Building the future of Lombard lending

Backed by the UK’s leading VCs, our team brings together experience from private banking, wealth management, credit, and fintech. We move fast, challenge convention, and hold ourselves to the highest standards — in the quality of our technology, the precision of our risk management, and the strength of our partnerships.

The values we share

We obsess over client value

Our success is built on driving strong customer outcomes in everything we do. Firenze exists to deliver measurable, scalable, and sustainable value for our clients.

We do business in the right way

Integrity, transparency, and accountability guide our decisions. We are committed to delivering value for our colleagues, clients, partners, investors, and the wider community.

We are ambitious

We want to be number one in the markets we choose to compete in. Through constant innovation we strive to be the best.

 We win together

We value winning as a team. We support, challenge, and push each other to achieve our best, recognising that our greatest achievements come through teamwork and collaboration.

A large group of 16 professional people of ages between 25 and 50 standing in a rooftop bar smiling and facing the camera

The Firenze Team

David Newman, CEO Firenze

David Newman

CEO & Founder

David is an experienced fintech founder, operator & investor focused on democratising access to financial services. Previously, David worked as a Private Banker at UBS and Barclays, now bringing a deep understanding of all aspects of Lombard lending to Firenze.

Joe Hodgins

Head of Credit

Joe has over 20 years’ of credit and lending experience. Having held several senior positions at Julius Baer and Merrill Lynch International Wealth Management he brings extensive experience in launching, operationalising and auditing credit products.

Anna Curtis

Head of Finance & Operations

Anna draws her extensive experience from her time at deVere Group, Center Parcs, and Delio Group. Her strong track record across operations, accountancy and fintech means her diverse background underpins Firenze’s goals to transform the Lombard lending landscape.

Tom Evans

Head of Product & Technology

Tom leads Firenze’s technology strategy, ensuring that Firenze has the capability to scale its customer base and loan book in line with its strategic goals. He brings nearly 30 years of technology experience and has held senior leadership roles at Fluro, Cardeo, Chip Finance and 10X Banking.

Hari Doull

Head of Revenue

Hari is responsible for marketing, sales, and account management activities at Firenze. Previously, she held senior commercial roles at Delio Group, and has experience in lending and wealth management through various roles at NatWest Group.

Paul Emery

Head of Corporate Finance

Paul joins us as Head of Corporate Finance from a blue-chip background that includes St. James’s Place, Rothschild and Coutts. In charge of maintaining a fruitful relationship with our funders and expanding in new directions, Paul is responsible for the foundation upon which Firenze can grow, drawing on his extensive experience of wealth management, corporate development and proposition strategy.

Ben Tuffley

Product Lead

Ben is a strategic product and lending leader with over 15 years of experience in designing, launching and scaling banking and credit propositions in the UK and internationally. As our Product Lead, Ben is in charge of ensuring that the partner and client experience is seamless, providing an efficient, compliant and easy application process, tailored to all our partners’ needs.

James Day

Partnerships Manager

James is responsible for managing Firenze’s partners, educating advisors on Firenze’s lending solution, and embedding the product into their proposition. He brings a mix of business development and relationship management experience from Aberdeen, as well as start-up expertise from ThingCo.

Sapphire Withers

Implementation Manager

Sapphire’s background in product management and fintech means she is perfectly placed as our Implementation Manager. She plays a pivotal role in embedding Firenze’s Lombard lending solution, owning the end-to-end implementation lifecycle for new partners. With experience from FinTech Innovation Labs and Accenture, we know our partners are in safe hands.

Cauê Ferreira

Principal Software Engineer

Cauê brings deep expertise in scalable system architecture, API development, and financial technology and plays a key role in building and optimising the infrastructure that powers our lending solutions.

Darren Wood

Platform Engineer

Darren plays a pivotal role in designing, implementing, and managing the core infrastructure for our platform. With 15+ years of experience at global firms such as Lloyds Banking Group, Deloitte UK, and, most recently, Capgemini, his skills will enable Firenze to offer best-in-class technology to our partners and clients.

Sam Ashraff

Full Stack Engineer

Sam has over 4 years of experience as a full-stack engineer and test automation developer for both SaaS and startup firms, having previously worked at Profium in Finland. Having lived most of his life in Finland, Sam moved back to the UK in April last year and joined the Technology function at Firenze as an invaluable member of the team as we continue to develop our core product and SaaS offerings.

Joe Hill

Software Engineer

Joe is an important member of our Technology team as our Fullstack Software Engineer. Joining us from Mastercard, Joe brings a wealth of experience helping our Technology team to design, build, and deliver customer-facing features across our Lombard lending platform. He’s helping to shape our platform from the ground up as we continue to evolve our products and services to meet growing client demand.

Emmet O'Doherty

Marketing Assistant

Emmet has considerable experience marketing in the finance world, following four years with Davy in Ireland. Blending brand, communication and event management skills, he amplifies Firenze’s name in the industry, ensuring clients and prospects are connected across all touchpoints.

Ayodele Alakija

Senior Fronted Developer

Ayodele's 7+ years of core front end experience delivering high-impact web applications for enterprise clients (including Deloitte UK and AND Digital) means he is perfectly positioned to accelerate Firenze's technical capabilities on the platform. He joins with a proven track record in architecting scalable React/TypeScript solutions, helping to build, maintain, deploy and test products from initial conception to release to market.

The Firenze Team

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