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 United Kingdom based CEO’ operating in the Credit 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.
Faisal Khalid
CEO & Founder of Bits
Faisal is the Founder and CEO of Renters Union, a popular chatbot ‘lawyer’ that provides free, instant, personalised legal advice to Londoners. It has been covered in TechCrunch, TimeOut, EveningStandard and numerous legal blogs, and been hailed by users as ‘something the Mayor should have built’, ‘BRILLIANT’ and ‘totally rubbish.’ Faisal previously built and sold a fintech venture, and spent several years in banking and private equity, before learning to code and moving to tech. Faisal holds a BA from Harvard University, and MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, and lives in London.
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About Bits, RentersUnion: Bits helps people build their credit score by providing them with a digital credit card that they pay off every month.
Frederic Nze
CEO and Founder of Loal
Frederic Nze is the founder and CEO of Oakam, a digital micro-lender that is expanding credit access for the UK’s 12 million financially-excluded consumers. Oakam has captured the opportunity presented by the rapid democratization of smartphone technology to disrupt micro-lending by making borrowing more affordable and accessible for the working class. Prior to founding Oakam, Frederic spent his career in credit risk management and consumer finance at firms including American Express, Barclays and GE Capital. He first came across the UK’s micro-lending opportunity while working on a pilot project at Barclays to evaluate product offerings for lower income customers, and realizing the potential of this market, decided to found Oakam in 2006. Raised in Cental Africa, Frederic saw firsthand how informal community lending helped to jumpstart entrepreneurs and fledgling businesses. With global ambitions for Oakam, Frederic’s ultimate goal is to bring the concept back to the developing world.
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About Akrod Limited, Loal: Loal equips those poorly served by mainstream providers to build their credit profiles and live life on another level
Chris Deboer
President & CEO of GAIN Credit
“I joined Global Analytics because of the extraordinary quality of the team, the size of the global market, the commitment to excellence and the opportunity to make a difference in changing the industry.” Chris leads our business development and partnerships and has over 20 years of experience in sales, client partnerships and key account management. Prior to Global Chris managed a team of industry professionals tasked with maintaining and growing relationships with Fair Isaac Corporation’s five largest customers. There, he developed a team-based, relationship-driven sales model with a focus on gaining deeper relationships across the client base. Chris holds a MSEE and BSEE from the University of California at Santa Barbara and plays tennis competitively.
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About GAIN Credit: GAIN Credit is a fintech company dedicated to providing credit for people who are underserved by mainstream financial service companies.
Salim Dhanani
CEO & Co-Founder of BigPay
Salim Dhanani is CEO & Co-Founder at BigPay
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About BigPay: Bringing fair and transparent financial services to Southeast Asia
Nadia Sood
CEO & Co-Founder of CreditEnable
Nadia Sood has more than 20 years of emerging markets debt and equity investment experience. Through her career she has successfully executed and managed complex investments ranging in size from several million $USD to several billion involving a range of investors and financiers such as IFC, Citibank, ICICI, IDFC, ADB, the largest of which was the establishment of an USD 8 billion JV with Tata Power in India. Nadia has founded and built a number of successful businesses including Impact Investment Partners LLP. In 2018 Nadia was admitted into the Young Presidents Organisation, and in 2019 received a runners-up award at Techpreneurs Women in Tech Awards. Nadia holds a BSFS from Georgetown University and a MIA from Columbia University.
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About CreditEnable: CreditEnable provides data analytics, deep learning, AI and technology to build solutions to financial challenges.
Nadeem Siam
CEO & Founder of Fund Ourselves
Nadeem Siam is the Founder & CEO of Fund Ourselves. The first fully automated short-term credit marketplace. Nadeem graduated from Canfield University in the UK and Lulea University in Sweden with two masters of science degrees in Astronautics and Space Engineering and Space Technology; respectively.
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About Fund Ourselves, PTP Funding: Short-term credit from the people to the people.
Justin Basini
Chief Executive Officer, Co-founder of ClearScore
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About ClearScore: ClearScore is a financial technology company that provides credit scoring services and a marketplace.
Sho Sugihara
Co-Founder & CEO of Pave
Co-Founder and CEO at Portify.
