Our purpose
Making a better world for all through financial innovation, collaboration and inclusion.
Our mission
We exist to create an integrated Fintech ecosystem through provision of funding, support, infrastructure and talent that recognises and responds to the needs of all stakeholders.
We believe that making Scotland a fintech capital will lead to business creation and growth, a stronger economy and more jobs. In addition, our aim is to strengthen the societal benefits from fintech developments, believing in the opportunity for retail consumers to benefit.
Whilst financial technology is not something new, fintech is a movement.
In the past technology in financial services has been used to reduce cost, automate tasks, increase efficiency and ultimately increase profit.
With fintech, technology is used to support customer needs, providing them with transformational solutions that mean less friction, better access, more inclusion and in the end a stronger and fairer society.
In this respect we believe Scotland is ideally placed with many fintech firms focussing on fixing societal issues.
Stephen Ingledew
Chair
Stephen has years of experience in the financial sector where he focussed on implementing customer focused and technology enabled initiatives.
He previously worked as senior executive for companies such as Standard Life and Barclays as well as small innovative financial enterprises.
Stephen has also occupied a number of non-executive director roles in his career including with Scottish Financial Enterprise; The Institute of Financial Services; The Chartered Insurance Institute and The Financial Services Authority.
He is a frequent author of articles and regular presenter at major global events on subjects ranging from customer strategy and execution, fintech and insurtech innovation as well as business change leadership.
Nicola Anderson
CEO
Nicola has years of experience in financial services regulation where her focus was on conduct regulation and supporting the delivery of good consumer outcomes in retail markets. She worked for the FCA across a range of financial sectors with experience supervising firms such as Retail Banks, Credit Unions, Building Societies and smaller Intermediaries.
Nicola started her career in the retail and hospitality industry! She understands the challenges of being a start up through previous experiences of running her own business. She’s an advocate for the consumer and a believer in diversity of thought, fairness and inclusion.
Nicola became CEO at FinTech Scotland in January 2021 after a 6 months secondment from the FCA.
Mickael Paris
Marketing Director
He has worked for both start-ups and FTSE100 companies including Maxymiser, Skyscanner and more recently Standard Life. He joined FinTech Scotland on January 2018 to help the company raise its profile locally and globally.
Mickael speaks at various conference focussing on customer led and data driven marketing. In 2015 he was featured in the BIMA100 list of marketing influencers as well as the Marketing Magazine NextGen Power 100.
Shery Johnston
Executive assistant
Shery joined the FinTech Scotland team as our Executive Assistant in March 2018 from RBS where she worked in the Risk function for 11 years. Prior to that she was in New York for 10 years working in the world of Old Master paintings in a small private gallery and then at Christie’s auction house. Strong in customer relations and with the ability to adapt to changing environments and circumstances, Shery takes care of the daily admin logistics of FinTech Scotland.
Trish Quinn
Strategic Innovation Director
Trish is responsible for delivering the Financial Innovation and Regulation Lab. Trish has over 20 years of experience in leadership roles focussed on digital service delivery across the private and public sector and was responsible for the Scottish Government incubator programme Civtech.She won the Scottish Public Sector’s Leadership Award for her work during the pandemic.
Kirsty McKenna
Innovation Programme Manager
Kirsty joined FinTech Scotland in 2022 to support the delivery of the Research and Innovation Roadmap. Kirsty comes from a Financial Services background where she built up vast experience delivering large scale transformation programmes largely as a result of M&A activity or Regulatory changes
Anna Gillies
Business Analyst
Anna has experience in retail banking and financial services. With an MSc in International Banking, Finance, and Risk Management, she researched the collaborative landscape between FinTechs and retail banks in Scotland.
The Business Analyst for FinTech Scotland, Anna has a broad understanding of FinTech in Scotland, including the businesses working in FinTech as well as the application of technology into the existing financial services sector.
Giovanna Cucchi
High Growth Advisor for the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab.
Throughout her career in advertising, marketing and the FMCG sector Giovanna has a proven track record of working closely with a diverse range of C-suite execs and senior leaders across private and public sectors to achieve their business growth targets, leading cultural transformation, embedding inclusion and diversity and key stakeholder management. Most recently leading innocent drinks through their biggest company-wide change programme to date.
