Ethan Tandowsky Joins ElevenLabs as CFO After Adyen Exit
Former Adyen CFO Ethan Tandowsky joins ElevenLabs to scale financial operations and support global expansion in AI-driven voice technology.
Ethan Tandowsky, the former Chief Financial Officer of Adyen, has joined ElevenLabs as CFO, the company announced on September 8, 2026. Tandowsky will focus on scaling ElevenLabs’ financial infrastructure, investing in research, and driving global expansion for the voice and audio AI firm.
During his tenure at Adyen, Tandowsky played a pivotal role in the payments giant’s rapid growth. He joined the Amsterdam-listed company in 2016 as a financial controller, eventually becoming CFO in 2023. Under his financial leadership, Adyen expanded from a 400-person operation to a global workforce of 5,000 and grew its revenue twentyfold. Notably, Tandowsky oversaw Adyen’s IPO in 2018, cementing its position as a key player in payments infrastructure.
ElevenLabs, known for its industry-leading voice and audio AI models, is entering a critical period of growth. The company, which now employs 800 people worldwide, serves millions of developers, creators, and enterprises. Its AI technology supports over 90 languages and powers 10 million conversational agents across sectors like sales, customer support, and training. Major clients include Nvidia, Stripe, Klarna, and Deutsche Telekom, with large organizations now accounting for 55% of its revenue, up from 40% a year ago.
Tandowsky expressed his enthusiasm for the new role, highlighting the transformative potential of ElevenLabs’ technology. “ElevenLabs has the research depth and customer demand to meaningfully improve how people interact day-to-day with AI,” he said. “My focus is to drive investment and build the financial foundation that allows the company to seize the significant opportunity ahead.”
CEO Mati Staniszewski welcomed Tandowsky, emphasizing his track record of scaling financial operations in high-growth environments. “Ethan brings valuable experience as CFO of a public company and a strong ability to navigate complex financial landscapes,” Staniszewski noted.
Tandowsky’s move comes just weeks after departing Adyen, where he stepped down as CFO on August 31, 2026, to pursue opportunities outside the fintech sector. His appointment underscores ElevenLabs’ ambitions to solidify its position as a leader in AI-driven voice technology while expanding its global reach.
With Tandowsky at the helm of its financial strategy, ElevenLabs is poised to accelerate investment in R&D and its marketplace for creators, which allows individuals to monetize their voice intellectual property. As enterprises increasingly adopt AI-driven tools, competition in this sector is intensifying, making the next phase of ElevenLabs’ growth one to watch.
Asanat Analysis — Why it matters
Tandowsky's departure from Adyen to lead ElevenLabs' financial operations signals a substantive bet on voice-AI commoditization. His résumé—IPO stewardship, 20x revenue scaling, 400-to-5,000 headcount expansion—maps directly onto ElevenLabs' trajectory: already 800-person firm with 10M agents deployed and enterprise revenue accelerating (40% to 55% mix in one year). This isn't a lateral move; it reflects confidence that voice-AI infrastructure reaches public-market inflection sooner than most infrastructure categories.
The hire carries structural implications for AI-native go-to-market. ElevenLabs' client roster (Nvidia, Stripe, Klarna, Deutsche Telekom) and polyglot reach (90+ languages) position it as a critical bottleneck in enterprise agent deployment. Tandowsky's mandate—R&D investment, creator marketplace scaling, global expansion—suggests ElevenLabs is preparing for either Series C/D capital rounds or pre-IPO financial infrastructure ahead of potential exit. His public-company experience indicates board-level confidence in an eventual liquidity event.
Contextually, this reflects the maturation phase of generative AI infrastructure. Payments (Adyen's domain) took 15+ years to professionalize and scale; voice-AI is compressing that timeline. Tandowsky's exit from fintech for AI reinforces sector rotation: enterprise infrastructure capital is flowing from late-stage payments optimization toward foundational AI layers. His arrival underscores that voice-synthesis has moved past research into operational scaling, where financial discipline and capital efficiency become competitive moats.