Hello, FinTech community. Welcome to our FinTech Top Voice Interview Series.
The latest FinTech Interview with Valentina Kristensen, Corporate Affairs Director at OakNorth is an interactive Q&A-styled conversation.
Valentina is the Corporate Affairs Director at OakNorth, which she has been advising since June 2015, a few months prior to its launch. With oversight of external and internal communications, events, content, ESG/sustainability, and OakNorth’s UK CSR/1+1% Commitment, she helps set the strategic direction for stakeholder engagement globally and is an observer on the Bank’s Executive Committee.
She is also a Founding Editorial Board member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ multi-award-winning member magazine, INFLUENCE; an Adviser to The Entrepreneurs Network – a think tank for the ambitious owners of Britain’s fastest- growing businesses and aspirational entrepreneurs, where she is also a Commissioner for the Private Business Commission chaired by Steve Rigby to address the UK’s growing inability to scale and retain private companies; and a Board Advisor to ETA Technologies – a startup on a mission to empower investors with a sophisticated, quantified, and comprehensive analysis of the founding teams they plan to invest in.
About OakNorth – Launched in September 2015, OakNorth is the digital bank for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs. On a mission to empower entrepreneurs, it provides fast, flexible debt finance of £500k up to tens of millions of pounds to the lower mid-market (businesses with £1m to £100m turnover). To date, OakNorth has lent over £12bn to businesses across the UK and the US, and across a variety of sectors. OakNorth also provides a range of business banking products such as business current and savings accounts to help businesses scale successfully. Led by its founders, Rishi Khosla and Joel Perlman, OakNorth achieved “unicorn” status just two years after it launched, and has been profitable for several years, making over £187m pre-tax profit in 2023.
Let’s start…
FinTech Insights (FTI): Hi Valentina, welcome to the FinTech Top Voice Interview Series. Please share your tech journey with us.
Valentina: I studied business at university between 2008-2011 in the peak of the global financial crisis.
A lot happened over that period which made the idea of pursuing a career in financial services very interesting. There was an unprecedented level of consumer distrust in traditional financial services. This paved the way for new entrants, such as OakNorth, to establish themselves – something which had become “easier” as a result of a regulatory desire to create more competition in the market and reduce the barriers to entry for new entrants. And, there was the proliferation of the smartphone – the first iPhone reached consumer hands in the latter part of 2007 – so by the time I graduated, managing your money on-the-go and having apps for your banking, savings, pension, investments, etc. was becoming more commonplace.
The part that really fascinated me was the communication and the narrative-building that would need to take place at both the incumbent organizations (to rebuild their reputations post-financial crisis), and the new entrants (which would need to establish reputations and build consumer trust if they wanted to have any chance of being successful). So, I applied for a graduate program at a consultancy called Lansons based in Farringdon and was fortunate to get on to it.
My first client at Lansons was Metro Bank – the first new bank in the UK in 150 years. Over the next few years, I had the opportunity to work across a range of clients from large, blue-chip brands to new entrants. “Fintech” wouldn’t really become a well-used term until about 2013, but I had the opportunity to work on a few clients that would today be considered fintechs.
After a few years at Lansons, I was ready for a change, so I joined a smaller consultancy where one of the clients assigned to me was OakNorth. This was back in June 2015. OakNorth had received its provisional banking license earlier that year and was going through something called “mobilization”. As the daughter of an entrepreneur, seeing first-hand the struggles my mum went through when it came to her business banking, the mission to empower entrepreneurs really resonated with me. I was also inspired by the journey of our co-founders, Rishi Khosla and Joel Perlman, who’d turned a negative banking experience they’d had when building their first business, into the acorn of the idea for OakNorth. So, when I had the opportunity to do a secondment with the business in late-2015, I jumped at the opportunity.
After a few months of being seconded, I realized that the place I wanted to be full-time was OakNorth, so I asked Rishi and Joel for a meeting, gave them the elevator pitch, and had a contract later that week. I joined full-time in the summer of 2016 and the rest as they say, is history!
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(FTI): What sets OakNorth apart from other industry fintech companies and digital banks?
Valentina: The customer segment we focused on
In every market, most fintechs and neobanks largely ignore the lower mid-market / scale-up businesses choosing instead to focus on consumers, micro businesses, and sole traders. Why? Because their needs can be easily met through banking apps offering a menu of ‘cookie-cutter’ products and services, and chatbots with predefined Q&As. The often-complex legal entities, ownership structures, and diversified banking needs of scale-ups are perceived as too difficult to address through the automation and apps these fintechs and neobanks are built upon.
And how do we service these customers?
