Jessica Sparrfeldt on leaving banking to lead Flow & Partners
Tech.eu speaks to Jessica Sparrfeldt and 0TO9's Siduri Poli about why a senior banker leaves a corporate career to lead Flow & Partners.
Jessica Sparrfeldt
CEO of Flow & Partners
0TO9 — Building the next generation of European financial services.

I kept seeing the same problem: there's so much capital locked inside companies.
– Jessica Sparrfeldt, CEO of Flow & Partners, Tech.eu, March 2026
When Tech.eu reports on 24 March 2026 that Flow & Partners has emerged from stealth with Jessica Sparrfeldt as CEO, it pairs the announcement with a longer conversation about how she got there. Journalist Cate Lawrence speaks to Sparrfeldt and to Siduri Poli, Partner and CMO at 0TO9, about what persuades an experienced banker to leave a senior job for a company that was still an idea.
A problem she kept meeting in banking
Sparrfeldt spent two decades in senior banking roles in Sweden. Tech.eu lists Nordic Head of Business Finance at Avida Finans AB and Head of Business Banking at Northmill, followed by a senior position at PayEx, part of Swedbank. She tells Tech.eu that her move began with something she saw repeatedly in those jobs: "I kept seeing the same problem: there's so much capital locked inside companies."
Flow & Partners works on that problem. According to Tech.eu, it offers growth companies cash flow-based financing and factoring, releasing money tied up in receivables, inventory and payables.
The lunch that was cancelled twice
Poli had come to the same subject from the founder side. Lack of capital usually means fundraising through equity, she says, whereas working capital financing is "a third path: instead of just organic growth or external investment, you can finance your growth journey". She adds that this can apply even to companies that are not yet "bankable".
When Poli asked around for someone who could explain the field, one name kept coming back. She booked a lunch with Sparrfeldt, who cancelled, then cancelled again. Sparrfeldt says she had been stuck in internal meetings and had not spoken to a customer in months. When the lunch did happen, the conversation moved quickly to solutions, and by the end Poli had asked her to join. Sparrfeldt first offered to help as an adviser, but going back to her job no longer felt as attractive. "That was the tipping point," she says.
Lowering the cost of the leap
Sparrfeldt tells Tech.eu that building a regulated financial product from scratch takes years, and that a company might not reach its first customer for one to three years. "0TO9 removes that friction entirely. It allowed me to step out of a corporate role and start executing immediately."
Poli describes three barriers that keep senior executives from leaving a corporate career: financial risk, identity, and practical concerns such as family, time and lifestyle. Her answer is to address each one directly: "That might mean creating transition paths: part-time roles, reduced financial risk, structured onboarding." Of 0TO9's role, she says, "we create a platform that makes that leap safer."
What Flow & Partners plans next
As reported in March, Flow & Partners was operating in Sweden, Norway, Poland and Germany, with Spain and Italy planned for later in 2026. Sparrfeldt describes the longer-term aim as "a unified European liquidity layer, a single partner that can support companies operating across multiple countries." These are plans stated at the company's launch, not results.
Read the full conversation by Cate Lawrence in Tech.eu.
This summary was generated by AI and edited by 0TO9
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