Lessons from Vitesse, a payments powerhouse

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Vitesse is on a mission to become the payment partner of choice for the insurance market by providing global payment services and treasury optimisation. Milly Richardson, Vitesse’s Chief People Officer, discusses the secret sauce that gave the company its competitive edge, despite a tough tech climate. 

“I joined Vitesse in March 2022, shortly after we closed a $26m Series B fundraise. Despite being established in 2014 by proven fintech entrepreneurs, it lacked a strong employer brand — I often say Vitesse is the best fintech you’ve never heard of! What drew me in was the unique atmosphere, distinct from the myriad payments and fintech businesses I was familiar with.

While Vitesse has grown slowly and lacks ‘bliztscaling’ or ‘hypergrowth’ stories, the deliberate and measured growth strategy in the first 12 months of my role was crucial. Operating under the radar allowed us to focus on building a strong and stable organisation, a key factor in our subsequent success.

We used the funding to strategically upgrade our business, hiring an experienced executive team and promoting internal talent to more senior roles. Our approach also included backfilling with qualified contributors, enhancing systems, technology and processes in tandem with the rising transaction volumes and our growing reputation.”

“Amidst the current wave of HR trends, we resisted the temptation to follow the crowd. In my opinion, doing so will only distract you from being the best version of your business. Instead, we stuck to the basics, listened to what truly mattered to our people and invested time and money into things we knew would positively impact Vitesse and its employees.”

“We built our employee experience offering around key career milestones, upgraded our benefits, office space and aligned team expansion with business needs. We didn’t do anything particularly groundbreaking, but every decision was considered, tailored to our unique culture and based on regular employee feedback via surveys and focus groups.

As we embark upon our US expansion, we’re adopting a similar approach — starting small and building a robust foundation that we hope will set us up for success. We want to maintain the unique Vitesse feel while considering local cultural nuances. The team is leveraging our decade-long experience to replicate our UK business in a significantly larger addressable market.”