By taking a highly granular, data-driven, and forward-looking approach to serving our customers, we’re able to provide insight-driven solutions that speak directly to their jobs to be done, solving for what they need to do to run their businesses today and grow it tomorrow. This is the opposite of what most commercial banks do which is to offer products based on where a business has been vs where it’s going.
We’re able to do this because of our unique approach to looking at the business world – rather than splitting the economy into a dozen or so sectors, we’ve developed an analytical framework powered by hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of commercial loan data, covering over 270 industries. By looking at businesses through this lens, we’re able to identify the winners which is why our credit quality stands apart from other lenders, and why the businesses we support continue going from strength to strength every year they’re with us. Other banks simply don’t have the willingness or wherewithal to analyze these businesses in this way, which is why they’ll often veto or pull out of entire sectors at different points in the cycle.
(FTI): OakNorth operates at the intersection of technology and financial services. How would you align corporate affairs strategies to reinforce its positioning as a leader in fintech innovation?
Valentina:
- A clearly defined value proposition so that businesses understand what the benefits are of our products and services.
- Strong customer advocacy, leveraging case studies and testimonials to help bring this value proposition to life and create a flywheel effect of new deal origination without having to spend $$$ on marketing.
- Engage with policymakers and the wider fintech ecosystem through the likes of Innovate Finance and UK Finance to shape the regulatory landscape in ways that support innovation and align with our business objectives.
- Train employees to become ambassadors for the brand, equipping them with clear, consistent messages about the business, the value proposition, and our future growth plans.
- Engage in thought leadership, positioning our executive team as subject matter experts and industry thought leaders by securing speaking engagements at industry events, publishing content (blogs, op-eds, LinkedIn posts, etc.), and sharing our perspectives and insights with the press.
(FTI): Can you explain the key factors currently shaping the SMB lending landscape and how OakNorth positions itself to address these dynamics?
Valentina: The SMB lending landscape is undergoing significant transformation due to a mix of economic, technological, regulatory, and market-driven factors:
- Economic: interest rates, inflation, supply-chain issues, labour shortages, geopolitical tension, etc.
- Increasing competition with new players such as OakNorth, and larger incumbents adapting to try and maintain their market positions
- Changing borrower expectations when it comes to how they obtain credit
- Lenders are also increasingly leveraging alternative data sources (e.g customer reviews, transaction history, e-commerce sales, utility payments, etc.) to build a more in-depth and granular credit picture.
(FTI): OakNorth positions itself to address these dynamics in a few ways:
Valentina:
- Speed: as a digital bank, we’re not burdened by legacy technology or processes, or a costly branch network, so we aim to provide quick ‘yes’ or ‘no’ decisions, and complete loans in days or weeks, rather than months it takes larger lenders.
- Flexibility: as mentioned earlier, by taking a highly granular, data-driven, and forward-looking approach to serving our customers, we’re able to provide products and services to our customers to suit their unique business needs.
- Transparency: we invite every borrower to come and meet our Credit Committee and discuss their funding needs directly with the decision-makers.
- Entrepreneurial: as a founder-led organization, everything we do is with the entrepreneur in mind. Our time is highly pragmatic, collaborative, and commercial in its approach, constantly zero-basing rather than relying on doing something the way it’s always been done.
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(FTI): Many new digital banks benefit from a modern tech stack, free from the constraints of legacy systems. Could you walk us through OakNorth’s tech stack and how it supports your mission?
Valentina: In May 2016, OakNorth became one of the first banks in Europe to be fully cloud-hosted, giving us a level of flexibility and security that the large incumbents could only dream of at the time.
We partner with a number of other fintechs such as Comply Advantage, True Layer, and Marqeta, finding the best-in-class partners to build our stack, rather than relying on one large player to address all our needs.
(FTI): How is OakNorth utilizing AI and machine learning to maintain a competitive advantage in the banking industry?
Valentina: Most of how we’re using it is at the back end / what the customer doesn’t see because of the nature of our business and the products we provide.
- Predictive analytics – this has been central to our approach to date and is evidenced in the quality of our loan book. It is also a core component of our scenario analysis.
- Portfolio risk management Regulatory compliance – this is predominantly in audit today, but we are exploring ways to broaden this out.
- Machine learning for early warning signals in our portfolio monitoring.
- Scalability and efficiency – the data on our product has increased exponentially year after year and we now have one of the largest commercial lending data sets in existence.
(FTI): OakNorth prides itself on innovation and customer-centricity. How would you foster a corporate culture that aligns with these values through your role?
Valentina: Through our team values:
- One team: We work together to achieve our goals, whether it’s across teams, countries, departments, or people in a room.
- Right ambition: Success is better shared. We channel the right ambition as individuals to meet our collective goals.
