Lendinvest

For more than 12 years we’ve been making it our mission to make property finance simple. As a result, technology underpins everything we do. We have built an asset management platform designed to make the process of getting a mortgage simpler: reducing the form-filling, increasing the speed to get a ‘yes’, and creating a better customer experience for our borrowers, intermediaries, and investors.

Since starting out in 2008 we’ve lent more than £3 billion of mortgages and have helped to put thousands of new or improved homes into the UK housing market.

In that time we’ve built a truly international capital base. Today, our funders and investors include pension funds, insurers and global institutions like HSBC, J.P. Morgan, Citigroup and National Australia Bank. And in 2019 we became the first UK Fintech to securitise a portfolio of buy-to-let mortgages.

We are a multiple award-winning company and have been proudly profitable since 2015.

2008
As global financial markets crashed, our founders, Christian Faes and Ian Thomas, saw an opportunity to fill a critical gap in short-term property finance. They launched Montello Bridging Finance, an offline bridging finance lender and the forerunner to LendInvest.

2012
Saw the opportunity to begin building our own technology and take our proposition online as we managed £30 million of investors’ capital.

2013

Launched our online investment platform and LendInvest was born.

2015

Surpassed £300 million of completed loans. Received the highest rating for loan servicing from ARC Ratings for the first time (a feat repeated every year since). Launched Development Finance.

2016
Broke through the £500 million funding milestone. Secured £17m Series B funding from Atomico.

2017
Listed the first ever Fintech retail bond [programme] on the London Stock Exchange. Launched Buy-to-Let loans with backing from Citigroup.

2018
Raised £30.5 million in Series C fundraising. Joined the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (LHoFT).

Christian Faes

Co-Founder & Non-Executive Chair

Christian comes from a legal background having practised as a real estate lawyer in Australia at Allens Arthur Robinson, and then in the UK with Clifford Chance and Deutsche Bank. In 2008, Christian co-founded the business with Ian Thomas, initially seeing an opportunity in the short-term mortgage market.

He served as CEO of LendInvest until January 2020.

Christian has been actively involved in the fintech sector as founder of the Fintech Founders group, a member of the government’s Fintech Delivery Panel, the City of London’s Fintech Strategy group, and an advisor to the Department of International Trade’s Telecoms and Technology Trade Advisory Group.

Christian is now CEO of Faes & Co, which is a firm that actively builds and invests in technology-enabled direct lending businesses.

Stephan Wilcke

Senior Independent Director

Stephan Wilcke currently chairs Bima, the leading mobile delivered health and insurance provider in emerging markets and serves on the boards of Hamburg Commercial Bank and Equiom. He is a former Executive Chair of OneSavings Bank and has also served on the boards of Amigo, Azimut, Independer, Farmafactoring, the Jersey Financial Services Commission, the Hellenic Financial Stabilty Fund, Nova Lubjanska Bank, TBC Bank Pic and Travelex. In his executive career he served as CEO of HM Treasury’s Asset Protection Agency, was a partner at Apax Partners responsible for Financial Services in Europe and started his career at Oliver Wyman where he progressed to partner level. Stephan is an active early stage investor and has been an advisor to the business since 2016.

Stephan chairs the Remuneration and Nomination Committees, and is a member of the Audit and Risk Committee.

Maeve Byrne

Independent Non-Executive Director

Maeve is an accomplished financial services professional who brings over 30 years of experience to her new role. She has held key leadership positions at respected institutions like RBS and KPMG and currently serves as a Non-Executive Director and Audit Committee Chair at Alpha FMC. Maeve’s expertise in governance and financial oversight will be instrumental as she steps into the roles of Independent Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Audit & Risk Committee, contributing her insight to the Company’s strategic goals.

Maeve has been appointed as an Independent Non-Executive Director of the Company and Chair of the Audit & Risk Committee. Maeve is also a member of the Nomination and Remuneration Committees.

Rod Lockhart

Chief Executive Officer

Rod joined LendInvest in 2015 to lead the business’ Capital Markets and Fund Management division. Within that time Rod has overseen LendInvest’s AUM grow from £100m to £1.8bn and managed the launch of its listed Retail bond and RMBS programmes. Rod became Chief Executive Officer of LendInvest in January 2020.

