Invest & Fund makes two new hires

Invest & Fund has appointed RateSetter veteran Anjalee Jilka as director, transaction management, and Neil Smith as chief operating officer.

Jilka joined the peer-to-peer property lending platform earlier this month. Her background includes a wealth of property transactional experience in both big banks and fintech firms.

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She was previously a relationship manager at Hampshire Trust Bank, and prior to that she worked as a transaction manager at RateSetter, and at Nationwide Building Society.

Meanwhile, Smith was hired in October. He is a qualified accountant and member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales with 13 years’ experience in financial services, including as head of fund finance and operations at Bridgepoint and associate vice president at The Carlyle Group.

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“We have lent [approximately] £150m, £50m of which has been delivered this year so far post the changes to leadership structure,” said Robert Burgess, chairman of Invest & Fund.

“Our strong base has enabled us to accelerate our growth phase with H1 volumes greater than any prior full year and H2 pipeline already easily the strongest to date.”

This follows a raft of hires at Invest & Fund over the last year.

In April, Matthew Thorbes was hired as finance director and in January Sarah Leech-White joined as head of risk and compliance and Dave Bibby as business development manager.

And in November of last year, Neil Richardson was appointed as a business development manager.