Proactive Investors - Kristo Käärmann, boss and co-founder of fintech money transfer disruptor Wise PLC (LON:WISEa), has announced that he will take a three-month sabbatical later this year to spend time with his family following the birth of his second son.
“When I first started the company 12 years ago, it would have been unimaginable for me to take any time away from the team and our customers, Käärmann said in a blog post.
He continued: “In fact, I remember clearly the first time I was able to completely switch off since starting Wise was in December 2014, when I took Christmas off to go on our honeymoon.
“I feel lucky to have this opportunity 一 and this is thanks to my team, who have worked alongside me for a long time.”
Wise, which went public in 2021 in London’s largest-ever tech listing at an £8bn valuation, will be run by chief technology officer Harsh Sinha in his absence.
For non-executive employees, paternity leave remains an exception to the rule.
Statutory paternity pay for eligible employees in the UK is either £172.48 a week or 90% of their average weekly earnings (whichever is lower), for two weeks.
The BBC reported in 2021 that some workplaces have an “unspoken rule” that fathers should not take full paternity leave, citing “fears of being discriminated against professionally, missing out on pay rises and promotions, being marginalised or even mocked as reasons for not taking time off”.