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 President operating in the FinTech space. If you think a President 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.
Nicolas Cary
Co-Founder & President of Blockchain.com
Nicolas Cary is the Co-Founder & Vice Chairman at Blockchain.com.
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About Blockchain.com, Skysthelimit.org, YBA: Blockchain.com is a platform that offers ways to buy, hold, and use cryptocurrency.
Hélène Alunni-Botteri
Senior Vice President, Innovation Group of Wells Fargo
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About Wells Fargo: Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $1.3 trillion assets providing banking, insurance, and investments.
Marc Cantwell
Vice President of American Express
Marc is a product guy. Well, he used to be. Nothing makes him happier than hunting for the most important customer problems to solve – and right now, streamlining and supercharging internal customer journeys are where he can make the biggest difference. That means Marc and his team need to think bigger and broader than any one product as they focus on the digital workplace experience for their fellow employees. With fifteen years at American Express under his belt, Marc currently is an executive within the company’s Digital Workplace team, with responsibility for strategy, transformation, and the colleague experience. Although Marc’s interests skew more towards the value and impact of technology, as well as a relentless focus on the end-to-end customer experience, he secretly knows more about engineering than he lets on, having earned a BSc in theoretical and mathematical physics from the University of Nottingham and an MSc in Information Technology for eCommerce from the University of Sussex. When not hard at work creating the world’s best colleague digital experience, Marc puts his knowledge of emergent collaboration and communication technology to practical use, running his Dungeons & Dragons campaign without the headache of trying to schedule half a dozen adults to be in the same place at the same time.
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About American Express: American Express is a global financial services company best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveler’s cheque businesses.
Antonio Gagliardi
Vice President – Strategy, Product, and Analytics – Merchant Services of American Express
Before founding CompareEuropeGroup, Antonio was an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company in their UK Financial Services practice. Prior to this, Antonio worked at Bain & Co and at JP Morgan Chase. Antonio holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, with a special distinction for finishing in the top 10%, and graduated summa cum laude from Bocconi University.
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About American Express: American Express is a global financial services company best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveler’s cheque businesses.
Stephen Lemon
Co-Founder | Vice President | Strategic Partnerships & Corporate Development of Currencycloud
Steve has worked in Foreign exchange and international payments, pretty much forever, and participated in the first FinTech of the late 90s wave (before it was even called Fintech) as founding team member of HiFX. The current, product lead revolution has tipped him over the edge and he’s now a fully paid up FinTech geek, of the opinion that we live in exciting times and that Open APIs will change the world. Stephen currently also serves as a Non-Executive Director and Advisor for a number of early stage FinTech companies, and has recently mentored for the 2017 cohort at Techsters. In his personal time Steve is a keen amateur photographer, motorsport lover and live music fan.
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About Currencycloud: Currencycloud specializes in a fully cloud-based platform for B2B cross-border payments.
Esme Harwood
Vice President, Public Policy of Barclays
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About Barclays: Barclays is a global financial services company that provides various financial products and services worldwide.
Richard Perry
Vice President of Sales EMEA & APAC of BioCatch
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About BioCatch, ThetaRay: BioCatch unlocks the power of behavior and deliver actionable insights to create a digital world where identity, trust, and ease co-exist.
Lisa Macedo
Vice President of Moody’s Investors Service
Lisa Macedo is a Vice President – Senior Analyst in Moody’s Investors Service Structured Finance Group, based in London. She has been responsible for assigning ratings to over 100 securitisation transactions. The asset classes encompass peer-to-peer, consumer loans, student loans, credit card receivables, auto ABS, CMBS, non- performing loans, and all RMBS asset types: non-conforming, reperforming, warehouse, reverse mortgage, master trusts, prime and buy to let loans. She has covered EMEA, APAC and US jurisdictions including Germany, Netherlands, UK, France, Spain, Italy and Portugal. Currently she is responsible for surveillance of consumer asset securitisations, focused on the UK, Russia, Ireland and is also involved in rating methodology projects, research on market relevant topics, and has been involved in special focus groups covering matters including Brexit and IBOR transition.
