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 London based CEO’ operating in the Lending 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.
Ian Cowie
Chief Executive Officer of Shawbrook Bank
Ian joined Shawbrook in April 2017, initially leading the Business Finance division until taking the role of interim CEO in July 2018. Ian brings with him a wealth of SME banking experience, after leading the largest business banking franchise in the UK via a number of senior roles at RBS. These include; CEO Business and Commercial Banking, Chairman of SME Banking at NatWest and Director of Lombard Asset finance and RBS Invoice Finance.
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About Shawbrook Bank: Shawbrook Bank is a provider of financial services including savings and loans in the UK.
Rishi Khosla
Chief Executive Officer of OakNorth
Rishi Khosla is a serial start-up entrepreneur; and the co-founder of OakNorth – the next-generation credit platform that’s redefining lending to lower mid-market businesses globally (loans of $0.5m-$25m). Prior to co-founding OakNorth, Rishi co-founded and built Copal Amba into a 3,000 employee business providing outsourced research for investment banks, private equity funds and asset managers. Copal was fully acquired by Moody’s Corporation in 2014. Rishi is also an active venture investor and has provided early stage funding to two multi-billion dollar companies – Indiabulls and PayPal. He has a bachelor’s degree in Economics from University College London and a Masters in Accounting & Finance from the LSE where he attended on a scholarship.
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About OakNorth, OakNorth Bank: OakNorth is the creator of the ON Credit Intelligence Suite – proven cloud software that transforms commercial lending
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
Christoph Rieche
CEO & Co-founder of iwoca
Christoph Rieche is the CEO and Co-Founder of Iwoca. As CEO, he oversees the day-to-day operations, finance and strategy for iwoca, always with an eye on the long-term vision. After bagging a degree in Management from HEC Lausanne and the London School of Economics, Chris went on to become a VP at Goldman Sachs where he advised corporate and institutional investors on risk management.
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About iwoca: Iwoca offers credit financing services for small businesses.
Christer Holloman
Co-Founder & CEO of Divido
Christer Holloman is the CEO and co-founder of Divido (http://www.divido.com), a platform for retailers, lenders and payment providers that want to offer customers to pay anything in monthly instalments. Divido works with 500+ partners such as BMW, BNP and Mastercard. Prior to launching Divido, Christer set up Glassdoor.com in EMEA, now a billion-dollar Google-backed startup. Holloman holds an MBA from the University of Oxford.
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About Divido: Divido is a global white label consumer lending platform for financial institutions and multinational retailers.
Justin Floyd
Founder and CEO of RedCloud Technologies
Justin Floyd Recognised as a leading Entrepreneur for almost 3 decades Justin Floyd has founded and invested in a number of innovative businesses. Since 1987 he has been involved in companies that have included Vecta Software Corporation, a leading Cloud Business Intelligence company and the world’s first leasing exchange that generated over $2 billion in transactions over two years. Mr. Floyd is a trusted adviser to a number of Entrepreneurs who’s products and services are changing markets. He is the Founding Partner of RedCloud VC, an investment company that backs entrepreneurs in emerging and developing markets focusing on mobile, cloud and disruptive technologies.
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About RedCloud Technologies: RedCloud believe technology will universally change the way in which services are distributed & accessed by people in new digital economy.
Anders la Cour
Co-Founder & CEO of Banking Circle
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About Banking Circle: Banking Circle offers its Members the capability to make and receive cross-border transfers in seconds at a low cost.
Laust Bertelsen
Founders & CEO of Banking Circle
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About Banking Circle: Banking Circle offers its Members the capability to make and receive cross-border transfers in seconds at a low cost.
Boaz Yaari
Founder and CEO of Sharegain
13 years of experience in the financial industry, from derivatives trading to portfolio management in banks and leading European Hedge Funds (Brevan Howard Asset Management, BlueBay Asset Management). During this time, Boaz discovered the inefficiencies in Securities Finance. It was out of this frustration that the innovative idea of Sharegain was born.
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About Sharegain: Sharegain is a capital markets fintech democratising the $2.5tn securities lending industry.
Vadim Toader
CEO & Co-Founder of Proportunity
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About Proportunity: Proportunity is a financial services organisation made possible by technology.
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
Ali Rami
CEO & Co Founder of Mansa
Ali Rami is a 21 yo French entrepreneur. He is the CEO & co-founder of Mansa. Mansa raised €20m so as to make access to credit easy for freelancers.
