Tyro appoints Robbie Cooke as Chief Executive Officer

Sydney, Australia, 23 January 2018 – Tyro, Australia’s fast-growing business bank, today announced the appointment of Robbie Cooke as its new CEO. It is expected that Robbie will join Tyro at the end of March 2018, upon conclusion of his current role with Tatts Group.

For the past five years, Robbie has held the position of Managing Director and CEO of Tatts Group, a role which concluded upon the successful merger with Tabcorp in December 2017. Prior to that, he served first as COO, and then as Managing Director and CEO, of Wotif.com over a seven-year period. During that time, Wotif.com scaled up significantly, achieved a circa five-fold increase in profits and undertook a successful ASX listing.

With his background and experience in Australian customer-centric and technology-driven businesses, the Board of Tyro considers Robbie the ideal person to lead the company through its next phase of growth and development.

Tyro’s Chairman, Kerry Roxburgh, said, “After conducting an exhaustive local and international search, the Board is delighted to announce Robbie’s appointment. We believe he possesses all the skills and experience to lead Tyro into a new and ground-breaking chapter.”

Robbie will succeed Acting Managing Director, Rob Ferguson, who since June last year has been instrumental in bringing together the highly talented executive team at Tyro.

In his role as CEO, Robbie will continue to drive Tyro’s strategy of providing frictionless banking and access to lending for Australia’s under-served Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Tyro’s highly developed in-house engineering capability places it at the forefront of banking and payment innovation. Tyro uses disruptive technology and agile methodologies to design innovative products together with a better payments and banking experience for its customers.

Tyro’s growth and achievements to date have been significant. Currently, Tyro serves more than 20,000 SMEs with its own in-house, cloud-based mobile core banking platform. In FY17, Tyro processed more than $10 billion in payment transactions generating $121 million in revenue, reflecting 26% growth, year on year. Over the past five years, Tyro’s Compound Annual Growth Rate is 34%. As the holder of an unrestricted Australian banking licence, Tyro has in excess of $100 million in capital and reserves.

Robbie Cooke said, “I am very excited to be joining the Tyro team and look forward to continuing Tyro’s unique focus on serving the banking needs of Australia’s small and medium businesses.”

“I believe Tyro is very well positioned with its proven track record and custom-built technology platform to better respond to the banking needs of Australia’s SMEs which are the backbone of our economy.”

“I am really looking forward to leading the Tyro team through the next exciting stage of its journey and building on its energetic and innovative spirit. As a business bank providing fair, transparent and smart banking solutions in a truly customer-centric way, we have a real opportunity to build on the successes Tyro has achieved to date,” he said.

About Tyro

Tyro is an Australian Bank and operates under the supervision of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA).

Tyro provides credit, debit and EFTPOS card acquiring, Medicare and private health fund claiming and rebating services as well as an interest bearing transaction and deposit account offering integration with Xero cloud accounting. Tyro takes money on deposit and offers unsecured cash-flow based lending to Australian EFTPOS merchants.

Tyro currently serves more than 20,000 SMEs with its own in-house, cloud-based mobile core banking platform.

For more information, visit www.tyro.com.

Need to know more?

For more about this news story please contact:
Monica Appleby, Head of Corporate Communications on 0466 598 946 or mappleby@tyro.com
Sophie Cotterill, Corporate Communications Manager on 0414 960 292 or scotterill@tyro.com