MarketInvoice snaps up Santander exec as head of risk
MARKETINVOICE has hired Santander senior executive Shaun Alexander as its head of risk, in a move that underpins the peer-to-peer invoice finance specialist’s strive to widen its borrower range.
Alexander will work with the P2P platform’s co-founder and chief operating officer Ilya Kondrashov to lay out new risk management strategies and improve credit scoring systems and risk policies, also capitalising on new technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, the firm announced on Monday.
Alexander joins MarketInvoice following a nine-year tenure at Banco Santander, where he went on to become the head of risk for asset-based lending and managed credit risk across the bank’s invoice finance and asset finance product range.
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He started his career at Barclays, working across various credit risk roles for 22 years, before joining management consulting firm Oliver Wyman, where he set up the credit underwriting operations for a new business venture with Deutsche Bank, lending to UK SME businesses.
The senior appointment comes hot on the heels of the firm’s surprise hire of Zopa’s co-founder Giles Andrews OBE as new chairman, and further boosts its stated goal of widening the range of businesses it lends to, from start-ups to larger businesses looking to scale up.
“We have been steadily strengthening our management team over the past 12 months and Shaun’s addition enhances our team further,” said Kondrashov. “He brings over 30 years of experience from the conventional lending institutions. Shaun understands the business finance needs of companies of all sizes.”
“For too long, as I have witnessed first-hand, the status quo in risk management has gone unchallenged,” said Alexander.
“Much more can be done with the available technology to drive and enhance the quality and speed of risk decisions for UK businesses. MarketInvoice is not only challenging but driving the change in fintech to deliver a best-in-class risk function in business finance. I will look to adopt the latest technology in evolving our risk models and credit management to achieve MarketInvoice’s ambitions.”
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