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About Mansa: Mansa allows freelancers and gig workers borrow money with fair pricing and a genuine user experience.
Phil Andrew
Chief Executive Officer of StepChange Debt Charity
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About StepChange Debt Charity: StepChange Debt Charity is a registered charity offering free, confidential advice and support about debt
Luke Townsend
Founder & CEO of Zorin Finance
Luke’s career began working for several media giants, including: Clear Channel, Dow Jones, GWR and latterly AOL UK. Having received numerous industry accolades, Luke went on to establish and back a number of tech related start-ups whilst simultaneously developing prime real estate in London. His frustration with the service he received from banks during this time led him to establish Zorin Finance. Luke continues to head the company as CEO and principal shareholder.
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About Zorin Finance: Zorin Finance is a Real estate company.
Jaidev Janardana
Group CEO of Zopa
Jaidev Janardana is CEO of Zopa, having joined the world’s first peer-to-peer lending service as its COO in 2014. Previously, Jaidev was the CMO and Vice President at Capital One (Europe). Jaidev joined Capital One, during 2002, in its US office in McLean, Virginia. After 5 years working in the US Credit Card business, he transitioned to the UK in December 2007 as Chief Credit Officer for the UK business. Since then he held a number of roles in the business, from heading up its Risk Operations function to leading its New Customer Acquisition and Business Development efforts. Jaidev has an M.B.A. from The Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and a B.Tech. from Gujarat University. Jaidev was born in the city of Kochi, in the state of Kerala in India.
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About Zopa: Zopa offers peer-to-peer loans with low rates, flexible terms, and no early repayment fees.
Natasha Wear
CEO of Zopa
Natasha Wear is responsible for the overall performance and operation of Zopa’s peer-to-peer business, with a particular focus on its investment products. At Zopa, Natasha has played an integral role in developing its product offering and operational capabilities, including as Head of Business Operations and Head of Investment Products. Natasha joined Zopa in 2015 as a product manager having spent five years as a strategy consultant at LEK Consulting.
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About Zopa: Zopa offers peer-to-peer loans with low rates, flexible terms, and no early repayment fees.
Michael Bristow
CEO and Co-Founder of CrowdProperty
Mike Bristow, CEO and Co-Founder of CrowdProperty (www.crowdproperty.com), the leading specialist property peer-to-peer lender in the UK. Actual property development and investment experience lies at the heart of CrowdProperty meaning hands-on, expertise-led due diligence and loan monitoring. Lending is focused on the SME property developer market, a key segment for supplying much needed UK housing stock, which is poorly and inefficiently served by traditional funding sources. CrowdProperty’s unique combination of data, analytics, tech, expertise, rigour, relationships, security, extent of value chain disruption and vision means we stand out in sustainably delivering a better deal to lenders and borrowers alike through high-quality, institution-grade lending with huge potential ahead.
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About CrowdProperty, Growth Strategy: CrowdProperty is a property project program that develops a peer-to-peer lending platform to facilitate short-term loans.
Tomer Guriel
Co-founder and CEO of ezbob
Prior to founding ezbob, Mr. Guriel served as the CEO of Redstone Group, a leading real estate development company in CEE and CIS. Previously he served at various positions at JPMorgan Investment Banking (NYSE: JPM). Mr. Guriel was a director at Bezeq Communications and received his MBA from the Kellogg business school.
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About Everline, ezbob: ezbob is a UK based software provider for banks and other financial institutions.
Björn Lindvall
CEO / Founder of CreditSquare
Björn founded CreditSquare in 2013. The inspiration came from his experience working closely with entrepreneurs and family offices in running their investment portfolios. Björn has 8 years of investment experience from the Private Banking arms of Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley. He left Morgan Stanley in 2013 to start CreditSquare.
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About CreditSquare: CreditSquare is an advisory- and marketplace lending platform focused on providing SMEs with credit solutions.
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.
Tim Slesinger
Founder & CEO of LendingWell
Tim Slesinger is Founder & CEO at OSG Records Management
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About easyStorage, LendingWell: LendingWell is the single platform p2p investment partner.
Erich Bonnet
CEO, Partner of Smart Lenders Asset Management SA
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About Smart Lenders Asset Management SA: French AMF registered Asset Manager specialised in investing in loans through online marketplaces.
