ElevenLabs has signed former Adyen chief financial officer Ethan Tandowsky to serve as the voice AI company’s new CFO, the firm announced Tuesday.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Tandowsky officially stepped down from Adyen on August 31 after informing the Amsterdam-listed payments giant in late May that he would leave to pursue an opportunity outside fintech. Adyen subsequently named SVP of group finance Hwa Tsao as interim CFO while beginning a search for a permanent replacement.
Tandowsky joined Adyen’s finance team in 2016, helped take the company public in 2018, and was elevated to CFO in 2023. During his tenure, Adyen grew from roughly 400 employees to 5,000, expanded into new international markets, and increased revenue 20x. That track record — public-company CFO experience plus a decade inside a high-growth infrastructure business — is the profile ElevenLabs was targeting as its own operation gets more complicated.
ElevenLabs is now a global team of 800, serving millions of developers, creators, and businesses. Its voice and audio models support more than 90 languages and have powered 10 million conversational agents across sales, support, hiring, training, and other product surfaces. Large organizations now account for 55% of revenue, up from 40% a year ago, with named customers including Nvidia, Stripe, Klarna, Deutsche Telekom, and governments from Brazil to Ukraine. The company is also building a marketplace for creators to monetize voice IP.
The club has been adding front-office pieces at a rapid clip. Last week it hired former OpenAI VP of enterprise sales Ashley Kramer as its first chief revenue officer, a move that tracked with the same enterprise-revenue inflection. ElevenLabs closed a $500 million Series D at an $11 billion valuation in February, later crossed $500 million ARR, and has been linked to secondary/tender-offer talks in the $22 billion range. Adding a public-company CFO is the next logical roster move if the organization is preparing for a still-larger financial footprint.
“ElevenLabs has the research depth and customer demand to meaningfully improve how people interact day-to-day with AI,” Tandowsky said. “My focus is to drive investment and build the financial foundation that allows the company to seize the significant opportunity ahead. I’m excited by the opportunity to work with this incredible team to further scale ElevenLabs globally, and deliver AI that feels native and authentic in every context.”
CEO and cofounder Mati Staniszewski framed the signing in similar terms: “ElevenLabs started as an audio research lab and we now have a broad platform for businesses deploying AI that interacts naturally with people. Ethan brings a strong track record of scaling financial operations in high-growth environments, and valuable experience as CFO of a public company. I look forward to working with him to solve human-AI interaction for more businesses around the world.”
From a front-office standpoint, this is a win-now, win-later acquisition. ElevenLabs already has product momentum and enterprise demand; what it needed was someone who has sat in the chair while a company scaled headcount by an order of magnitude, listed, and professionalized finance. Tandowsky’s mandate is to build that infrastructure and help decide how aggressively the company invests in research, product, and geographic expansion.
No corresponding move was announced on the Adyen side beyond the previously disclosed interim arrangement. Tandowsky is expected to begin immediately.