Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top Surrey based CEO’ operating in the Financial Services space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Rune Christensen
Founder & CEO of MakerDAO
Rune Christensen is Chief Executive Officer and Cofounder of MakerDAO. MakerDAO issues Dai, the world’s first stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain, that eliminates volatility through a system of smart contracts designed to respond to market dynamics. Since 2015, Christensen has focused on establishing the vision and organizational structure of the Maker Decentralized Autonomous Organization and the economic foundations of the Dai stable digital currency. Previously, he served as co-founder of Try China, a company providing international recruiting. He studied Biochemistry at the University of Copenhagen and studied International Business at the Copenhagen Business School.
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About MakerDAO: Maker is a decentralized autonomous organization on the Ethereum blockchain.
Neil McEvoy
Chief Executive Officer of Consult Hyperion
Neil is a founding Director of Consult Hyperion. He specialises in security for financial transactions and smart identity cards. He is the inventor of Consult Hyperion’s Structured Risk Analysis method. Every working day, hundreds of billion of pounds of financial transactions are settled through secure networks that Neil has specified and procured. Millions of citizens carry smart identity cards that he has specified. Neil’s expertise has been provided to clients as diverse as the Bank of England , the Hong Kong government, American Express and the European Space Agency. Prior to founding Consult Hyperion, Neil worked as a consultant specialising in the transmission of scientific data from spacecraft, network management and cryptography. He graduated in 1980 from University College, Oxford in chemistry. Neil is the author of papers on several topics, most recently on information risk analysis, secure transactions and identity cards.
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About Consult Hyperion: Consult Hyperion is an independent strategic and technical consultancy.
Edward Siciliano
Founder and CEO of Legion Finance Trade Limited
Edward Siciliano is the founder and CEO of Legion Finance Trade Limited. He brings a variety of experiences to the company, having served as a group board of Director at the London Stock Exchange, in-house board of trustees in the Cairo Governorate. His experience is also enhanced by his work as a Trade Advisor at the Federal Trade Commission in the United States in the 80’s. Edward has been serving the financial sector for more than 30 years. In the corporate world, Edward was the Chief Regulatory Officer of the London Stock Exchange, Inc. (“LSC”), from November, 2013 until November 31, 2015, Board of Trustee member at Rise Egypt (from 2009 until 2012), the Managing director of MC Egypt, 2001 (until his retirement from the group in 2012), and the Managing Director of the British Petroleum(BP) from 1996 until 2001. He was also a Senior Trade Advisor at the Federal Trade Commission in the United States from 1985 until 1995. Edward’s experience in the corporate world involves interaction with the senior officers of the corporation and its Boards of Directors. While at LSC, he reported directly to the Board of Directors and its Regulatory Oversight Committee. While at Federal Trade Commission (FTC), he interacted with the Board of Directors for the parent organisation and for its subsidiaries. Substantively, Edward’s corporate roles empowered him with primary executive responsibilities for the design and implementation of the regulatory and operational functions of various corporations, including the drafting of rules for approval by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and ensuring that the corporation’s members and the corporation was operating in conformity with the rules of the corporation (from both a legal and an internal audit standpoint) and the associated state laws. Edward was also responsible for securities matters involving developing new products (and their disclosures) with securities and options exchanges, creating rule filings and policy issues with the SEC; commodity futures matters involving the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”); margin questions involving the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the SEC and the CFTC; liquidation matters involving the Securities Investor Protection Corporation; blue sky matters involving state securities commissioners; international market linkages involving various regulators in Canada, Hong Kong, England, and the Netherlands; international matters involving advising foreign markets and licensing agreements in Germany, France, Korea, Sweden and Switzerland; banking matters involving lines of credit, settlement procedures, and letters of credit; litigation matters prosecuting disciplinary matters, defending class actions, arbitration proceedings and administrative proceedings; and general corporate matters involving personnel issues, benefits issues, real estate matters, and issues involving the Board of Directors. Edward also helped LSC obtain its initial AAA rating from Standard and Poor’s credit reporting agency. Finally, Edward was one of the principal authors and editor of the options