All change: CrowdProperty adds new board members amid CFO search

Ex-Allica Bank chief joins as new chairman is announced.

Property lender CrowdProperty has announced a series of changes to its board, with the latest appointment of former Allica Bank CEO Mark Stephens as a non-executive director.

Stephens, who retired last year from Allica and handed the CEO role to Richard Davies, is also joined by a newly-promoted chairman and former ThinCats boss John Mould, who joined CrowdProperty's board last year but has now been promoted to chair.

Finally CrowdProperty co-founder Simon Zutshi has moved into a board observer role following the sale of his separate Property Investors Network business last year.

“We’re still at the start of what CrowdProperty can achieve in this market against a mission of unlocking the power of SME property developers in the UK – to build more homes, increase spend in the UK economy and ever more efficiently and effectively match the supply and demand of capital for the benefit of all,” said CrowdProperty CEO Michael Bristow.

As part of the announcement, Bristow also revealed that a recruitment mandate has been out to market for an experienced chief financial officer to further strengthen the executive team.

“These Board changes reflect our major ambitions as we develop and execute against our 3-year strategy which will transform the scale and significance of the business.”

CrowdProperty last year reached its £100m cumulative lending milestone and said it had returned £50m in capital and interest to its investors.

“We now expect to be able to double our annual lending rate again next year, which would be north of £100m lent in 2021,” the CEO said at the time, adding that he’s aiming for a per annum lending target of £400m by 2024.