DivideBuy Announces Several New Pivotal Hires for Commercial Senior Leadership Team

  • Lending
  • 15.06.2022 01:35 pm

DivideBuy, the leading UK point-of-sale (POS) finance pioneer, has today announced multiple appointments to its commercial senior leadership team to drive the company’s commercial strategy and fuel its ambitious growth trajectory.

Headed up by the recently-appointed Teresa Byrne, Chief Commercial Officer, these pivotal hires mark an exciting new chapter for the Newcastle-under-Lyme business, following the impressive £300m funding agreement announced in late 2021 with global investment management firm, Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP.

With its unique business model of being both tech solution provider and lender, DivideBuy’s revolutionary approach to providing affordable lending solutions comes at a time when interest-free credit is the fastest-growing eCommerce payment method in the world today.

POS finance accounted for 2.9% of global eCommerce transaction value in 2021 and is projected to account for a 5.3% share of the market by 2025. Driven by agile technologies like that of DivideBuy, the UK’s interest-free credit POS finance market, with 54% of UK consumers using the payment method being from the millennial generation.

With these new hires and funding in place, DivideBuy’s commercial senior leadership team will advance the disruptive fintech’s role as a leading player in the POS finance market, further develop the company’s award-winning SaaS platform and expand its merchant network, both in the UK and internationally.

DivideBuy’s new commercial senior leadership team now includes:

  • Pat Hourigan as Head of Sales: Pat will maximise sales growth, grow revenues and market share, identify new business opportunities and lead the sales team. Having previously worked with private equity and FTSE 100 companies, Pat has vast experience with blue-chip companies. Pat’s last major role was Managing Director (UK) at Photo Me, having also spent 14 years in senior roles for Yellow Pages/Yell.com as well as Sales Director for JLA, Htec, Npower and ADT.
  • Samir Ray as Head of Product: Samir will align DivideBuy’s product strategy and overall business strategy and ensure the company's products meet the needs of its customers. Samir has 20 years experience in financial services and technology, including nine years at one of India’s largest financial services firms. Within this role, he was part of the core product team where he managed retailer capabilities and was recognised several times by the senior management for making strong contributions in innovative products.
  • Ben Smith as Head of Partnerships: Ben will deliver value and scale for the business by building strategic partnerships that drive DivideBuy’s LendTech strategy. Ben has 14 years experience in the payments sector, including roles as Strategic Partnerships Director and Sales Engineering Lead at Worldpay. During this time, he gained a wealth of experience in partnership, sales and relationship management as well as technical pre-sales operations covering transaction networking and routing, omnichannel payment gateway service and card scheme relationship management. 
  • Scott Winstanley as Head of Marketing: Scott will set and drive the company’s expanded multi-channel marketing strategy. Scott was previously the Head of Global Marketing for identity verification specialists Acuant and Hello Soda, as well as spending six years at an award-winning marketing agency, Motionlab, both as Operations Director and Head of Digital. Scott has spent over 20 years creating and delivering global and national marketing campaigns and has vast experience in both B2B and B2C marketing, with a key focus on data and insights.
  • David Stewart as Head of Compliance: Dave will lead the execution of the company’s risk and compliance programmes to identify, analyse and mitigate internal and external events that may impact the company. David has over 10 years of experience in financial services, including compliance management roles at Jaguar Land Rover, as well as having built the Financial Products Compliance Framework for the Halfords Group of companies to incorporate consumer credit, insurance, subscription and loyalty services.

On the new hires, Teresa Byrne, Chief Commercial Officer at DivideBuy, comments: “We’re thrilled that Pat, Samir, Ben, Scott and David are bringing their in-depth leadership, operations and business intelligence strengths to DivideBuy, at an incredibly exciting time to be joining DivideBuy as we build on our gathering momentum in the growing POS finance market. With their established expertise and proven business success, the commercial senior leadership team will be a catalyst for DivideBuy’s ambitious plans for the future. We are now well placed to become the go-to credit partner for consumers and merchants, offering the nation’s shoppers truly flexible finance.”

DivideBuy’s latest senior appointments demonstrate its commitment to providing consumers in all income groups with affordable POS finance based on responsible lending practices, as well as giving retailers the ability to offer more consumer payment choices.

Robert Flowers, CEO of DivideBuy, added: “We are delighted to have bolstered DivideBuy’s leadership team with such experienced and inspiring talent, and I look forward to seeing what they will do for the team and the company. Our commercial senior leadership team is now in a position to help scale the business and redefine the ethical consumer credit space for our customers through new products, partnerships and markets. These appointments will further engrain our ethos of ethical and accessible lending throughout our people and our business.”

“We have always put the consumer at the heart of our business and pride ourselves on being able to help consumers make informed purchasing decisions thanks to having no late fees, instalment repayments over longer periods, deposit weightings and payment holidays. Ultimately, DivideBuy has one goal – to make fair, ethical, affordable and fee-free lending accessible to consumers at all income levels.”

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