Huw Phillips joins in Head of Sales role designed to nurture partnerships with new SME merchants

Former Klarna Head of Merchant Development is one of a number of upcoming senior appointments as Deko expands its team and offering

Deko, the leading retail finance ecosystem, today announces the appointment of Huw Phillips as Head of Sales, in a role that will focus on partner onboarding as the company looks to expand its offering to attract new merchants in the SME market.

Huw joins Deko after over 20 years experience in the retail finance sector at Klarna, Close Brothers and Barclays. At Klarna, Huw was Head of UK Merchant Development, leading the non-fashion merchant development programme ahead of leading a multi competence team to support merchant partners across a diverse range of sectors and product services.

In his role at Close Brothers prior to their eventual acquisition from Klarna, Huw created the Relationship Management Team and developed the SME support functions, and nurtured the retail finance arm of the merchant bank from its inception to writing over £300m. As a result, the team was awarded the PSA Awards’ ‘Account Management Team of the Year 2017’. Huw began his career in retail, experience that will be leveraged in his role at Deko, by understanding retailers as well as the end to end customer journey.  

Having surpassed the £3 billion milestone in applications this year and having integrated with over 1,700 merchants, Deko is well positioned to partner with SMEs looking to provide retail finance at a time when flexible retail payments are becoming increasingly popular. According to recent data, buy now pay later schemes are expected to account for 10% of all e-commerce sales by 2024, with the industry set to be worth £264 billion in the UK by 2024, a 37% increase on 2020. 

Incoming Head of Sales Huw Phillips comments: “I’m very much looking forward to this opportunity with Deko. My roles on both the retail and financial side of the industry have shown me just how important client service is, so I’m delighted to be joining a company that places such an emphasis on nurturing its partnerships.

“It’s also a very exciting time to be in the SME retail finance sector. The acceleration to online has acted as a catalyst for BNPL, but while many of the larger international brands have developed retail finance offerings, the SME market remains underserved. Deko’s position as a multi lender financial ecosystem, which is essentially an industry exclusive, as well as its focus on the SME area, offers an attractive proposition for retailers as they adjust to a trading environment much changed over the last 15 months.”
 

Deko CEO Michael Dawson comments: “Huw brings with him a wealth of experience from across the retail industry. Having built the retail finance offering from the ground up at Close Brothers with a core emphasis on customer service, we felt his approach and qualities in securing those lasting partnerships with merchants align perfectly with ours. 

“The coming months mark a sea change for the retail industry as more sellers look to offer retail finance services as part of a broader shift to online. We are thrilled to have Huw join the team as we continue to enable our partners to capitalise on the sizeable market opportunities..”