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About Pave: The proper path to good credit
Alastair Douglas
CEO of TotallyMoney
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About TotallyMoney: TotallyMoney puts customers right at the center of their credit data, helping them make smarter financial decisions.
Neil Radley
Chairman & CEO of Jaja
Neil Radley is a CEO with an outstanding track record of growing/turning around international businesses in retail financial services and payments sectors. A leader strong on strategy, with a highly commercial, analytical approach and the ability to build and motivate high performance management teams. ACA qualified and FCA approved person whose background includes success in instigating and executing merger and acquisition work (with the subsequent delivery of business benefits). Private Equity experience with exposure to FCA and senior City contacts. The recent £530M acquisition by Jaja Finance of the credit card portfolio of The Bank of Ireland UK [including the credit cards customers of BOI, the AA and Post Office] have put Jaja Finance on the radar and show how finally a new challenger can enter the complex world of revolving credit.
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About Jaja: Jaja is a fintech company that provides digital and physical credit cards and other financing services.
Per Elvebakk
Deputy CEO & Co-founder of Jaja
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About Jaja: Jaja is a fintech company that provides digital and physical credit cards and other financing services.
Ferruccio Ferrara
CEO of Negentropy Capital Partners
Ferruccio is CEO, CIO and Founding Partner of Negentropy. He has spent his whole career in investment banking, from 1992 in London and from 1998 as MD, holding various responsibilities in sales and trading of Global Market products (FX, rates, commodities, credit and structured products) and covering financial institutions and asset managers throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Japan. Prior to founding Negentropy, from 2006 to 2008 Ferruccio was Managing Director Head of GRCC (Global Rates, Currency and Commodities) International Sales for Bank of America in London, and before that from 2003 to 2006 MD Head of Europe Rates Sales in Morgan Stanley International in London. From 1996 to 2003 Ferruccio worked for Deutsche Bank in London (first as Head of Italian Fixed Income sales and then as Head of Italian Investment Banking), and from 1992 to 1996 in Morgan Stanley International in London. Previously, from 1990 to 1992, Ferruccio was a Director for Baring Brothers in the Corporate Finance Department in Milan, and from 1986 to 1990 he was with Standard Chartered in Milan trading FX, interest rates and credit. Ferruccio holds a 1986 Bachelor Degree in Business Administration from Milan Bocconi University with focus on Finance, and has been working as Assistant Professor with the Banking Department of Bocconi for a number of years.
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About Negentropy Capital Partners: Negentropy Capital Partners is an investment manager that invests mainly in special credit opportunities.
Simon Haslam
President and Chief Executive Officer of Elavon
As President and Chief Executive Officer at Elavon, Simon Haslam is responsible for the overall vision, strategy, and execution of Elavon’s worldwide mission of enabling global commerce. Before taking on his current position, Simon was President of International Markets at Elavon where he worked to expand Elavon’s presence to new markets in Europe, Mexico and Brazil. Simon joined Elavon with the addition of the Citigroup portfolio in 2005. At Citigroup, Simon served as Head of Credit and Risk with responsibility for all credit and fraud related activities impacting Citigroup’s Pan-European Merchant Acquiring Business. In 1995, Simon was elected as a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers. He serves as chairman of the board for Santander Elavon Merchant Services – Elavon’s newly created joint venture in Spain. He is also chairman of the board of Elavon do Brasil – Elavon’s joint venture in Brazil and Elavon Mexico. Additionally, Simon is a board member of Visa UK and UK Cards.
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About Elavon, Network International: Elavon helps businesses, small and large, accept all payment types.
Freddy Kelly
CEO of Credit Kudos
Freddy Kelly is the CEO and co-founder of Credit Kudos, the consumer-first, transparent consumer credit bureau. Credit Kudos uses Open Banking to allow lenders to accurately measure consumer risk, increasing acceptances whilst reducing default rate. Freddy has a background in Computer Science and Machine Learning. Prior to founding the company, Freddy was first engineer at cloud-computing startup, Bitnami (YC W13) and A16z-backed transaction analytics platform, TXN.
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About Credit Kudos: Credit Kudos is a credit bureau that uses financial behaviour and data through open banking to measure creditworthiness.
