Former Start Up Loans chief joins Birmingham fintech board

Joanna Hill - former CEO of Start Up Loans and chief commercial officer of Ask Inclusive Finance - has joined the advisory board at fintech start-up, GFA Exchange.

Joanna (pictured) brings a wealth of experience in inclusive lending to support the GFA Exchange, at an exciting time in their development.

Joanna oversaw the delivery of funding and mentoring to 70,000 UK businesses during her five years at the helm of Start Up Loans.

Now, as the CCO of AskIf, one of the few female-led FinTech 's in the UK, she is working with the same energy and enthusiasm to support businesses that have been trading for a year or more.

Joanna said: “The responsibilities of inclusive and responsible lenders go well beyond simply providing access to funding.

“Lenders also need to be willing to walk alongside the businesses they have funded and help them to succeed and grow.

“GFA Exchange offers the potential for lenders such as AskIf to see the impact funding has had on the health of those businesses and to identify where additional support may be required, both pre- and post-funding.

“These unique insights will help us, and the broader finance sector, to better understand the business communities we are here to serve ”.

A case study on Diversity Data by the British Business Bank also found that businesses founded by women, black, Asian and minority ethic (BAME) members are often bypassed by mainstream lending schemes, with only 12 out of 252 companies approved for the Future Fund being BAME-led.

Joanna is working in an effort, alongside GFA Exchange, to overcome and shift this injustice within the financial services sector.

Joanna joins a prestigious board of key finance influencers at GFA Exchange.

These include Theodora Hadjmichael CEO of Responsible Finance, which supports the £260 million responsible finance sector, and Marcus Scott, former CCO of The CityUK where he was an instrumental part of the UK Recapitalisation Group, which provided government recommendations on the recapitalisation of the additional £80 billion debt used in response to supporting SMEs affected by the pandemic.

Joel Blake OBE, founder of GFA Exchange, said: “We are delighted to welcome Joanna Hill, as a member of our forward-thinking Advisory Board for the GFA Exchange - her experience of finance, business support and inclusion adds tremendous value to us and SMEs across the UK, and compliments our unique technology offering to the market.

“As a team, we are humbled by the support from financial leaders like Joanna, who believe in our mission to use data intelligence technology to positively disrupt the financial industry and make access to finance models more inclusive, enabling a much fairer approach of support for all, regardless of any difference. ”

Both lenders and SMEs can try the GFA Exchange platform by arranging a free demo here.