Funding Circle CEO to step down after over a decade
Funding Circle’s CEO Samir Desai CBE will step down next year and be succeeded by managing director Lisa Jacobs, the funding platform said in an announcement today.
Desai will step back as chief executive officer of the lender in January 2022, after 12 years in the position. He will transition to a new role as non-executive director, the lender said in its announcement.
His successor, Lisa Jacobs, was a financial services consultant at the Boston Consulting Group prior to joining Funding Circle in 2012.
It was the right time to step back from running the company, as Funding Circle was in the “strongest position it has ever been [in],” Desai said in the company announcement this morning.
Funding Circle is a loans platform that launched in 2010 and has lent out around £13bn to over 100,000 businesses globally, according to the company.
The number of loans under management at Funding Circle hit a record in 2020, with the firm’s involvement in the Covid support scheme giving a boost to the business that continued into 2021. Operating profit for the first half of 2021 reached £35.5m.