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 Financial Exchanges 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.
Mark Hipperson
Founder and CEO of Ziglu
Mark has founded a UK retail bank and two financial technology businesses. He is a commentator and speaker on banking, FinTech, crypto, technology, PSD2 and open banking. Mark is the founder and CEO of Ziglu, the modern challenger. Previously, he founded Starling Bank where he was responsible for helping to secure the UK banking licence with regulators and obtaining the initial funding the Bank achieved in December 2015. He was also responsible for the design, build, implementation and support of the Bank’s IT platform, apps and infrastructure. He started his career at Barclays where he was Head of Technology.
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About Ziglu: Ziglu provides a digital platform that enables customers to exchange fiat currency for cryptocurrency.
Juan Lobato
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Ebury
Juan Lobato is a tech entrepreneur based in London. He is the co-founder and co-CEO of Ebury, one of European fastest growing fintechs. Furthermore, he is an investor in over a dozen tech companies across the UK, Europe, and the US
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About BaseKit, Ebury: Ebury is a financial services company designed to empower small and medium-sized businesses that want to trade internationally.
Salvador Garcia
Co-CEO & Co-Founder of Ebury
Salvador has led the creation and growth of Ebury. His passion and expertise in Financial Services has enabled Ebury to become one of Europe’s most successful fintech businesses, offering SMEs the financial products required to grow across international boundaries.
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About Ebury: Ebury is a financial services company designed to empower small and medium-sized businesses that want to trade internationally.
Alex Zivoder
CEO of gohenry
Alex Zivoder is the CEO of goHenry, a London-based start up which provides vital financial education to children. Under Alex’s leadership, goHenry will make the next generation of young people better at managing their money than the last. Keywords: e-commerce, B2C, B2B, disruption, scaling, Internet, international, FinTech, education, learning, ticket marketplace, online travel, mobile and fixed telephony, integrated card processing, Europe, France, Luxembourg, Russia, statistics, economics.
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About gohenry: Gohenry is a developer of a kids money management application helping young people to take part in the digital economy.
Ali Celiker
Founder and CEO of British Pearl
Ali Celiker is the founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of British Pearl. He is an experienced financial professional and entrepreneur and has spent the last 19 years in financial services. He thrives on building innovative businesses with inspirational people and is principally interested in the alternative finance market , with a focus on equity and debt based collective investment platforms. Prior to establishing British Pearl Ali worked within the global capital markets as a trader and sales person. This included Vice President, Head European Financing Trader at Paloma Securities London Limited and Associate Director, Interest rates sales trader at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International plc. He has also worked for BNP Paribas, J.P.Morgan and Martins Brokers (UK) PLC. He holds a BA (Hons) in Economics and Econometrics from Kent University and other banking related professional qualifications.
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About British Pearl: British Pearl is an online property investment platform facilitating share and loan-based investment in UK property.
Stefan Pajkovic
Co-Founder and CEO of TradeCore
Stefan Pajkovic works as a CEO and Co-Founder at TradeCore.
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About TradeCore, TradeCrowd: TradeCore is a multi-product and full-service FinTech company developing unique tools for brokers and financial service providers.
Manu Choudhary
CEO of DMALINK
Tech Focused Entrepreneur, Venture Investor and Avid Visual Artist
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About DMALINK: DMALINK is a data-centric trading and RegTech platform for professional Foreign Exchange traders globally.
Charles Hayter
CEO and Co-Founder of CryptoCompare.com
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About CryptoCompare.com: We bring you all the data in the world of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Blockchain in an easily digestible value added format.
Federico Travella
Founder & CEO of Novicap
Federico Travella is the CEO and co-founder of [Novicap](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/novicap), an online invoice marketplace. He also acts as an advisor to the European Commission. Early in his career, Travella took up project manager roles at both Zanui.com.au and The Iconic before moving on to be the managing director of Rocket Internet in 2012. After leaving Lazada as its EVP, he founded the company Kaymu. Travella holds a master’s degree in marine geology from Ghent University, while he also studied business at the University of Navarra.
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About Novicap: NoviCap is an online platform that allows businesses to receive early payments for outstanding invoices.
Obi Nwosu
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of Coinfloor
Obi leads commercial strategy and our team of finance and cryptocurrency experts. Since 2014, Coinfloor’s market share has grown over 5 times and now handles the majority of GBP exchange volume. Previously, Obi was Founder and CEO of Supalocal and held senior roles at ebookers.com and WeeWorld, overseeing the development of a virtual currency, used by 30 million users.
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About Coinfloor: Coinfloor is an established group of cryptocurrency exchanges for institutional or sophisticated investors and traders.
Johannes Jaeckle
Co-Founder and CEO of Heron Data
Johannes Jaeckle is the Co-Founder and CEO at Heron Data.
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About Heron Data: We categorise and label bank transaction data.
Brendan Doyle
Founder & CEO of Cash Management Solutions
Brendan founded CMS in 1991 following his MBA at Manchester Business School and a career at RBS, since then he has over 20 years’ experience of consultancy. Brendan introduced Just in Time cash deliveries into UK Retail Banking, developed cash optimisation software used by the majority of the top 100 UK retailers and also developed a specialist, unique cash management solution now used by financial institutions in over 20 countries globally. Brendan is also a regular guest speaker at conferences related to cash and payments.
