Goji has announced the first members of its advisory board and made a number of new hires with the firm looking to capitalise on investors allocating more money to the Innovative Finance ISA ahead of next year’s tax deadline.
The period of the first three months of the year is widely known in the City as ‘ISA Season’ as investors rush to put money to work before the April deadline. Investors this year are likely to increase their use of the Innovative Finance ISA, which allows tax-wrapped access to P2P loans, direct lending and crowd bonds with nearly all platforms now offering or soon-to-be offering the tax wrapper.
To meet this uptick in demand Goji, a direct Lending platform and IFISA investment manager, has appointed two new senior leaders from the wealth management sector to join as the company’s new advisory board.
Paul McMahon, former group marketing director of Aegon and UK CEO of FNZ, and Vincent Bordes, Founding Partner of Vestigo, the credit risk consultancy, will comprise the advisory board.
Goji has also expanded its executive team with the appointment of Elizabeth McCallum as Head of Marketing, David Beacham as Head of Distribution, and three regional business development managers to drive sales in the advisory space. Goji has also appointed Rehan Islam as Head of Investments.
Elizabeth McCallum joins Goji from financial services advertising agency AML Group where she was Client Services Director with overall responsibility for AML's client relationships including AXA Investment Managers, Robeco, Bank of New York Mellon, Partnership Assurance and Quilter Cheviot.
David Beacham, who joined Goji earlier in the year, was formerally at Just Retirement where he was Director of Business Development and responsible for strategic relationships across National Accounts and key specialist distributors.
Rehan Islam was a fixed income products trader having led the effort to build Goldman Sachs’ car financing desk and Société Générale’s collateralized loan desk. Rehan has also worked at leading robo-advisor Scalable Capital and financial planning start up Finimize.
Goji launched its Diversified Lending Bond in January 2017. The bond offers investors access to a diversified portfolio of over 1,000 loans in an IFISA wrapper.
Jake Wombwell-Povey, CEO of Goji, says advisers are starting to embrace direct lending as an asset class.
“By applying traditional portfolio management principles with rigorous risk-based assessments, we want to help advisers feel comfortable engaging with direct lending, better equip them with the knowledge and expertise to engage clients with this opportunity, whilst also helping this exciting industry mature,” he said.
Goji says it will soon close its Series A funding round, expected to conclude in early 2018.
