Exclusive: Zopa poised for senior hiring spree to bolster top team ahead of IPO
Fintech lender Zopa has called in a former Deutsche Bank executive to its board in the first of a series of senior appointments designed to bolster its top team ahead of an IPO, City A.M. can reveal.
The London-based fintech lender said it has appointed Pippa Lambert, the former global head of human resources for Deutsche Bank and a current board member at Aviva, to chair its remuneration committee.
The new appointment is set to be the first in a number of C-suite figures with IPO and public market experience, as the firm beefs out its top teams ahead of much anticipated shift onto the public markets, sources with knowledge of the matter told CityAM
Zopa declined to comment on who the next senior appointments would be but two further hires are understood to have already been made.
Zopa has been open in its ambitions to shift on to the public markets but has shelved the plans due to turbulent market conditions over the past year. The bank is yet to commit to a destination for an eventual IPO but told CityAM yesterday it is leaning towards London as the eventual destination.
“The UK is our home, and so listing in the UK market remains our preferred option,” the spokesperson said. “In this context, we remain favourable to ongoing listing reforms aimed at making London more attractive as a financial centre.”
The firm said it backed moves by officials to “improve capital depth” and efforts to increase participation of a wider range of investors like pension funds and sovereign wealth funds.
Winning the listing of Zopa would be soon as a boost to London amid a turbulent period in which a number of tech firms have seemingly snubbed the capital in favour of New York.
Unlike some of its digital peers, Zopa touched monthly profitability under two years after winning its banking licence. The firm said it now expects to convert in full year profitability in 2023.