Leading specialist property project peer-to-peer lender CrowdProperty (www.crowdproperty.com) is pleased to announce that John Mould, former CEO of ESF Capital & ThinCats, has joined the CrowdProperty board as Non-Executive Director.
As CEO of ESF Capital & ThinCats from 2015 to 2019, John oversaw the acquisition of ThinCats by ESF Capital and subsequently took the business from c.£150m cumulative lending to c.£600m. Under his leadership, ThinCats doubled both lending and revenue in each of the last two years after setting and executing a differentiated strategy in the alternative finance business lending market.
John was previously COO at Hermes Investment Management, COO at New Star Asset Management and an Executive Director at Morgan Stanley - thereby bringing deep financial services, asset management, risk management and alternative finance operating expertise, including through high growth stages, to the CrowdProperty board and has been working closely with the CrowdProperty team since early this year.
Having worked together before and sat on the board of the Peer-to-Peer Finance Association together, Mike Bristow, CEO of CrowdProperty, commented: “We’re extremely excited to have John joining the CrowdProperty team. We’re building a long-term lending business founded on asset-class expertise, strategic differentiators and knowledgeably solving the fundamental pains evident in the sector for borrowers, lenders, the under-supplied UK housing market and critically the UK economy in terms of increased spend on labour, materials and services. Property professionals come to CrowdProperty not because it’s an online lender but because we’ve built the best property project lending business in the market to service their needs best as expert property people offering property finance. John’s experience in asset management, risk management and alternative finance in high growth environments will enhance the strategic perspectives that are core to CrowdProperty and realising the potential of the business.”
As John Mould considered options in the financial services sector to take on next, he added: “The CrowdProperty business model, fundamental expertise at the core of the business, quality first-charge positioning and technology focus presents huge opportunity to take the UK SME property project market. It’s impressive how the team have taken their time to build strategic advantage in the sector and can now controllably, selectively and profitably scale, with quality at the core. I particularly like their long-term business focus and their pursuit of excellence – it’s easy to see huge potential, hence gladly accepting the position to bring complementary perspectives to the board.”