a net loss of $95 million on revenue of $903 million in the third quarter of 2025, its first report after its September 2025 listing. Revenue guidance for this quarter implies growth of between 4% and 9% on that figure, well below the 27% of the second quarter.

That slower pace is the number Koegel will be asked about first. He will take over the investor relations conversation at a point where growth is slowing by design and profit depends on credit losses staying near 0.5% of volume.

Teams that run card programmes of their own face a related problem on the receipts side. Tools such as Extend’s AI receipt matching for card transactions exist because card volume produces reconciliation work faster than finance teams can clear it.

What comes next for Klarna’s finance team

Klarna will report third-quarter results on Tuesday, November 17, 2026, before the US market opens, with a webcast at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. Neglén will present them as CFO, and the results will show whether adjusted operating income lands inside the $5 million to $15 million range.

Koegel’s start date is January 1, 2027, so the first full-year results of his tenure will cover a year he did not manage. His first quarter of reporting will be the one that follows the investment period, when Klarna has to show the card launches are producing volume at 0.52% credit losses or better.