Giles Andrews

• Photo

Topics:

• Business
• Entrepreneurs
• Finance & Economics
• Leadership

Entrepreneur and co-founder of the Social Lending online business Zopa, Giles Andrews has led the company through a period of dramatic growth which has established it as a real threat to the banks.  Speaking on numerous topics including customer service, leadership, branding etc Giles is much in demand on the corporate circuit.

Career

Giles 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 sold in 1997. After an MBA at INSEAD he set up his own consultancy business whose clients included Tesco and Tesco Personal Finance.

Zopa

Giles co-founded Zopa, a social lending website which connects people who want to borrow money with people who want to lend it, in 2004.  He led 4 fundraisings as CFO, raising a total of $33m from European and US investors.  UK Managing Director since July 2007 and CEO since January 2009, Giles has led the company through a period of dramatic growth that has seen it established as a real threat to the banks.

Social Lending

According to Giles Andrews, Social Lending is a smarter, fairer and more human way of doing money. It's like borrowing and lending with your friends and family - except there are thousands of people you can lend and borrow with.

Both lenders and borrowers get better rates, because Social Lending is more efficient than the traditional banking model. Banks have massive overheads, with thousands of employees to pay and hundreds of branches to maintain. So they have to take large margins on the money that passes through them.

An online marketplace where people meet to lend and borrow has huge cost advantages - which is why Zopa members get a fairer deal when it comes to their money.

Zopa was the world's first lending and borrowing marketplace. By demonstrating that Social Lending works on a large scale, Zopa has changed the financial sector for good.

Awards

Zopa has won numerous accolades and awards for its groundbreaking services and was recently voted 3rd hottest Start-up in the UK

Business Speaker

Entrepreneur & Zopa CEO, Giles Andrews is an established conference speaker who talks on creativity, entrepreneurship, customer service, leadership and branding.

For further information or to book Giles Andrews, call us at Speakers Corner on +44 (0) 20 8365 3200 or email info@speakerscorner.co.uk