Our leadership

Lisa Jacobs

Chief Executive Officer

Lisa is the CEO of Funding Circle, the leading UK small business credit platform, which enables small businesses to borrow, pay and spend. To date the platform has extended more than £16bn to small businesses, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs. During her time at Funding Circle, as UK Managing Director, she led the UK business through the pandemic becoming one of the largest lenders under the CBILS government loan scheme; and as Chief Strategy Officer she led capital raising from Series C to IPO; and led the company’s international expansion with two acquisitions. She was named as AltFi’s CEO of the Year 2022 and Fintech Woman of the Year in 2021. She has also been named on the Innovate Finance FinTech PowerList 2017-2023.

Prior to Funding Circle, Lisa was a strategy consultant at BCG. She has also worked for NGOs in Tanzania and India.

Lisa studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford.

Alexander Allen

Managing Director, Term Loans & Chief Customer Officer

Alexander leads the UK business and is responsible for the strategic direction and overall performance of Funding Circle in the UK. Alexander joined Funding Circle in early 2018 as UK Strategy Director, before also taking on the roles of Commercial Director and then also Change Director with responsibility for driving commercial performance across the UK business, setting strategic plans, developing and launching new product propositions and managing programme delivery. He has also had spells leading the Marketing, Brand and Operations teams in the UK and Europe.

Prior to Funding Circle, Alexander began his career at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, before going on to serve 7 years as a commissioned officer in the Royal Green Jackets/The Rifles. Since leaving the army he has worked in several roles including 4½ years with Bain & Company in London, advising a number of multinational companies across financial services, utilities, business information, health and education. His specialisms included corporate and business unit strategy, organisational and op model design, salesforce effectiveness and performance improvement. He has also held leadership roles in working with NGOs in Haiti and building a retail services business in the UK and Ireland.

Alexander holds an MA (Oxon) from the University of Oxford and an MBA from INSEAD.

Greig McEwan

Chief Technology Officer

As Chief Technology Officer, Greig is responsible for all of Funding Circle’s technology capabilities globally.

Greig is a customer-driven technology leader, with more than twenty years’ experience working in fast-paced digital organisations. He has served as CTO for businesses as diverse as sennder, one of Europe’s leading digital freight-forward platforms, and both the Paddy Power and Betfair brands.

Greig also has extensive experience in leading change delivery and transformation for companies such as Ladbrokes and Yell. He started his career as a developer for the National House Building Council.

Greig holds a Masters Degree from Glasgow University. 

Belkacem Krimi

Chief Risk Officer

Belkacem brings more than 20 years of experience in risk management to his role as Global Chief Risk Officer at Funding Circle, following 5 years as Chief Risk Officer for Europe.

Prior to joining Funding Circle, Belkacem held various risk leadership roles within GE Capital across Asia and Europe at both a regional and national level. He has unique international experience across credit cycles with a deep knowledge of most consumer and retail commercial lending products. Within Funding Circle, his leadership during the Covid crisis has been critical in ensuring that SMEs continued to be supported through the pandemic whilst protecting investor returns.

Lucy Vernall

Chief Legal Officer and Company Secretary

Lucy is responsible for the Legal, Compliance, ESG and Communications functions of the business. She is also the Company Secretary for the plc. Lucy joined in 2014 and oversaw the process for full Financial Conduct Authority authorisation of the UK regulated business. In addition to working on a number of capital raises – including a £82 million investment round in January 2017 – she was part of the core team working on the October 2018 listing of Funding Circle Holdings on the London Stock Exchange and the sale of the US business in 2024. Lucy was also responsible for the People function from August 2019 to July 2024. 

Lucy was one of the founder members of Kemp Little LLP, a technology focused City law firm, where as Head of Corporate she worked on M&A, equity and debt financing for financial services and FinTech companies. She was Managing Partner of Kemp Little from 2009 to 2011 when she became Wonga’s first General Counsel and built up the company’s international legal team.

Tony Nicol

Chief Financial Officer

Tony joined Funding Circle in 2018 as Director of Finance and was part of the team leading the IPO. Prior to Funding Circle, he was Group Financial Controller at IG Group Holdings plc, where he was responsible for all financial reporting including budgeting and forecasting. Before then, Tony worked at PwC as an Assurance Director auditing and advising listed and private businesses in a number of sectors. Tony is an FCA of the ICAEW and holds a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Bristol.

Jerome Fernandez

Managing Director, FlexiPay & Cards

Jerome leads FlexiPay and is responsible for building and growing this business at pace.
He brings more than 20 years of experience in both the fintech and banking sectors, having worked in product and commercial leadership roles with both high growth scale-up organisations and established large enterprises globally. Most recently, Jerome built and led Product teams at global fintech organisations, Remitly and Revolut. Prior to that, he held various commercial leadership roles to scale consumer lending products at Sainsbury’s Bank and Citi’s global consumer business. Jerome began his career in consultancy with Deloitte and Accenture, advising financial institutions and consumer goods companies on growth and operational programmes.

Jerome holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management.

John Nolan

Chief People Officer

John is responsible for the People function at Funding Circle and leads Funding Circle's people strategy, including recruitment, talent management and succession, culture, diversity, equity and inclusion, and people operations. John joined Funding Circle in 2018, supporting the UK and CE businesses, before taking responsibility for the US People organisation in 2019.

Prior to Funding Circle, John held leadership positions in HR and Finance at Barclays and HSBC. He began his career at Deloitte as a Consultant in their strategy and human capital practice, advising and providing implementation services to clients across both the public and private sectors, including pharmaceuticals, technology and financial services.

John holds a Masters Degree from Ollscoil na Gaillimhe (University of Galway) in Ireland, and is a chartered management accountant.