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About Moody’s Investors Service: Moody’s Investors Service is a bond credit rating business that provides research, credit rating, and financial risk analysis services.
Michael Sim
Vice President of Fidelity International Strategic Ventures
Michael sources deals, conducts due diligence and carries out financial modelling to support the Principal Investments team. He is also helping to develop Eight Roads’ position in FinTech and manages its portfolio of listed stocks.
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About Fidelity International Strategic Ventures: Fidelity International Strategic Ventures invests in fintech businesses and technologies.
Julie Kainz
Vice President of Dawn Capital
Julie Kainz currently works as the Vice President for Dawn Capital. She previously worked at Salesforce Ventures as a Senior Associate.
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About Dawn Capital: Dawn Capital is an early-stage venture fund that focuses on investing in the enterprise software and FinTech sectors.
Chris Deboer
President & CEO of GAIN Credit
“I joined Global Analytics because of the extraordinary quality of the team, the size of the global market, the commitment to excellence and the opportunity to make a difference in changing the industry.” Chris leads our business development and partnerships and has over 20 years of experience in sales, client partnerships and key account management. Prior to Global Chris managed a team of industry professionals tasked with maintaining and growing relationships with Fair Isaac Corporation’s five largest customers. There, he developed a team-based, relationship-driven sales model with a focus on gaining deeper relationships across the client base. Chris holds a MSEE and BSEE from the University of California at Santa Barbara and plays tennis competitively.
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About GAIN Credit: GAIN Credit is a fintech company dedicated to providing credit for people who are underserved by mainstream financial service companies.
Marc Baudry
Vice President of Riverside Company
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About Riverside Company, Trex: The Riverside Company is a private equity firm investing in companies with enterprise values of under $200 million.
Richard Wray
Vice President of Operations of Carta Worldwide
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About Carta Worldwide: Carta Worldwide is an international leader in digital transaction technology, specializing in mobile & emerging payments.
Yoyo Chang
Co-Founder, CEO and President of KodyPay
Yoyo is a Taiwanese born British entrepreneur who is a co-founder and the current CEO of KodyPay. Yoyo co-founded KodyPay in the final year of High School and successfully raised US$6 million over 2020/21. Hoping to build a career in investment banking, Yoyo had started to invest in the stock market at the age of 13. With returns of over 80% in Q4 2016, he led his school team to first place in a national investment competition. During Yoyo’s first year at the University of York, Yoyo self-invested £120,000 of trading profits to build a pilot product for KodyPay. Yoyo has studied at King’s College, University of Cambridge and Langwith College, University of York.
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About IIC Holdings, KodyPay, Nerd Ventures: Revolutionising in-person payments to grow your business with a trustworthy and innovative solution.
Peter Randall
President, Founder of SETL
Peter Randall is the SETL’s COO, Credited with revolutionising the equity exchange market in Europe through the establishment of Chi-X Europe Ltd, Peter led the company’s growth as founder and CEO, from an unknown multilateral trading facility to become one of the top 5 trading venues in Europe by volumes traded. Subsequently, Peter was appointed CEO of Equiduct, where he restructured the business, and turned it into the fastest growing trading platform in Europe in 2012. Prior to Equiduct and Chi-X, Peter was COO at Instinet Europe Ltd, and Executive Director of FIX Protocol Ltd.
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About SETL: SETL is a technology company that focuses on blockchain settlements and payments.
Jonathan Kramer
President of Zopa
Jonathan Kramer is a member of the management team at Zopa, the world’s first and the UK’s leading peer-to-peer lending company. At Zopa Jonathan is responsible for capital markets and institutional lending. Jonathan joined Zopa in 2014 from Morgan Stanley, where he spent 12 years and co-led UK institutional equity derivative sales. Previously Jonathan was in the corporate finance team at Bank Austria, advising on cross-border mergers and acquisitions in Central and Eastern Europe. Jonathan holds a B.A. from Claremont McKenna College and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.
