A Better Financial World

Samir co-founded and is CEO of Funding Circle which launched in 2010. Funding Circle is a global lending platform where investors lend directly to small businesses in the UK, US, Germany and the Netherlands. Funding Circle has originated £8.1 billion+ of loans to 77,000+ businesses creating an estimated 115,000 jobs. Investors on the platform include 93,000 individuals, institutional investors, local councils, universities, and government organisations including the British Business Bank, KFW (German state development bank) and the European Investment Bank. Samir is responsible for driving the company’s strategy, and overseeing Funding Circle operations globally. Funding Circle is one of the best capitalised platforms globally and listed on the London Stock Exchange (Ticker: FCH) in October 2018. Since 2010, Funding Circle has raised ~£550 million from some of the worlds largest investors. Samir was previously a consultant at BCG and an investment executive at Olivant focused on financial services businesses. In 2015, Samir was awarded a CBE for services to financial services.

As Global CFO, Sean serves on the Funding Circle Board and is responsible for all aspects of Finance including internal audit, tax, treasury, procurement and investor relations.

After qualifying as a chartered accountant with Ernst & Young, working within both the audit and corporate finance departments, Sean worked in the telecoms industry and for the FTSE 100 company BPB plc, prior to joining Auto Trader in 2006. Before taking on the role of CFO in 2012, Sean held various group and divisional roles in the business, helping the business reshape through acquisitions and disposals as well as aiding the transition online through restructuring and realignment programmes. In addition to a number of major re-financings during its private equity ownership, Sean helped Auto Trader undertake an Initial Public Offering in 2015 and join the FTSE 250 with annual profits now in excess of £200m.

Sean holds a BA (Hons) in Accountancy from Exeter University.

Lisa leads the UK business and is responsible for overseeing the overall strategic direction and day‑to‑day operation of Funding Circle in the UK. Lisa joined Funding Circle in 2012 and was previously Chief Strategy Officer, with responsibility for developing and launching new product propositions and incubating new business areas. She led Funding Circle’s entry into the US and Continental Europe through acquisition. She has led a number of fundraises and was part of the core team behind Funding Circle’s admission to the London Stock Exchange in 2018.

Prior to Funding Circle Lisa worked as a consultant, both independently and for the Boston Consulting Group. She has advised national and multinational companies, from a variety of industries, on strategic and operational initiatives covering growth, new product development, reorganisation and transformation, amongst others. In addition, she has worked for NGOs in Tanzania and India.

Lisa read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford.

As Chief Risk Officer, Jerome Le Luel leads a global team of risk professionals that are expert at small business lending. Their mission is to ensure that Funding Circle deploys world-class techniques and controls to select creditworthy borrowers and protect investors’ returns. Jerome Le Luel brings 20 years of experience in risk management. In his previous role at Barclays, Jerome was in charge of stress testing, risk reporting and quantitative analytics for the entire bank. Previously, he was Global Chief Risk Officer for Barclaycard, the cards and payment business of Barclays, managing risk for a £40 billion lending portfolio across Europe, Africa and the US. Under his leadership at Barclaycard, the business doubled in size and tripled in profits despite the economic recession. Prior to that, Jerome spent 12 years with credit cards specialist Capital One, joining this innovative venture at start up stage and supporting risk management through successful growth.

As U.S. Managing Director, Bernardo Martinez is responsible for overseeing the overall strategic direction and day-to-day operation of Funding Circle in the United States.

Prior to joining Funding Circle, Bernardo was responsible for U.S. small business lending at PayPal. He has spent more than 20 years in financial services including working at Bank of America, where he was responsible for a number of functions with small business banking, and at Banco Dominicano del Progreso where he was the Chief Product and Marketing Officer leading the bank’s transformation including an exclusive operating agreement with American Express. Throughout his career, he has focused on small business, payments, consumer and business lending.

Bernardo holds an MBA from Duke University (Fuqua School of Business) and BA in Economics from UCAB in Venezuela.

Panni oversees operations in Germany and the Netherlands and brings more than 15 years’ experience in building and scaling technology businesses. Prior to joining Funding Circle, Panni led Product Development at Wonga where, as a member of the founding team, she was instrumental in launching Wonga and scaling it to a global consumer lender in three years, including developing the global platform, launching its international markets and building Wonga’s SME business.

