Zopa recently passed the $1 billion mark in cumulative lending and this strategic hire brings added credit expertise to the team. Jaidev previously worked for Capital One in a range of roles, but most recently as Chief Marketing Officer. In this role he was responsible for all market and consumer facing activities, including new customer acquisitions, product development, portfolio management and optimisation, credit risk management and risk operations. Most impressively, Jaidev was instrumental in leading Capital One UK back to profitability and growth. During his tenure as Chief Marketing Officer customer acquisitions grew by 40% and lending to existing customers by 50%.
Jaidev’s experience will help to spur Zopa onwards and to swell its customer base. Giles Andrews, Founder and CEO of the platform, explained:
"We are hugely excited to welcome Jaidev to Zopa as its new COO and bring a new, highly talented executive to lead our very able team. Jaidev brings an impressive business track record driving growth, highly-regarded strategic thinking and execution excellence, as well as new risk and marketing skills to Zopa. His arrival is yet another major building block in our drive to continue and accelerate Zopa’s growth in changing the landscape of consumer financial products.”
Jaidev, who was in part lured by the promise of making a meaningful difference in the lives of UK consumers, also commented:
“I hope to use my experience and skills to drive rapid growth for Zopa, making it accessible to an ever growing number of customers and make Zopa a household name."
Zopa already sits atop the peer-to-peer lending pile, the challenge for Mr. Janardana will be to keep it there – and of course to tackle the omnipresent issue of nationwide consumer awareness. The other story here concerns the steady flow of highly regarded individuals with roots in traditional finance that are now jumping on board with the alternative finance movement.