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About Zopa: Zopa offers peer-to-peer loans with low rates, flexible terms, and no early repayment fees.
Jonathan Hughes
Co-Founder, President and Chief Operating Officer of Pollinate
Jonathan Hughes is the Co-Founder, President & Chief Operating Officer at Pollinate International.
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About Pollinate: Pollinate Networks is a platform that works with banks to create data-driven experiences for merchants and consumers.
Edward Sweigart
Vice President Global Partners & Ecosystem of Finastra
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About Finastra: Finastra provides the broadest portfolio of financial services software.
Rebecca Goudman-Peachey
Vice President and Head of Risk of OSMM
Rebecca has special expertise in the online payment market having had many years of experience, working with leading Merchant Acquiring Banks and IPSPs. Rebecca is also responsible for spearheading OSMM’s branding and go-to-market strategy with a large knowledge of the card payments, business operations, systems management, issuing/acquiring operational set-ups and migrations, and project and supplier management. Rebecca serves as the Company’s Compliance (MLRO) Officer and is registered with the UK Financial Conduct Authority as an individual responsible for the management of Onestopmoneymanager Ltd. Rebecca holds a Master of Laws in International Finance and Banking Law, Bachelor of Laws and is currently undergoing a PhD regarding the regulatory environment of merchant acquiring.
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About OSMM: OSMM is an innovative e-commerce acquirer whom understand the needs and desires of merchants.
Ulyana Shtybel, Ph.D.
Chief Capital Officer and Vice President of the Board of HighCastle
PhD in Economics, Former Executive Director of the Warsaw Stock Exchange in Ukraine, Head of Banking and Financial Services Committee at the American Chamber of Commerce, commercial bank trainee with 180 loan specialists under supervision. Named the Digital Leader of the Year Finalist, London Regional Finalist for the Forward Ladies National Awards 2019 and Blockchain Leader Finalist for the Women in Tech Awards.
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About HighCastle: One powerful platform for private companies to manage investment workflow, equity and debt securities
Ahmed Wagih Khalil
Vice President of Hamilton Lane
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About Hamilton Lane: Hamilton Lane is a firm that provides private equity investment management services.
Rob Young
President, International of OnDeck
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About OnDeck: Ondeck is a technology-enabled financial platform that provides loan financing to small and medium-sized businesses.
Sandeep Bathina
President and Founder of StockViews
Sandeep is the President and Co-Founder at StockViews. He is a serial entrepreneur and private investor.
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About StockViews: StockViews is an investment research platform.
Yann L’Huillier
President of Enyx
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About : Deliver smart, ultra low-latency network solutions for the financial industry
Yann L’Huillier
President of Enyx
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About : Deliver smart, ultra low-latency network solutions for the financial industry
Mao Yingying
Vice President of Aixuedai
Partner, graduated from Zhejiang University MBA, Germany Technische Hochschule Nürnberg MBA. Former president of Shenzhen Qifei Technology Co., Ltd. and vice president of Hangzhou subsidiary, representative of ISO9000 management. Depth participation in organizational optimization and process reengineering, the creation of subsidiaries and national business management, 5 years to complete full-time rapid promotion.
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About Aixuedai: Aixuedai is an online payment platform that allows students to buy items using monthly installment plans.
Wei Jie
Financial Technology President of Aixuedai
Partner, graduated from Peking University (undergraduate), University of California, Los Angeles (MSc). He has successively held the positions of R & D Director, China General Manager and Group Vice President of Yahoo! USA and SEVEN Networks Inc. Shopping guide shopping site co-founder. He served as general manager of potatoes, soil groups, general manager of Shanghai Product Center and other positions.
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About Aixuedai: Aixuedai is an online payment platform that allows students to buy items using monthly installment plans.
Elisabete Orfao
Senior Vice President of Ardent Advisors
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About Ardent Advisors: Strategic corporate finance advice in the e-commerce and digital technology market.
