FINN taps e-commerce veteran Schmidt as CEO after €300M unicorn run
What's the deal? FINN, Germany's leading car subscription provider, has appointed Patrick Oliver Schmidt as its new chief executive officer. He takes the role on November 1, 2026, from co-founder Maximilian Wühr, who led the Munich company as CEO since May 2023.
Who's coming in? Schmidt has run e-commerce companies as CEO for more than a decade. He built up THE ICONIC, Australia's leading online fashion retailer, later served as co-CEO of Global Fashion Group, and was most recently CEO of Sunday NaturalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
What changes for Wühr? The co-founder, who started FINN in 2019, will keep his seat on the advisory board and stay on as a strategic advisor. He and the board selected Schmidt together.
“I am very sure that Patrick is the ideal match for FINN for the next phase,” Wühr said (translated from German). “He has already shown several times how to take digital companies to the next level.”
Why now? The handover follows a strong growth stretch. FINN reports more than 50,000 active subscriptions in Germany and over €300 million in annual recurring revenue, growing at more than 60% a year.
In June 2026, the company closed a Series D — one of the largest mobility-sector rounds — and reached unicorn status.
What's the endgame? Schmidt's brief is to scale FINN into Europe's leading mobility platform. “Now it's about building on that and, together with the team, scaling FINN,” he said (translated from German), adding that his first weeks will focus on “listening” to employees, customers, and partners.
Not a one-off. The appointment caps a wider leadership build-out. In 2025, FINN brought in Fabian Siegel as chairman and Frank Lindenberg to the advisory board, followed by Florian Drabeck as chief financial officer in October 2025. Jürgen Lobach remains chief fleet officer.
The signal: Swapping a founder-CEO for an operator with a track record of scaling consumer platforms marks FINN's shift from startup to scaleup. It signals the subscription model is maturing into a bid for pan-European reach.
Read more: finn.com
Image credit: yonkershonda
