Anthony
Wollenberg, a non-executive director and founder shareholder at eToro’s UK branch,
has stepped down from the board, ending a tenure that stretched back more than
14 years to the company’s earliest years in Britain. His departure, recorded
via Companies House filings, removes one of the last remaining links to the
founding-era leadership of the FCA-regulated UK subsidiary.
Wollenberg,
a 76-year-old London-based solicitor, was formally appointed to the eToro UK
board on March 2, 2012, at a time when the social trading platform was still a
niche player with ambitions far exceeding its then-modest UK presence. What
followed was one of the longest continuous board tenures at the UK entity.
A Founder Shareholder, Not
Just a Board Name
His role
was never operational in the traditional executive sense, but Wollenberg’s
presence on the eToro UK board carried weight that went beyond the typical
non-executive appointment. He was a founder shareholder of eToro Group
Limited, meaning he had a personal stake in the company’s success long before
it became a household name in retail trading.
That status
became relevant again in recent years. When Wollenberg joined the board of
ADVFN Plc, the London-listed financial data platform, in April 2022, his ADVFN
appointment documentation specifically cited his eToro founder shareholder role
as a key credential, at a moment when eToro’s planned Nasdaq listing was
beginning to attract serious Wall Street attention.
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He left the
ADVFN board in January 2025. Prior to that, he had also served as a director at
IFX Group, the forex broker, giving him a career-spanning view of retail
trading long before the term “fintech” became fashionable.
From Law Firms to FCA
Boardrooms
But Wollenberg
built his reputation in law, not finance. Though the two have been difficult to
separate throughout his career. He founded the law firm Rakisons, which later
merged with Steptoe & Johnson, the US firm with a strong transatlantic
financial services practice. He also held senior roles at Dentons and Salans,
two of the world’s largest law firm networks, and served as an arbitrator at
the London Court of International Arbitration.
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His legal
specialty – securities, derivatives, gaming law, and financial fraud
prosecution – made him a natural fit for a fast-growing FCA-regulated trading
platform navigating a complex regulatory environment. Since 2019, Wollenberg
has operated as an independent freelance solicitor, continuing to advise in
those same areas.
He also
holds a personal management license from the UK Gambling Commission and is a
founding member of the International Association of Gaming Attorneys,
reflecting a career that has consistently bridged financial services and gaming
regulation.
Board Turnover at eToro UK
Accelerates
Wollenberg
is not the first long-serving board member to exit the eToro UK entity in
recent years. Shalom Berkovitz, who spent seven years on the board, left when he
retired, while
hedge fund veteran Lord Stanley Fink joined as a
non-executive director in March 2021, bringing a distinctly different institutional
profile to the board.
Daniel
Moczulski, who leads eToro’s UK commercial operations, has become one of the
more visible faces of the company’s British business in recent years, discussing
market trends and investor sentiment with increasing regularity.
eToro’s Turbulent Post-IPO
Period
Wollenberg’s
exit lands at a difficult stretch for the company he helped build from its
earliest UK days. eToro completed its
long-awaited Nasdaq IPO in May 2025, pricing shares at $67 under the ETOR ticker
in what was one of the most anticipated fintech listings of the year.
The debut
was strong, shares soared nearly 40% on their first day. Since then, however,
the stock has lost close to half its value, even as the company reported
record full-year revenues for 2025.
In January
2026, the company confirmed it was cutting
approximately 7% of its global workforce, with CEO Yoni Assia writing to staff that the
firm had taken “the difficult decision to reduce our global
headcount.” Artificial intelligence was cited as a partial driver of the
restructuring, a framing shared by other brokers undergoing similar cuts at the
time, as AI
increasingly features in broker layoff justifications across the industry.
Wollenberg’s
resignation leaves eToro UK without one of its most legally experienced board
members, and one of the few remaining individuals who was there when the UK
entity was first taking shape.
This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.
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