Aduragbemi Omiyale
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
A leader in the trade and supply chain finance digital ecosystem, Finverity, has appointed a former Investec and Starling Bank executive, Ms Symmie Swil, as its Head of Operations, coming a few weeks after the company raised $5 million.
Ms Swil is expected to use her diverse strategy and operational leadership experience gained in both senior fintech and investment banking roles in Finverity.
She will focus on building scalable and efficient operations as the business and its clients’ needs grow, supporting the growth of the funding platform for mid-market corporates, the SaaS offering and the wider business operations.
The firm said Ms Swil’s vast insights and experience of growth opportunities and operational challenges will prove invaluable it scales up its number of corporate and banking clients as well as partnerships.
“I’ve seen the power of technology in transforming legacy banking and revolutionising access to finance,” the new Head of Operations said, adding that, “We take for granted the trade finance that underpins almost everything around us – from avocados on toast to the latest iPhone – but it is still largely governed by paper and inaccessible to most mid-market enterprises.”
“Digitalisation is fast replacing manual, time-consuming, operational processes that are prone to human error, whilst also bringing the benefits of reduced friction that accelerates the allocation of funding.
“However, technology has barely scratched the surface so far. Closing the trade finance gap is arguably the biggest opportunity in fintech right now, and so I’m delighted to be joining Finverity as we continue to make trade finance better, fairer and more accessible for more businesses,” she added.
Also commenting, the chief operating officer and co-founder of Finverity, Alex Fenechiu, welcomed Ms Swil to the company, noting that, “With her track record and contagious, positive energy, she is the perfect fit to lead our operations as we continue to grow our international client base and expand our suite of services.”
The chief executive and co-founder of the organisation, Viacheslav Oganezov, said, “We are very excited to bring Symmie onboard. She is fully behind our mission of helping close the global trade finance gap, and her experience of building out scalable operational processes is paramount to our growth phase.”
While at Starling Bank, a digital bank in the UK, as the Head of SME Banking, Ms Swil played a pivotal role in building the business banking department and tripling the number of business accounts to over 430,000.
Prior to Starling, she spent over 10 years at Investec, where she was Head of Strategy Development and then Deputy COO for Investec’s UK Corporate and Investment business. At Investec, her remits included digital transformation and operational delivery.
