Optimum Finance appoints fintech expert, Anthony Persse, as CEO
Invoice finance provider, Optimum Finance, today announced that fintech expert, Anthony Persse, has taken up the role of chief executive officer, following the tragic death of its founder, Richard Pepler, earlier this year.
Anthony will fulfil Richard’s ambition for the company: to provide small and medium sized UK businesses (SMEs) with much needed access to fast, flexible funding, aided by a combination of the company’s highly experienced staff and pioneering technology.
Since its foundation in 2017, Optimum Finance has become one of the UK’s fastest growing finance businesses, extending over £100m of funding to a client base that grew more than 50% in 2019.
Anthony is a passionate advocate for technological innovation when deployed to ease the pressure of poor cashflow and late payments felt by the country’s increasingly desperate SMEs.
Anthony combines extensive understanding of the SME finance market with specialist technical skills. As financial solutions director for Proactis for the last two years, Anthony led the development of the market-leading early payment solution, bePayd. Prior to Proactis, Anthony headed up the strategy and risk teams for Ultimate Finance.
Commenting on his appointment, Anthony said “I am thrilled to be joining the incredible team at Optimum Finance that are as passionate as I am about fulfilling the need for better smarter funding for SMEs.
“My vision is for Optimum Finance to be the go-to invoice finance option to ease the stress surrounding cash flow and late payments, so that company owners can focus on running their businesses.”
Chairman of Optimum Finance and chief operating officer at JRJ Group, Peter Sugarman, said: “When we started this business back in 2017, we were determined to challenge the invoice finance sector by investing in an industry-leading fintech capability. We believe Anthony’s insight and technical expertise along with his infectious enthusiasm for revolutionising SME finance makes him the ideal candidate for realising our ambitions for Optimum Finance.”