Rod is a Chartered Surveyor with 17 years’ experience in property and property finance. He was previously Senior Director and a board member of the Investment Advisory Committee for CBRE. There, as well as advising LendInvest on its Real Estate Opportunity Fund, he advised UK and global institutional clients and managed a range of property and property debt portfolios.

Rod is passionate about property, alternative finance and prop-tech. He has lectured on property finance at the University of Reading and regularly advocates for the sector at conferences globally.

Ian Thomas

Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer

A qualified chartered surveyor, Ian has many years’ experience of property valuation, mixed-use development and investment acquisitions in both the UK and abroad, previously holding senior positions at Ballymore and SEGRO. Ian co-founded the business with Christian in 2008, during the global financial crisis.

Ian oversees all investment strategy and decision-making at LendInvest. He is a regular speaker at property industry events, a member of the MIPIM PropTech Advisory Committee and an active investor in several PropTech startups.

Stephen Shipley

Chief Financial Officer

Stephen Shipley is a seasoned Chief Financial Officer with extensive experience in the financial services industry. He has a strong background in financial management, reporting, planning, and analysis, having held significant roles at Barclays for over 23 years. During his tenure at Barclays, Stephen served as MD, Treasury CFO, and Head of Group Business Performance.

In his most recent role, Stephen was the CFO at Foundation Home Loans, where he managed capital markets and credit risk analytics, contributing to the company’s financial stability and growth. His expertise includes developing and implementing key systems and process changes.

Hugo Davies

Chief Capital Officer

Hugo began his career at Goldman Sachs, working within Treasury. During his time at Goldman Sachs, Hugo was responsible for the funding and liquidity management of mortgage portfolio sales, accelerated book-builds, debt offerings and SPV capitalisations. Hugo also managed liquidity risk for G10 & emerging market currencies, developing strong relationships in FX & money markets.Hugo joined LendInvest in 2016 within the Capital Markets division. Hugo leads equity and debt capital raising for the business and manages our large investor relationships. Hugo was responsible for the design and delivery of our listed bond programme, and oversaw the capital raising for both our launches into Buy-to-Let and regulated lending.

Peter Wallis

Chief Technology Officer

Peter is an enterprise architect by trade, having started his career consulting for Retail and Government clients at Accenture and Cap Gemini. This led onto a successful period at Camelot building and re-launching the £1 billion+ digital National Lottery business to 11 million customers, before becoming CTO at ETX Capital, a CFD and spread trading business, and then CTO at Sporting Group.

Peter joined LendInvest in Sept 2021 and grew the product and technology team by 67% to deliver the technology to support specialist residential mortgages and re-platform the BTL business. Peter holds a Masters in Engineering Science from Oxford University.

Daniel O’Conner

Chief Operating Officer

Daniel joined LendInvest in 2023 to lead the scaling of Operations before expanding responsibilities in April 2024 becoming Chief Operating Officer.

Daniel has over 17 years of experience in Financial Services across Banking and Fintech, specialising in Risk Management & Assurance at the beginning of his career at RBS Group, MUFG & CYBG. Daniel led the integration of Group Operations during CYBG’s acquisition of Virgin Money and went on to lead the transformation of Operations at scale.

Leanne Ardron

Director of Bridging

Leanne has worked in the specialist finance industry for 15 years. She has experience working in a variety of roles within the mortgage sector including legals, broking and property investment. She was the third employee at LendInvest and has seen it grow considerably since joining in 2012. Leanne has been involved in structuring a number of complex transactions and delivering a variety of key milestones for the business.

As Director of Bridging, Leanne is responsible for overseeing LendInvest’s bridging proposition from start to finish with a mandate to grow the short term lending business.

Daniel Underwood

Chief Credit Risk Officer

Daniel is a qualified Chartered Surveyor with over 25 years’ of experience in Financial Services across UK Banking, FinTech, and Specialist Lending.

Daniel spent 18 years with National Australia Group Europe, starting his career in mortgages and retail banking, prior to a senior role in restructuring and recoveries, focusing on residential and commercial property enforcement, insolvency, litigation, and loss mitigation. Prior to joining LendInvest Daniel also spent 2 years with Funding Circle UK, holding a senior role in Property Development underwriting.

Daniel joined LendInvest in 2017 and is responsible for LendInvest’s credit policy, large loan and development finance underwriting, portfolio risk, quality assurance, and complex recoveries.