Zopa has New CEO as Founder to Focus on P2P Lending Business Development

After revealing that they have reached £1 billion in P2P lending transactions on their platform earlier this month, Zopa announced its second big announcement in August regarding management changes. Putting their news on Twitter, Zopa announced that Jaidev Janardana has been promoted to the firm’s CEO position, with previous CEO Giles Andrews becoming Executive Chairman.

Providing more details to the Telegraph, it was explained that the changes are part of Zopa's position for the future, which could include an IPO as well as more business development with external partners. Zopa explained that with the new CEO role, Janardana will be taking over the day to day operations of the P2P lender, with Giles focused on “external stakeholders” such as referral partners and institutional lenders.

As an example of external stakeholders, Zopa’s partnership with Uber was cited. In that deal, Zopa partnered with Uber to provide their drivers with financing for new vehicles. As a result, automobile financing has grown to become an important part of Zopa’s business, now accounting for a third of loans on the P2P lending platform.

Previous to becoming the CEO, Janardana was Zopa’s COO, having been hired in October 2014, after having worked at Capital One for over ten years. According to Giles, his move to the Executive Chairman position and the advancement of Janardana are part of an operational change that has been in place for the past three months.