Helping small businesses get the funding they need to win

Samir 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 £13.1 billion+ of loans to 118,000+ businesses creating an estimated 135,000 jobs. Investors on the platform include institutional investors, local councils 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. 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 U.S. Managing Director, Vipul Chhabra is responsible for overseeing the overall strategic direction and day-to-day operation of Funding Circle in the United States.

Vipul has been with Funding Circle for over 4 years running our Global Data and Analytics function, as well as leading the UK New Products team. Prior to joining Funding Circle, Vipul has spent over 16 years in various commercial, marketing and risk roles at Capital One, Citigroup and Barclays across various countries, with over a decade-long experience working in the US. Throughout his career, he has focused on lending and payments with experience across consumer and commercial lending.

Vipul holds an MBA from The Indian Institute of Management, and is also a Chartered Accountant.

Lisa leads the European business and is responsible for overseeing the overall strategic direction and day‑to‑day operation of Funding Circle in Europe. 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 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.

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 brings 20 years of experience in risk management. In his previous role at Barclays, he 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.

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 Global CFO, Oliver serves on the Funding Circle Holdings plc Board and is responsible for all aspects of finance including the statutory accounts, tax, treasury and procurement.

Oliver joined from Vanquis Bank where he served as Chief Financial Officer. He was formerly the Chief Financial Officer at Barclaycard, where he managed a global business with combined assets of £40bn, £5bn of revenues and £1.6bn of profits. Oliver is a chartered management accountant and holds an MBA from Warwick Business School.

Eric currently holds a range of business appointments which include as an advisor, a mentor, a non-executive director, a trustee or a board member. He also advises several innovative technology companies.

Eric was previously Group Chief Executive Officer of the Lloyds Banking Group retiring in 2011. Prior to joining Lloyds in 2001, he spent 25 years with Citigroup in a range of management positions.

Eric 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. She 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 Virgin Money UK PLC (where she is chair of the risk committee and on the audit committee), Wizink Bank SA (where she is chair of the risk committee and a member of the audit committee) and Ultra Electronic Holdings plc.

Matthew has over 36 years of experience of financial services. Having qualified as a solicitor with Slaughter and May, Matthew held a number of risk management positions with HSBC over a 15 year period across Asia, Australia, the Americas and Europe. Matthew is currently a Non-Executive Director of Prodigy Finance Limited, which provides funding to international students at over 750 universities and colleges worldwide and he is Non-Executive Chairman of Savannah Resources plc, an AIM-listed mining and exploration company which is developing a lithium mine in Portugal and a mineral sands mine in Mozambique.

Helen has over 25 years of experience in financial services, particularly in remuneration design, regulation and human resources. Helen was formerly a partner at Deloitte and, among her previous roles in her career, Helen was Global Head of Reward at Standard Bank, Head of McLagan Europe (part of Aon) and held roles in human resources in Fidelity International.

Helen serves as Non-Executive Director of Ashmore Group PLC (where she is Chair of the remuneration committee), Governor of University of Bedfordshire, Governor of John Whitgift Foundation and independent member of the remuneration committee for The British Olympic Committee.

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.

Harry joined Accel in 2004 and focuses on software, fintech and consumer internet companies.

Harry led Accel’s investments in KAYAK (NASDAQ: KYAK; acquired by Priceline), Showroomprive (EPA: SRP), Funding Circle (LON: FCH), CHECK24, WorldRemit, Celonis, and Instana.

Harry started his career in Silicon Valley as an engineer at Hewlett-Packard before founding a venture-backed software company.

Harry is from the Netherlands and graduated from Harvard Business School and Delft University of Technology.

Neil 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. Before starting Index Ventures, Neil spent four years with Montgomery Securities in San Francisco.

Neil is currently a director or observer on various boards of companies based in the UK, Europe and US including Prodigy Investments Limited, Raisin GmbH, Peat GmbH, Nexthink SA and Pitch Software GmbH. He is also a Director of Human Rights Watch.

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.