Prior to joining Wonga, she was in charge of Product Development for iModel Music, a global mobile marketing company. Panni was also part of the founding team behind ExchangePath, a CMGI company based in New York. There she was responsible for developing the product, creating key partnerships, and driving its successful exit. Panni began her career as a management consultant and holds an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School in New York City.

Sachin Patel leads the Global Capital Markets Group and is responsible for Funding Circle’s investor strategy. This includes the design, structuring and distribution of Funding Circle’s investment products to high net worth individuals, asset managers, banks, insurance companies, pension funds, national and supranational institutions.

As the founding member of the Capital Markets team in Europe, Sachin designed and led the IPO of the Funding Circle SME Income Fund, its financing facility with the European Investment Bank and the inaugural securitisation of Funding Circle loans, SBOLT-2016-1, amongst other significant transactions.

Prior to Funding Circle, Sachin was Vice President in the cross-asset structured products and ALM solutions businesses at Barclays Capital and J.P.Morgan, structuring transactions and advising a broad range of investors including insurance companies, pension funds, asset managers and private banks across EMEA.

Sachin holds an MPhys (Physics) from Oxford University.

Lucy is responsible for the Legal, Compliance and People functions of the business. She is also the Company Secretary for the plc. Lucy joined in 2014 and oversaw the process for full Financial Conduct Authority authorisation of the UK regulated business. In addition to working on the acquisition of Funding Circle’s European business in October 2015 and a number of capital raises—including a £82m investment round in January 2017—she was part of the core team working on the October 2018 listing of Funding Circle Holdings on the London Stock Exchange. Lucy took on responsibility for the People function in August 2019.

Lucy was one of the founder members of Kemp Little LLP, a technology focused City law firm, whereas head of corporate she worked on M&A, equity and debt financing for financial services and fintech companies. She was managing partner of Kemp Little from 2009 to 2011 when she became Wonga’s first General Counsel and built up the company’s international legal team.

As Chief Technology Officer, Swati is responsible for all of Funding Circle’s technology capabilities globally. Swati brings more than 20 years’ experience in software development and information security, both at scale in larger enterprises and in higher growth environments. Swati started her career at Merrill Lynch in New York as a software developer. Since then, she has held various leadership positions in technology and information security in numerous industries including retail banking at Barclays Bank and gaming, where she was the Director of Information Security at Betfair, a then FTSE 250 gaming operator.

Swati joined Funding Circle in 2017 firstly as Chief Information Security Officer and then VP of Engineering where she was responsible for Growth Engineering, Data and Corporate Technology, as well as Information Security.

Swati holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Operations Management from Princeton University.

Eric Daniels currently holds a range of business appointments which include Senior Adviser to CVC Capital Partners, non-executive director of Russell Reynolds, Board Member of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Trustee of the Smithsonian UK Charitable Trust. He is also an adviser or board member for several innovative technology companies.

He was previously Group Chief Executive Officer of the Lloyds Banking Group, the FTSE 100 listed banking group, retiring in 2011. Prior to joining Lloyds in 2001, he spent 25 years with Citigroup in a range of management positions in Panama, Argentina, Chile, the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States.

He holds a Master of Science in Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in History from Cornell University.

Geeta has over 25 years of experience of financial services and retail banking, particularly payments and digital innovation. Geeta was formerly executive Chair of Monitise Europe. Among the many roles in her financial services career, Geeta was Director of Payment Services with HBOS plc and previously Managing Director, UK Retail Bank and Business Development Head EME at Citigroup. She is a chartered accountant.

Geeta serves as Non-Executive Director of CYBG plc, Ultra Electronic Holdings and Wizink Bank SA, of which she is chair of the audit and risk committee.

Cath is chair of ustwo, an independent digital product, games and venture business alongside other non-executive Director roles at Sage group plc and TalkTalk plc. She is also an advisor to a number of small businesses predominately in technology.

She has recently held non-executive roles at the Royal Mail, Home Retail Group, LV= and Telefonica Europe. She previously held a number of commercial roles including marketing and business development at Sky TV, Avon and Next, latterly Marketing Director and Customer Director at O2, the mobile network and chairman of Tesco Mobile; O2’s joint venture with Tesco.

