Jul 6, 2022

Zopa co-founder Giles Andrews (pictured) has stepped down as chairman of business lender MarketFinance after more than five years in the role. Andrews joined the MarketFinance board in early 2017. His position as a director was terminated on 24 June 2022, according to Companies House documents, and ended in July according to Andrews’ LinkedIn profile. A spokesperson from MarketInvoice told Peer2Peer Finance News that Andrews was a “longstanding friend and mentor” to Stocker. Andrews was one of the founders of Zopa – the world’s first peer-to-peer lending platform – back in 2004. He became chief executive of Zopa in 2007 and remained in the role until August 2015. He then served as chairman of the Zopa board until February 2019. As of July 2022, Andrews is an independent non-executive director of the privately owned bank C. Hoare & Co. He also serves as a non-executive director on the risk, remuneration and group transformation committees at the Bank of Ireland; and he is chairman of online car dealing marketplace Carwow. Since October 2021, he has been chairman of the governing council and trustee at independent think tank the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation. He has also been a board member of the City of London/Innovate Finance Fintech Strategy Group since March 2018. MarketFinance was founded as an invoice finance company in 2011 with the brand name MarketInvoice. It rebranded to MarketFinance in November 2019 after it expanded its product offering. MarketFinance’s board of advisers includes Baroness Susan Kramer, the Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords; and Shalini Khemka, chief executive and director of E2Exchange. “After nearly six years Giles and MarketFinance decided that now was a good time for Giles pursue other positions and he’ll be cheering MarketFinance on from the side-lines,” said Anil Stocker, chief executive and co-founder of MarketFinance. “I’m very grateful for the all time and energy that Giles devoted to MarketFinance and we’ve seen great progress under his Chairmanship. He was also fun to work with! “Watch out for future updates on board appointments from MarketFinance in the coming months.”