Who we are

Zopa is run by a small team drawing experience from
a range of industries including Financial Services.
We're all passionate about making Zopa a great
place for our members.

Our board

Chairman

Phillip J. Riese
Phillip spent 18 years as President of American Express Consumer Cards Services Group, where he successfully relaunched the consumer lending business, as well as developing the co-branded card business. Before American Express, Phillip served as division executive of Chase Manhattan Bank's Visa and MasterCard businesses.

Non-executive Directors

Rob Stavis (from Bessemer Venture Partners)
Rob was an independent private equity investor before joining Bessemer in 2000. His areas of expertise are financial services and emerging software technologies, and he sits on the board of Gerson Lehrman Group, Soleil Securities, Portrait Software, Revver, Pure Networks and Quadriserv, as well as Zopa. Rob's a big food and wine connoisseur and has invested in five successful New York restaurants.

Rowan Gormley
Rowan runs Naked Wines, and previously founded Virgin Money and Virgin Wines. Before that he spent 7 years in private equity, and astonishingly for someone who can't count, is a chartered accountant.

Doug Dolton
Former CEO of Zopa, now non-executive board member, runs a financial services consulting firm. As CEO of Zopa, he led the initiatives that resulted in the unprecedented growth in volumes and higher lender returns. Previously, he led and successfully sold two multi-billion dollar consumer loan companies in the US, and has significant experience in a range of management positions at various types of financial institutions.

Executive Director

Giles Andrews (CEO)
Spent the first ten years of his career in the motor industry pursuing his interest in all things automotive. This included co-founding Caverdale in 1992, a start-up taken to a £250m turnover motor retailer and renamed Godfrey Davis Motor Group. He then set up his own consultancy business whose clients included Tesco and Tesco Personal Finance. Giles co-founded Zopa in 2005, led 4 fundraisings as CFO and then led the UK business as MD before taking over as CEO in 2009.

---

Who we're backed by

Bessemer Venture Partners

The oldest venture capital practice in the United States, Bessemer manages more than a billion dollars of venture funds. And they're good at what they do – over 100 Bessemer companies have gone public, including Staples, Gartner Group, American Superconductor, Verisign, Ciena, Ingersoll Rand, International Paper, Maxim, Parametric, Perseptive Biosystems, and W.R. Grace.
Find out more

Balderton Capital

Founded in 2000 as Benchmark Europe by Benchmark Capital, the leading US Silicon Valley venture firm. Since the two firms were always managed separately, Balderton formally became an independent firm in 2007 and now manages more than $1.5 billion in committed venture capital. They focus on investing in innovative companies and their portfolio includes companies such as Betfair, Figleaves, Bebo and Lovefilm. 
Check out their website

Wellington Partners

Since 1991, Wellington Partners has been investing in young and creative companies that embrace, create and utilize global technology trends. They take early-stage companies and help them become global leaders in their specific markets. Currently they have over €400 million under management.
Read a bit more about them

Tim Draper

Tim is the founder and a managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a venture capital firm located in Silicon Valley. He has invested in and contributed to Skype, Overture.com, Parametric Technology, Hotmail, Tumbleweed Communications, PLX Technologies, Digidesign (AVID), and Redgate (AOL), among others.
Read more about him here

The Rowland family

The Rowland family has a long history of investing in Internet-based companies, having put money into successful firms such as Autonomy and Demon Internet at a very early stage.