Andrew spent 23 years working in investment banking as a research analyst, in corporate finance, equity capital markets and finally as COO of the Equities Division in Europe of Goldman Sachs.

He retired as a Managing Director of Goldman Sachs in 2006, since then he has been involved as an angel investor, non-executive director and consultant to several start-up businesses. He became involved with Funding Circle at the outset when he met three ambitious young entrepreneurs with no office and no coffee but an idea to change the world of banking.

Harry joined Accel in 2004 and invests in both early and late-stage Internet and software companies. He led Accel’s investments in, among others, Check24, an online price comparison service for consumer financial products in Germany; Gameforge, a developer and publisher of MMOGs; Kayak, an online search service for consumer travel; and Showroomprive, an online private sales club.

Before joining Accel, Harry was at Perry Capital, a $10 billion hedge fund, where he invested in public communications, media and technology companies. Prior to this, he was at Goldman Sachs, where he advised businesses on corporate finance and M&A transactions.

Harry spent the first decade of his career in Silicon Valley, where he founded E-motion, a venture-backed software company. He started his career at Hewlett-Packard, where he held various engineering positions. Harry is an active member of the World Economic Forum and serves on the Selection Committee of the WEF Technology Pioneers Programme. Harry holds an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School and a PhD and MS in Electrical Engineering from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Neil Rimer is a co-founder and Partner of Index Ventures. In 1992, Neil started the venture capital activity of Index’s predecessor firm, later co-founding Index Ventures and raising the firm’s first fund in 1996.

Neil’s current investment focus is on innovative solutions for energy and environmental problems. He is currently on the board of AlertMe, Fontself, doubleTwist, Lehigh Technologies, Moo Print, Netvibes, Photobox, Pulsic, Redwood Systems, Stack Exchange and Weatherbill.

Neil sponsored many of the firm’s investments including Betfair, Ofoto (now Kodak), Trolltech (now Nokia), Listen (now Real Networks), Numerical Technologies (now Synopsis) and Genmab (SDE: GNA). He has also served on the Board of Directors of U.C. Sampdoria, a football club competing in the Italian Serie A. Before starting Index Ventures, Neil spent four years with Montgomery Securities in San Francisco.

Bob is a partner at Perella Weinberg Partners. Prior to joining Perella, Bob was New York City’s Deputy Mayor for Economic Development where he was responsible for the Bloomberg Administration’s economic development strategy and job-creation efforts.

As CEO of Wachovia Corporation in 2008, Bob oversaw the sale of the bank to Wells Fargo & Co. and served on the Wells Fargo board of directors until 2010. Bob has also served as the Under Secretary for Domestic Finance of the United States Treasury, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs and a board member of Barclays.

Bob is a graduate of Duke University and the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. He is Chairman of the Aspen Institute’s Board of Trustees and has served as Chairman of Duke’s Board of Trustees, Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, member of the FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion, Chairman of The After-School Corporation, and Co-Founder of SeaChange Capital Partners.

Lucy is responsible for the Legal, Compliance and People functions of the business. She is also the Company Secretary for the plc. Lucy joined in 2014 and oversaw the process for full Financial Conduct Authority authorisation of the UK regulated business. In addition to working on the acquisition of Funding Circle’s European business in October 2015 and a number of capital raises—including a £82m investment round in January 2017—she was part of the core team working on the October 2018 listing of Funding Circle Holdings on the London Stock Exchange. Lucy took on responsibility for the People function in August 2019.

Lucy was one of the founder members of Kemp Little LLP, a technology focused City law firm, whereas head of corporate she worked on M&A, equity and debt financing for financial services and fintech companies. She was managing partner of Kemp Little from 2009 to 2011 when she became Wonga’s first General Counsel and built up the company’s international legal team.

Edward Wray co-founded Betfair in 1999 with Andrew Black and was Chief Executive until 2003, when he moved to Australia to set up the company’s joint venture.

He became Chairman in 2006. Betfair floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2010, valued at £1.4bn. It is one of the world’s largest online sports betting operators, processing more than 5 million transactions a day. Prior to setting up Betfair, Edward spent 8 years at J.P. Morgan & Co. as a Vice President in the debt capital markets & derivatives area.