John Goodall
Co-Founder and CEO of LANDBAY
Prior to co-founding Landbay in 2013, John worked for an equity brokerage in the City of London. Before this, he co-founded and managed a leading financial services executive search consultancy. John has also spent some time teaching Economics, has an MBA from Imperial College, London, and a degree in Economics from Durham University.
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About LANDBAY: Landbay is a specialist Buy to Let mortgage lender using peer-to-peer technology to fund its loans.
Torsten Hartmann
CEO of Credit Peers
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About Credit Peers: Credit Peers is a privately held company that makes commercial property lending accessible to everyone.
Rhydian Lewis
CEO & Founder of RateSetter
Oversees strategy, manages the Executive Committee and represents RateSetter with external stakeholders. Rhydian founded RateSetter to provide a new investment choice that sits between savings and shares. He has pioneered innovations including the Provision Fund model, which makes investing simple and relatively low risk. He was awarded an OBE for innovation in financial services, specifically with regard to opening up access to returns to everybody. Prior to RateSetter, he spent six years at the financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard.
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About RateSetter: RateSetter is a P2P lending platform allowing users to lend and borrow money directly from each other according to their own interest rates.
Gerald Chappell
CEO and Co-Founder of Fintern
Gerald Chappell is the CEO and Co-Founder at Fintern. Prior to starting Fintern, Gerald was a partner at McKinsey where he lead the digital lending and credit analytics practices globally.
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About Fintern: Fintern is a lending startup looking to offer an AI-driven alternative to costly payday loans.
David Bradley-Ward
CEO of Aviation and Tech Capital
David Bradley-Ward joined Aviation and Tech Capital as Chief Executive Officer in 2012.
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About ASMX, Aviation and Tech Capital: Owner of Ablrate.com an asset backed peer lending platform specialising in capital equipment and the world’s first to offer aircraft loans
Filip Karadaghi
Co-founder and CEO of LandlordInvest
Filip holds a MSc. in Business and Economics from Uppsala University (Sweden). He initially worked for various roles at Societe Generale Corporate and Investment Banking and Bloomberg. At his last permanent role at Hunnewell Partners, a London based private investment company, he was responsible for managing substantial residential and commercial real estate assets in the US and Europe.
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About LandlordInvest: LandlordInvest is an online marketplace which matches professional landlords.
Liad Shababo
Founder and CEO of Wollit
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About iStay.com, Wollit: The UK’s most powerful financial membership
Tim Simon
CEO of Madiston
Tim has been described as a “serial entrepreneur”, having founded three software firms servicing the financial sector. In 1975, he founded his first company and in 1981 he floated it on the LSE as Quotient plc. By the time he sold the company 10 years later for £27.2m to ACT Group, Quotient plc had 8 international offices and over 500 institutions as clients, many of them the world’s largest banks and securities houses. Some of its market leading products are still used today as the core part of financial institutions’ business systems. He floated his second business, Mondas (now Corero), on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in 1996. Madiston is his third company, with arguably the greatest potential. Tim combines his skills in management with designing, building and marketing software applications and his passion for financial sector markets.
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About Madiston: Madiston offers a commercially available peer to peer/online lending software platform.
Riten Gohil
CEO of Sphonic
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About Sphonic: Sphonic is a Context-Broker that leverages 3rd party vendor data with a workflow engine to enable fraud prevention, AML, KYC
Robert Stafler
Co-Founder and CEO of Fintex Capital
Robert Stafler is the founder of Wishopoly.
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About Fintex Capital, Wishopoly: Fintex Capital is a unique investment firm dedicated to alternative credit
Ronak Ruparell
Co-founder and CEO of Bridge Invest
Ronak has a multi-disciplined background in finance and property and has a successful track record of building investor relationships with private individuals and family offices across the UK, East Africa and the Middle East. Ronak was an Executive Director at Lehman Brothers, both in London and New York, where he spent 13 years in various roles both in Fixed Income and Equities. Since 2008, he has been involved in a number of entrepreneurial ventures including the development of 7 flats in London with a GDV of £10M. Ronak graduated with a degree in Mathematics and an MSc in Operational Research from the London School of Economics.
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About Bridge Invest: Boutique short term finance provider in the UK property market
Robert Pasco
Co-Founder & CEO of Plend
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About Plend: Building a better way to borrow, where people are no longer held back by their credit history
Michael Lynn
CEO of Relendex
Michael Lynn joined Relendex as CEO in 2010.
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About Relendex: Relendex is a peer-to-peer marketplace that brings together lenders for loans secured on professionally valued properties.
