Oct 20, 2023

Six peer-to-peer (P2P) leaders are competing to be named CEO of the year at the upcoming Peer2Peer Finance Awards. The nominees represent some of the best of the sector, with expertise across property lending, crowd bonds, business lending and bridging lending. So who are the top five top P2P leaders of 2023? Roy Warren, Folk2Folk Warren has been at the helm of Folk2Folk since September 2019, and has built the platform to what is now the UK’s largest P2P lender. He is one of the longest serving P2P executives in this ever-changing sector, having joined as portfolio manager at the platform in 2015. The firm turned 10 in February this year and Warren says Folk2Folk’s success and longevity have been down to “our loyal high-net-worth investors, that’s where our loyalty lies”. Jason Ferrando, easyMoney Ferrando has been at the helm of easyMoney since August 2022, having been head of lending at the firm. Earlier this year easyMoney announced profit of more than £1m in 2022, almost twice the value of its 2021 profits. To date the firm has lent around £300m to property developers across the UK and is yet to default on a loan, with no investors having lost any money. Narinder Khattoare, chief executive, Kuflink As chief executive of Kuflink, Khattoare has grown the property lending platform to become one of the biggest names in the sector, with a loan book in excess of £220m and zero investor losses reported to date. Kuflink is aiming to grow its loan book to £0.5bn by the end of 2025 as it scales rapidly with new hires and upcoming product launches. Khattoare also has his eye on an IPO as soon as the time is right. Uma Rajah, CapitalRise Rajah has almost ten years of fintech experience, having joined CapitalRise from consumer lending business Wonga in 2015. CapitalRise recently surpassed £300m in loans originated to date. The prime property investment platform has funded developments across London and the Home Counties valued at £822m. CapitalRise has recently made significant investments in its business development and in-house tech teams and expects to see loan origination volumes and values continue to rise. Jatin Ondhia, Shojin Ondhia is co-founder and chief executive of Shojin, which launched in 2009. Prior to that he was an investment banker at UBS. Shojin has been profitable for the last three years, posting core earnings of around £500,000 in its latest annual results. In August, the group announced partnerships, with German real estate investment platform Linus Digital Finance and Reinvest24, an Estonian real estate crowdfunding platform. Ondhia has said he is in talks with several platforms, including in India and Singapore. Mike Bristow, CrowdProperty Bristow is chief executive and co-founder of specialist property development lending platform CrowdProperty. He has 18 years’ experience as a strategy consultant advising international companies and private equity funds on M&A and corporate strategy. CrowdProperty recently reported its most successful month to date, as it celebrated having paid back more than £200m to investors. It declared August to be a “significant milestone”, having lent £13.7m towards 24 projects with a gross development value of £96m.