- Customer delight: Our customers drive everything we do. We go beyond satisfaction to deliver delight at every opportunity.
- 10X: Better is good, ten times better is great. We set ambitious goals and work to deliver outsized results.
- Momentum: We’re go-getters so we take decisive action, at pace.
- Zero base: Our approach is never “This is the way it’s always been done, so this must be the best way”. Instead, we start with a blank sheet of paper and an approach of “regardless of how this has been done before, how could it be changed to improve outcomes for our customers?”
- Say it how it is: We’re honest and transparent with our stakeholders and encourage clear and constructive input from our team.
(FTI): How do you communicate complex regulatory changes to stakeholders effectively, ensuring alignment across teams?
- Understanding: collaborate with legal, compliance, and subject matter experts to understand the implications of the changes, identifying key elements of the regulation, such as scope, timelines, impact areas, and penalties for non-compliance.
- Develop a clear communication plan for your different stakeholders: be clear on who needs to be informed, when, and through which channels.
- Keep it simple: translate regulatory language into clear, concise, and actionable terms, avoiding jargon.
- Use project management tools such as Miro and Confluence to track tasks and share updates in real-time.
- Executive briefings: ensure leaders are well-versed in the changes to cascade consistent messaging down the organization
(FTI): With the rise of cybersecurity threats and data breaches in fintech, how would you manage communication in a crisis to protect OakNorth’s brand?
Valentina: As a regulated financial institution, we have very clearly defined recovery plans and processes we’d need to stick to if this ever happened.
Of course, every crisis will be different, but having things like draft communications templates, a crisis comms playbook, a clearly defined process, and crisis comms team, etc. can help keep things running smoothly as opposed to teams getting into a panic.
(FTI): What role does media engagement play in your corporate affairs strategy, and how would you measure its effectiveness?
Valentina: It plays a very important role. We put out news in the form of press releases on an almost weekly basis and meet with editors and reporters throughout the year.
We measure the quality of news coverage through things like sentiment analysis, whether it includes a backlink, etc. as well as the number and quality of leads generated off the back of any media coverage.
(FTI): What are your predictions for the future of fintech, and why do you think the UK continues to be a global hub for innovation in this space?
Valentina: The UK has so much to offer: world-class research universities (four of the world’s top 10 universities are here); forward-thinking regulators with an open approach to innovation; a strong framework of common law and a common language; and a timezone that allows true global operations across EMEA, APAC, and the Americas. The result is that the UK has created more tech unicorns than any other country, bar the US and China, and is a world leader in terms of attracting investment.
London is particularly unique being home to a global finance center (including the London Stock Exchange), a tech center, and a policy / regulatory center all within a few tube stops of one another, making it an exceptional place for innovative companies to be born and thrive.
Future predictions
- Embedded finance: financial services will be increasingly embedded into non-financial platforms, such as e-commerce websites, ride-hailing apps, and social media platforms.
- Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS): more companies will offer white-label financial services, enabling non-financial brands to provide payments, loans, and insurance without being traditional financial institutions.
- Hyper-personalization: AI and machine learning will allow companies to offer tailored financial solutions based on individual customer data, behaviors, and preferences.
- Expansion of digital currencies: more countries will issue their own digital currencies, reshaping monetary systems and cross-border payments.
- Open finance: open finance will integrate broader financial services, including investments, insurance, and pensions, offering a holistic view of customers’ financial lives.
- AI-driven compliance: RegTech solutions will enable real-time monitoring and reporting of compliance, reducing regulatory risks for fintechs and financial institutions.
(FTI): Tell us about some of the top FinTech/Other B2B events that you’ll be participating in (as a speaker or guest!) in 2025.
Valentina:
-
- Finovate Europe – https://informaconnect.com/finovateeurope/
- Innovate Finance Global Summit – https://www.innovatefinance.com/ifgs2025/
- FFT Fintech Festival – https://www.fintechtalents.com/events/europe/festival-london/
- The Fintech Finance Awards – https://ff-awards.com/
- The 11:FS Awards – https://www.11fs.com/awards2024
- London Tech Week – https://londontechweek.com/
- Money 20/20 Europe – https://europe.money2020.com/
(FTI): Please tag a FinTech leader or researcher you would like to get featured in the FinTech Top Voice interview series.
Valentina:
- Megan Caywood Cooper – https://www.linkedin.com/in/megcaywood/
- Leda Glyptis – https://www.linkedin.com/in/leda-glyptis-phd-272492/
- Simon Taylor – https://www.linkedin.com/in/sytaylor/
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Thank you so much for sharing your insights on Fintech with us, Valentina! We look forward to having you again at Fintech Top Voice series.