disclosure document entitled Characteristics and Risks of Standardized Options, which is required to be distributed to all traders of standardized options traded in the United States. Edward has obtained the General Securities Representative (Series 7), General Securities Principal (Series 24), Uniform Securities Agent State Law (Series 63) and Operations Professional (Series 99) certifications. Edward was also his corporation’s representative on a number of regulatory and industry committees. While in private practice, first as a partner with the Allen Helma Investor’s Group (2000-2003) and then as special advisor to the Pattensac investors counsel (2003-2004), Edward helped a client become the second market to be approved by the CFTC as a designated contract market for security futures and another client become one of the ten entities recognized as an Electronic Communications Network (“ECN”) by the SEC. Edward drafted rules for a market to become an options exchange and also helped other clients develop hedging programs, utilizing various ISDA SWAP contracts. Edward counseled self-regulatory organizations, broker-dealers, investment advisors, hedge funds, futures commission merchants and others in the financial services industry in regulatory matters before the LSC and FTC. Commissioners, self-regulatory organizations and other regulators. Edward also contributed in securities matters before industry arbitrators and the federal court. Prior to Establishing Legion Finance Trade Limited(LFTL), Edward served at the in-house Regional Office of the Securities and Exchange Commission bringing matters involving, inter alia, insider trading, misrepresentation and fraudulent sales practices, offers and sales of unregistered securities, recidivist actions of a corporate president and accounting irregularities of a public company. Edward was recognised as a prestigious Business Director by the Stanford University Graduate School of Business in 1999. Edward obtained his Bachelor’s Degree at the University of Pennsylvania measured in Activities and Societies for the daily Pennyslvania Penn Student Agencies in 1978. Prior to obtaining his Bachelor’s degree, Edward moved to getting his MBA, at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, measuring in Business Administration and Management General in 1983. Edward also obtained a DBA at the Harvard University, Business Administration in 1996. In the religious world, Edward belongs to the Jewish society, working in the Jewish family and was nominated as a board member for the Society of Jewish Investors, his position has helped him in connecting top investors and Billionaires to work together in providing financing for global project financing. Edward was also given Honors and Awards by the UK Business Angel Association (UKBAA), which he is also a member of the Association. As premier icon in project finance industry, Edward’s Company Legion Finance Trade Limited was awarded the premier independent financial service provider by the Project Finance International (PFI) in 2016. Edward was born on June 15, 1953, the first of there siblings. His parents Aisha and Frank are Jewish Immigrants who fled from Egypt in the late 20’s. Edward lives with his family in the heart of Peterborough, United Kingdom.
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About Legion Finance Trade Limited: We are private limited company whose aim is to provide expert financial service to clients in areas of Project Financing and Loan Funding
Aamar Aslam
CEO of Funding Invoice
Aamar co-founded Funding Invoice after graduating from the University of Warwick in 2015. He is responsible for guiding and implementing the strategic vision of the company. Having suffered from cash flow issues in previous ventures, Aamar came up with the idea for Funding Invoice during his second year of university. After being accepted into the Warwick Ventures Software Incubator, Aamar, in his own words, “probably spent more time on Funding Invoice than his studies” in his final year. Since then, Aamar has won numerous awards including being named by startups.co.uk as one of 20 entrepreneurs to watch aged under 25. Aamar’s passions include entrepreneurship, Arsenal Football Club, boxing, fashion and his team.
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About Funding Invoice: Funding Invoice has a full online marketplace platform allowing you to upload your invoices and documents through their portal.
Gurjeet Matharu
CEO of Nava Ventures
Experienced Full Stack Engineer with a demonstrated history of working in the Financial Services and Defence industries. Skilled in Kubernetes, Cloud, Python, Java and supporting the production of ML and scientific workflows and products. Strong engineering professional with a Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.) focused in Systems Engineering from Simon Fraser University.
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About Nava Ventures: Nava Ventures is a SaaS company that offers an ecosystem of socially responsible fintech products.
Peter Read
CEO of Assetz Exchange
Peter is the Operations Director and co-founder of Assetz Exchange. A specialist in trading softwatre systems and a property investor in his own right.
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About Assetz Exchange: Assetz Exchange is an Earn tax-free income and capital growth.
