I became an entrepreneur after a decade on the trading floors of Wall Street banks: JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. I founded my first startup, Marketpipe at the height of the dotcom boom and we were one of the lucky few to prosper through the subsequent crash. We built and operated bond distribution software for investment banks; an early Fintech SaaS business. We were fortunate to win customers quickly and build a great team of some outstanding individuals and were pleased to be included in the Techtrak 100 as one of the fastest-growing UK companies. We sold the company to a VC-backed three-way merger led by our main competitor in the US. It continues to thrive as part of that business.
Our new business is Phance & Co, a fintech private bank that brings mortgages, investments to the bank-denied entrepreneur and expat.
Partly by learning from mistakes and increasingly, I hope from success, I've become an almost religious believer in the importance of meticulous design, relentless selling, total marketing and exceptional customer service. The most important part of achieving that is hiring the right people, which in turn, means creating a warm, humane, tech culture that attracts the bright and charming. I've now started, advised and invested in many new tech and growth businesses.