Ian Savage brings wealth of fintech and financial services knowledge alongside particular expertise in driving growth 

Funding Options has added to its leadership team with the appointment of highly experienced Chief Financial Officer Ian Savage. This follows the arrival last year of Chief Technology Officer Aleks Kudic and Chief Revenue Officer Stuart Lawson, as the business finance marketplace builds a C-suite line-up for its next phase of growth.

Savage arrives at Funding Options with a track record of helping to build a series of fast-growth companies. Most recently, Savage was CFO for multinational SME wealth management technology company Finantix (owned by Motive Partners, a specialist fintech investor), where he oversaw the integration of a recent acquisition prior to the business being sold to Investcloud in early 2021. Prior to this, his experience includes tripling revenues at CashFlows over a three year period, taking Sigma Financial Group from a start up to a near £75m balance sheet, and a decade working alongside institutional investors at Anacap Financial Partners.

Since Simon Cureton became CEO in 2019, Funding Options has harnessed the power of Open Banking and data science to launch the first fully integrated real-time lending platform, Funding Cloud. More recently, the team also launched the UK’s first Green Finance Marketplace to help businesses achieve their sustainability goals.

PWC-trained Savage will help to accelerate Funding Options’ vision to be the leading platform for SME finance, capable of delivering fully digitally underwritten lending approvals in as little as 20 seconds, as was achieved recently. 

Simon Cureton, Chief Executive Officer at Funding Options, comments: “Ian represents a very  exciting addition to our leadership team. Having a CFO on board with a track record of director-level positions for fast-growth startups as well as companies with £300 million balance sheets, is precisely what we have been looking for to navigate the next phase of growth successfully. He brings rigour and insight from his most recent experiences with fintech businesses CashFlows and Finantix, which when combined with over a decade of working with private equity investors means he is well placed to work with the broader team to help take Funding Options along the next stage of its growth and evolution.

Ian Savage, Chief Financial Officer at Funding Options, comments: “Funding Options is on an inspiring trajectory and I’m delighted about the prospect of playing my part in that journey. Simon and the board have assembled a fantastic senior team and a workforce committed to driving competition and choice in the SME funding space. Joining so soon after the company has put stakes in the ground in terms of real-time funding approvals with its Funding Cloud platform and sustainability with the Green Finance Marketplace is invigorating. The combination of market leadership, solid foundations, good principles, and innovative intent is intoxicating and was influential in me taking on this challenge.”