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About Cash Management Solutions, CMS Payments Intelligence: Cash Management Solutions specialising in reducing supply chain costs,improving cash availability & releasing cash from balance sheets.
Andrea Donafee Brooks
CEO of Cash Management Solutions
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About Cash Management Solutions, Cash Management Solutions: Cash Management Solutions specialising in reducing supply chain costs,improving cash availability & releasing cash from balance sheets.
Sean Kiernan
CEO of Greengage
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About Greengage: Building the future of finance: reinventing the merchant bank for the digital age
Peter Thompson
CEO, Insurance Distribution & Outsourcing of BGL Group
Peter became Group Director in 2013, initially for Intermediated Businesses with his remit subsequently widening to include Legal Services. In 2016, our Legal Services business was sold and the division was renamed Insurance Distribution and Outsourcing (IDO). IDO includes Junction – BGL’s affinity business; life insurer Beagle Street; BGL’s own brand motor and home insurance businesses Budget and Dial Direct; and our customer engagement centres which are based in Peterborough, Sunderland and Wakefield. Peter joined BGL back in 2008 as Managing Director of Junction. Under his leadership, the business became the most successful affinity outsourcing intermediary in the UK with a customer base in excess of 2 million. Prior to this he spent 21 years in the UK insurance industry in both commercial and personal lines, including at Royal and SunAlliance where he was responsible for non-motor personal lines corporate partnerships, and HBOS where he was initially Head of Commercial Insurance and subsequently Managing Director of Partnerships. During his time at HBOS he served on the General Insurance Management Board and undertook a number of non-executive posts.
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About BGL Group: BGL Group digitally distributes insurance and financial products.
Elizabeth Rossiello
Founder & CEO of AZA Finance
Elizabeth has lived and worked in Nairobi, Kenya since 2009 and knows financial services from the Mara to the Board room. She speaks 5 languages, has 2 kids, and still makes sure everybody meets their deadlines
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About AZA Finance, BitPesa: AZA is a provider of currency trading solutions that accelerate global access to frontier markets through an innovative infrastructure.
Jeff Hancock
Chief Executive Officer of coinpass.com
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About coinpass.com: UK Based Cryptocurrency Trading & Investment Platform
Anthony Rice
Chief Executive Officer of Fourex
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About Fourex: Fourex is a revolutionary self-service currency exchange specialist.
Iain Greer
CEO of Quantum Technology Solutions
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About Quantum Technology Solutions: Quantum offers a first-of-its-kind testing platform replicating the world’s financial exchanges on a single, on-demand, cloud platform.
Tom Higgins
CEO of Gold-i Ltd
Tom Higgins is founder and CEO of Gold-i. His experience in financial technology spans over 25 years, having spent most of his career working in the City, London. His career history includes: Management Consultant at PA Consulting Group, Chief Technology Officer at The IPE, Head of IT Business Strategy at NYSE Euronext, COO Europe & Asia at Reuters and Chief Technology Officer at online broker, ODL Securities. He holds an MBA from Cass Business School in London. With an in-depth knowledge of the trading technology industry, Tom Higgins spotted a gap in the market to enhance the FX trading process for retail brokers, providing them with the same tools as institutional brokers at a fraction of the cost. He left ODL in 2008 to set up Gold-i. Under Tom’s leadership, Gold-i has grown from start-up business to global market leader in trading systems integration, renowned throughout the industry for its innovation, award-winning products and high service levels. With his open management style and strong leadership, Tom has created a culture with clear values, where employees are motivated to deliver the best products and services in the industry. Tom has won numerous awards in recognition of his leadership skills and in 2014, led the company to win the UK’s ultimate business accolade, The Queen’s Award for Enterprise. He was invited to an event at Buckingham Palace, attended by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II to celebrate the business’ achievements. As the inspiration and driving force behind Gold-i, Tom has played a major role in disrupting the retail FX market, giving opportunities to brokers across the globe which did not previously exist. Moving forward, Tom plans to use his market insight to continue to drive innovation, introducing additional products to further disrupt the market. Tom has four children – aged 18, 16, 14 and 6, 1 dog, 2 cats, 4 chickens, and one wife! In the small amount of spare time he has, he enjoys restoring his classic car – a 1964 Triumph Herald.
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About Gold-i Ltd: Gold-i is the global market leader in trading systems integration
Matt Dolton
CEO of Kynetix
Co-founder and Director at Kynetix, adviser and business leader with a solid understanding of commodities markets, technology and business change, improving business value and the opportunities afforded by the agile application of technology. Specialist commodities knowledge includes the processes around warrants and receipts, derivatives physical deliveries including metals and softs, depository processing, clearing and settlement, warehousing and rent, trade finance & collateral. Accountable for enterprise projects including large scale physical deliveries platforms for London Metal Exchange, NYSE Liffe and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) as well as Exchange Traded and OTC derivatives processing including reconciliations and exception workflow management.
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About Kynetix: Digital transformation for post-trade in capital markets
