Matthew Kimber Chief Operating Officer, Molo Finance

Company

Molo is the UK’s first digital mortgage lender, with a mission to radically redesign the mortgage experience for the 21st century, fully leveraging the power of technology to make mortgages easy for customers. Molo’s tech-enabled platform allows customers to obtain instant mortgage loan approvals via an online 100% compliant process which moves away from paper forms, manual review steps and the typical convoluted layers of brokers, large banks and traditional mortgage lenders. The business started in 2018, after the Founder & CEO Francesca Carlesi went through the painful experience of buying a house in the UK, and thought to create a more affordable, faster, and efficient process. Francesca set up Molo to be a disruptor in the space, and the business launched in market early 2019. So far, Molo has lent £400m+, has a 4.9 Trustpilot score, and its record time for a mortgage approval sits at 3.5 hours (median at a week). Molo works by providing a front end digital experience, and partners with banks and other financial institutions at the back end to fund credit lines.

Search Background

Molo were seeking to appoint a Managing Director of Mortgages to both manage the lending book and act as a number two to Francesca on the leadership team. The primary focus of the new Chief Operating Officer will be to grow the book of business, set the strategy and deliver an excellent customer experience, whilst also providing Francesca bandwidth in the business. The existing team at Molo have extensive technology understanding, and are high performing, but without a wide breadth knowledge across multiple mortgage products. To complement them, the COO had to bring a real depth of mortgage experience and be a seasoned leader.

Requirements

The COO needed to be a proven leader within mortgages, with credit/lending experience, and have run a book of business. They also needed to bring a solid grasp of underwriting and risk, and have a growth mindset and can do attitude, being a problem solver rather than legacy orientated. Molo is still an entrepreneurial environment, so the successful candidate had to understand and gel with the start-up culture of Molo, whilst bringing the leadership and mortgage capabilities required to take the business on a growth journey and to the next level.

Result

Erevena executed an extensive search, ultimately securing Matthew Kimber, the former Managing Director of CHL Mortgages. Matthew is a mortgages expert, and has worked in the credit/loan space for the majority of his career. He is well versed across multiple mortgage products, has built lending books from scratch, and serviced large books of business. He has scaled teams across lending, credit risk, sales and proposition, with a good understanding of HR, Finance, Treasury, risk and compliance. At CHL he set up CHL’s new lending business and associated teams, which has originated £450m, and he also set up over £1.2bn in credit funding lines. Historically at Castle Trust, he grew the book of business in Buy-To-Let from nothing to originating £20-30m of loans a month. He brings an entrepreneurial growth mindset and has held SMF positions with the FCA, understanding how to manage senior executives and regulatory relationships.