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 CIO’ operating in the FinTech space. If you think a CIO’ 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.
Shan Lee
Chief Information Security Officer of Wise
Shan Lee is the Head of Information Security at JUST EAT Plc where he is passionate about promoting a “Security Culture” in what is a fast moving and rapidly expanding, multinational environment. He has previously worked for a variety of organisations ranging from resellers to financial institutions and in his spare time is an insufferable Land Rover fanatic.
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About Wise: Wise is a money transfer service allowing private individuals and businesses to send money abroad without hidden charges.
Matt Wilkins
Chief Information Officer of Thought Machine
Matt Wilkins is the Advisor at Clim8 Invest.
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About Thought Machine: Thought Machine is a Fintech company that builds cloud-native technology to revolutionize core banking.
Peter Ebden
Chief Infrastructure Officer (CIO) of Thought Machine
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About Thought Machine: Thought Machine is a Fintech company that builds cloud-native technology to revolutionize core banking.
Pawel Aleksander
CIO & Co-Founder of Coinfirm
Pawel Alexander is Co-Founder and CIO of Coinfirm. One of the more recognizable fraud prevention experts in Central Europe, former Head of Fraud Investigations in ArcelorMittal, AML/CTF Project Manager in the Royal Bank of Scotland, fraud investigator and auditor in Ernst & Young; holds the titles of Certified Fraud Examiner and Certified Internal Auditor.
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About Coinfirm: Coinfirm is the global leader in regtech for digital currencies and the blockchain-based financial ecosystem.
Gael Itier
CIO, CEO and Co-Founder of Automata
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About Automata: Automata provides trading strategies for cryptocurrencies with a focus on risk management and capital protection.
Andrew Newington
COO & CIO of Actis
Andrew started his professional career as a lawyer specialising in cross border transactions, including in Asia and the Middle East, before moving into private equity with BT Capital Partners after completing his MBA at Columbia.He then spent 13 years with BC Partners, a leading global investment firm, latterly as Managing Partner and co-head of their London office. At Actis, Andrew has operational responsibility for the firm as well as sitting on all of the firm’s investment committees.
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About Actis: Actis is a global growth markets investor in private equity, energy, infrastructure, and real estate.
James Carlyle
Chief Information Officer & Head of Production of R3
James is R3’s Chief Information Officer and is focused on defining a candidate architecture and building out a collaborative lab for experimentation. Previously, James was Chief Engineer within Corporate Banking at Barclays, where he designed and delivered the bank’s corporate internet channel, and the bank’s US banking and dollar clearing platforms. Before Barclays, James co-founded two start-ups and holds patents in mobile data search and directory technology. He is a Chartered Engineer and holds a degree in Engineering Science from University College, Durham.
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About R3: R3 is a financial innovation firm dedicated to the design and deployment of DLT to build the new operating system for financial services.
Adrien Pujol
CIO of Callsign
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About Callsign: Delivering digital trust through simple secure customer interactions
José Nistal
Chief Information Officer of GoMadrid
José Nistal is co-founder and CIO of GoMadrid. He studied BSc. Finance & Marketing & Business Management at Comillas Pontifical University – ICADE and, additionally, Empirics of Management Program (The London School of Economics and Political Science), Global Leadership Program (Harvard University) and Frontiers of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). He is also an MBA, Finance & Entrepreneurial Management by The Wharton School. He previously worked at Merrill Lynch, Soros Private Equity Partners, Lehman Brothers, Alantra Private Equity, Cygnus Asset Management and Ecofin Asset Management.
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About GoMadrid: GoMadrid is a technological ecosystem and innovation hub focused on venture building projects in fintech and blockchain areas.
John Mountain
Chief Information Officer of Starling Bank
As Chief Information Officer, John is responsible for IT strategy and ensuring the technology platform delivers the retail banking product required by Starling and expected by the Regulator. After many years as a technical architect working for clients such as Lloyds and Bank of America, he became increasingly frustrated with the inefficiency and lack of commitment to improving technology at the traditional banks. John approached Starling in mid-2015 because he was excited about the opportunity for a banking start-up that is also a technology business throughout. Since he joined, he has designed a systems landscape for a retail bank from scratch and recruited a team to work across platform, infrastructure, security and mobile. If he wasn’t working at Starling, John would be sailing around the world (or at least to France) and probably trying to solve some software problems on the way.
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About Starling Bank: Starling Bank is a mobile banking platform that offers personal, joint, and business accounts.
Francois Oustry
CIO of Suzugia
I am co-founder and Chief Innovation/Investment Officer of Suzugia Limited, a FinTech company delivering AI-powered investment decision making solutions.
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About Suzugia: FinTech: AI-powered Investment Decision Solutions
Damian Atkinson
CIO and Founder of Maxatta Limited
Over 30 years financial markets IT experience and former UK Region CIO for ING Bank for 12 years, spearheading technology strategy for the Bank, whilst running the IT organisation of 90 +staff. Business Leadership and Management at Maxatta. Damian will lead the Robotics CDAAS DevOps operation.
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About Maxatta Limited: Maxatta is a leader in Robotic Process Automation and the delivery of AI through automation for Front Office Financial Markets.
Rafi Vasserman
Chief Information Officer of EBS BrokerTec
Rafi was appointed Chief Information Officer of EBS on June 2012. From 2005 Rafi served as EVP Engineering and General Manager of Israel for Traiana (acquired by ICAP in 2007). From 2000 to 2005 Rafi was VP R&D of ClearForest that developed text mining solutions. Prior to 2000, Rafi was employed in several roles in Tecomatix Technologies Ltd.
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About EBS BrokerTec: EBS BrokerTec is a leading electronic trading platforms and solutions business in foreign exchange and fixed income.
Paddy Osborn
CIO – Chief Investment Officer & co-founder of MoneyDrome Ltd
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About MoneyDrome Ltd: MoneyDrome is a hybrid investment & trading platform enhanced by analytics, machine-learning and artificial intelligence
Michel van Tol
CIO and Co-founder of Huddlestock
Michel is co-founder and CIO of Huddlestock, a financial technology company based in Oslo, Norway and London, United Kingdom. Michel has experience from working at Meditor Capital in London, and UBS O’Connor in Chicago.
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About Huddlestock: SaaS, Fintech, Mobile App, Wealth Management, Asset Management, Trading, Investing
Mike Simcock
CEO and CIO of ClearMacro
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About ClearMacro: ClearMacro helps institutional investors integrate actionable insights from data into their portfolios to enable smarter decision-making.
Lee Stretton
CIO of Monevo
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About Monevo: Monevo is a global Financial Technology marketplace and platform. Bringing Marketers, Lenders and Brokers Together
