Board members & backers
We are proud to have a breadth of business and technology experience represented on our board and within our backer group.
Giles Andrews
Co-founder & Chairman
Giles was part of the team that founded Zopa in 2004. He became CEO in 2007 and moved to the role of Executive Chairman in 2015. Prior to Zopa, Giles co-founded Caverdale, a start-up taken to a £250m revenue motor retailer and sold in 1997. He also set up his own consultancy, with large clients in the General Retail and Financial Services sectors, and which also provided start up advice and early stage funding for new businesses.
Giles is also non-executive Chairman of Bethnal Green Ventures, the accelerator for start-ups using technology to make social or environmental impact. He received an OBE for services to financial services in the 2016 New Year’s Honours list.
Jaidev Janardana
Chief Executive Officer & Executive Director
Jaidev Janardana is Chief Executive Officer of Zopa, the world’s first peer-to-peer lending company. For the past 16 years, Jaidev has worked to create simple, fair financial products and services for consumers by leveraging technology and analytics. Jaidev joined Zopa in 2014. Since then, the company has grown its loan volumes and revenues at over 65% CAGR, achieved profitability, and announced plans to launch a bank alongside the P2P business.
Before Zopa, Jaidev spent 12 years at Capital One both in the US and UK. He moved to the UK as the Chief Credit Officer managing credit risk through the financial crisis. Later he took on a broader role as the Chief Marketing Officer and was instrumental in returning the UK business back to profitability and growth.
Non-executive directors
Charles Birnbaum is a Vice President at Bessemer Venture Partners where he focuses on disruptive companies in financial services, software, and consumer internet. Some of his current and recent prior investments include Betterment, Bread, United Capital, Quantopian, Abacus, BrightBytes and Main Street Hub. Charles started his career in corporate finance at Deutsche Bank and was an early employee and later Director of Business Development at Foursquare before joining BVP in 2013.
Christine Farnish is a non-executive director on the boards of Ofwat and Ofgem. Christine has spent the last six years as chair of the P2P Finance Association. Previously, Christine was Group Managing Director, Public Policy, at Barclays, CEO of the National Association of Pension Funds, and Consumer Affairs Director at the FSA (the forerunner to the FCA).
Richard Goulding holds positions as a non-executive director at the Bank of Ireland and CitiGroup Global Markets Ltd. Previously, Richard was at Standard Chartered Bank, where he was Group Chief Risk Officer and director for 10 years.
Peter Herbert has over 40 years’ experience in the financial services industry, most recently as Chief Executive Officer at Tandem. Peter started his career at Barclays: the positions he held included Finance Director of three of the Group’s major operating divisions, Group Head of Strategy, and Managing Director of Barclaycard. Subsequently, at GE Capital, he was the Chief Executive Officer of the global mortgage, consumer lending and credit cards business.
Tim Levene was a founding employee in London of Flutter.com, and then Commercial Director at Betfair.com – the world's No.1 betting exchange. A seasoned entrepreneur, Tim was also one of the founders of Crussh, which has 29 stores throughout London. Tim is co-founder and Managing Partner of technology private-equity fund Augmentum, which is backed by RIT Capital Partners PLC, the FTSE-listed £2bn (US$3bn) investment trust in which Jacob Rothschild and family are substantial investors. Tim was made a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2012.
Nigel Morris is the managing partner of QED Investors. He also works with General Atlantic Partners and Oliver Wyman Consulting in an advisory capacity, and he serves on the board for numerous companies and organisations, including Red Ventures, CAN Capital, Media Math, Prosper, National Geographic, ideas42, and the London Business School. In 1994 Nigel co-founded Capital One Financial Services, transforming the consumer lending industry and growing the business from an emerging startup to an established public company now worth over $30bn.
Phillip J. Riese invests in and advises financial technology companies globally. An early investor in and Chairman of Zopa until 2015, his portfolio includes Betterment, Cross River Bank, FlyWire, Remitly and Fundera in the US, Behalf in Israel and Yoyo Wallet and eWise in the UK. He previously spent over 20 years in the credit card business, retiring from American Express in 1998 as President of the Consumer Card Business and Chairman of the American Express Centurion Bank.
Kapil Wadhawan is the founder of WGC which is the parent company for some of the top brands in India such as DHFL, Aadhar Housing Finance, Avanse Financial Services, DHFL Pramerica Life Insurance and DHFL Pramerica Asset Managers to name a few. Under his leadership, WGC commenced its journey of transforming people's lives, reaching out to customers across the length and breadth of India. Kapil led the foray of WGC into the education loans sector through Avanse Financial Services in 2013, in life insurance through DHFL Pramerica Life Insurance in 2014, in asset management services through DHFL Pramerica Asset Managers Private Limited in 2015–16 and in general insurance through DHFL General Insurance.
Backers
Arrowgrass is a European-focused alternative asset manager, head-quartered in London. It has more than 100 employees operating from offices in London and New York, and manages three funds with combined Assets Under Management (AUM) of approximately $5 billion.
Augmentum is a London based VC fund targeting dynamic businesses that disrupt traditional sectors. The fund is backed by RIT Capital Partners, an LSE listed investment trust with more than £2 billion AUM in which Lord Rothschild and his family are significant investors. Augmentum was founded in 2009 by Tim Levene and Richard Matthews. Augmentum's investments include Borro.com, the online asset-backed lender, and BullionVault.com, the World's leading online bullion market.
Bessemer Venture Partners backs teams who are building market-transforming companies. They have been amongst the earliest investors in the likes of Skype, Pinterest, Shopify, LinkedIn, and Yelp. Bessemer Venture Partners has over 100 years of investing experience with more than $6 billion under management around the world.
Northzone is a European venture capital fund with offices in London, Stockholm, Oslo and New York. Founded in 1996, the firm partners with leading entrepreneurs to build global companies. To date, Northzone has raised 8 funds with a total of €1 billion under management, and has invested in over 120 companies. Northzone was an early investor in companies like Spotify, Lastminute.com, iZettle, Avito and Trustpilot.
Runa Capital is $135 million technology-focused venture capital firm whose founders and partners have created or incubated companies with more than US$10 billion in assets. They seek rapid growth opportunities in the the tech sector, focusing on cloud computing and other hosted services, virtualization and mobile apps. Runa Capital invests in promising teams to drive and support them on a global scale, turning them into international champions.
Wadhawan Global Capital Pvt Ltd (WGC) is a leading financial services group with assets under management of c. £20 billion through its lending, investment and insurance platforms and which include some of the top brands in India, such as Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL), Aadhar Housing Finance Company, Avanse Financial Services Ltd, DHFL Pramerica Life Insurance Company Ltd and DHFL Pramerica Asset Managers Private Ltd to name a few.
Its flagship company, DHFL, is a market leader with three decades of experience in financing affordable housing. WGC has partnered with leading financial institutions such as International Finance Corporation (IFC), Washington, Prudential Financial Inc., United States, Asian Development Bank and Korean Development Bank, in transforming the lives of millions of lower and middle income customers across India.
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