Steffan Tomlinson joins Stripe as chief financial officer

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  • Steffan joins from Confluent, the data streaming pioneer, where he was chief financial officer.
  • Steffan’s experience scaling financial operations for high-growth companies will be instrumental as Stripe’s adoption increases among the world’s most innovative startups and largest enterprises.

SAN FRANCISCO—Stripe, a financial infrastructure platform for businesses, today announced that Steffan Tomlinson will join the company as chief financial officer.

Steffan has more than 25 years of experience in the finance industry, most notably with Confluent, Google Cloud, and Palo Alto Networks. His career spans seed-stage startups to Fortune 25 companies across the technology landscape, from cloud computing to security and networking. Steffan has a track record of scaling financial operations for high-growth companies like Confluent and Palo Alto Networks, which saw significant increases in customers, revenue, and margin during his tenure.

Today, more than 100 global players process more than $1 billion of revenue every year on Stripe, and Stripe products are used by many of the world’s largest companies including Amazon, Uber, BMW, Airbnb, Maersk, and Microsoft. At the same time, more than 5,000 new businesses—including innovative startups like Anthropic, Midjourney, and Runway—are going live on Stripe every week. Stripe’s product suite has expanded to match the breadth of its users, and now solves many payments-adjacent problems like marketplace management, card issuance, identity verification, bank account authentication, and lending.

“Developer- and product-led businesses have been at the heart of my career since the beginning, and I’ve long been struck by Stripe’s relentless focus on its users, and the enduring business this has created,” said Steffan. “I’m thrilled about the opportunity to scale Stripe’s financial operations as the company continues to meet the evolving needs of its users.”

“We’ve been fortunate to grow tremendously with our users over the years, and yet when you look at how many inefficiencies still exist in online commerce, it’s clear we’re just getting started. Steffan has a strong track record of optimizing the financial engines of high-growth and high-discipline organizations, and I’m looking forward to partnering with him as we help fuel the growth of our users in the years ahead,” said John Collison, cofounder and president of Stripe.

Outside of work, Steffan is passionate about educational access and supports Challenge Success, Peninsula Bridge, and The Girls' Middle School. He currently serves on the board of Eventbrite, and previously served on the boards of Cornerstone OnDemand, Qlik, and Riverbed.