Brett Shanley
CEO & Founder of Knoma
Brett is the Founder and CEO of Knoma, the Knowledge Market, offering a payment solution and marketplace for lifelong learning. He passionate about equipping people for the future of work and providing sound financial options.
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About Knoma: Knoma offers a payment solution and marketplace for lifelong learning.
Aneesh Varma
Founder & CEO of Aire
Aneesh is the co-founder of Aire, a fintech startup that has built an alternative credit scoring model. Previously he co-founded FabriQate in 2008, an award-winning enterprise software company focussed on retail sector. Aneesh started his career at JPMorgan in the speciality finance and fintech M&A team on transactions with CapitalOne, Visa, TSYS, FirstData & Metavante. Educated as an engineer at Lehigh University, US, his focus was on algorithmic systems and quantitative finance. In 2005 he was chosen by the NASDAQ Foundation as a Martindale Scholar. Aneesh describes himself as a third-culture citizen having lived in 11 countries. Now based in London, he was recognised as the British Council Young Entrepreneur 2009 and SLP London Fellow 2013. He is also the curator of FinTech Fantastic, an online magazine and is a strong proponent of the financial inclusion movement.
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About Aire, Foodm: Aire provides credit assessment services that gives people a new credit score to help them qualify for essential financial products.
Loic Fery
CEO and Co-CIO of Chenavari Investment Managers
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About Chenavari Investment Managers: A group of alternative investment management companies focused on a broad range of credit,structured finance, real estate and private debt
Ahmed Wadi
Co-Founder & CEO of MoneyFellows
Ahmed Wadi is a Co-Founder & CEO at MoneyFellows.
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About MoneyFellows: MoneyFellows is a collaborative money management and lending platform digitizing ROSCAs offering users competitive financial solutions.
Richard Wagner
CEO of Cashplus
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About Cashplus: Cashplus is a digital challenger to UK banks and has served more than 1.6m customers since launching in 2005
Panos Skliamis
CEO & Founder of SPIN Analytics
Panos Skliamis is the CEO and founder of Spin Analytics.
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About SPIN Analytics: SPIN Analytics is an innovative provider of credit risk modelling and analytics solutions for Banks and Digital Banks.
Adam McCann
Founder & CEO of Claimer
Adam McCann is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Claimer. Before founding Claimer, he founded Pro-G Media in 2004 and co-founded Candy Banana in 2015.
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About Claimer: Quick and simple R&D tax relief claims for UK startups
Johnny Vowles
CEO (Founder) of Expend
Founder and CEO of Expend. Tech and product guy. Innovating in the FinTech sector.
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About Expend: Expend is the expense management and company spending platform.
Peter Tuvey
CEO of Fleximize
Peter Tuvey is CEO of Fleximize, an alternative finance company that offers flexible business loans to SMEs in the UK. He previously founded Ariste Holding, a consumer lending company, before selling it to EZCORP in 2012.
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About Fleximize: Fleximize is a fintech-led business finance provider offering business loans of up to £500,000 to UK-based SMEs
Rezaah Ahmad
Founding Partner and CEO of WiseAlpha
As founder and CEO Rezaah is responsible for driving the strategic growth of wiseAlpha and managing its operations day to day. Rezaah is an entrepreneur who started his career in the M&A and Leveraged finance teams at Deutsche Bank. He helped structure and execute numerous multi-billion debt financing and advisory transactions. He then worked at a multi-billion hedge fund investing in senior secured loans, high yield bonds, credit derivatives, equity and distressed debt. Rezaah has also been a board director and strategic advisor to TeleColumbus, a large cable television business in Germany. Rezaah studied Economics at the University of Cambridge and Management at the Judge Institute, University of Cambridge.
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About WiseAlpha: WiseAlpha is the UK’s leading digital bond market giving investors access to the world of corporate bonds.
Steve Dukes
CEO of CommuterClub
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About CommuterClub, Pixsta: CommuterClub offers a software solution that enables businesses to manage season ticket schemes.
Paul Williams
CEO of Yes2Credit.com
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About Yes2Credit.com: Yes2Credit.com is a UK site focused on credit education and dedicated to offering ethical lending solutions
