Funding Circle has announced that Lisa Jacobs stepping down as chief executive will happen no later than September 2027, with a search for her successor now under way. The news came alongside a sharp upgrade to the small business lender’s annual profit forecast, though its shares still fell 11% in Tuesday morning trading.
Funding Circle lends to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using technology to automate much of the credit process, an approach that sets it apart from traditional high-street banks. The company has been listed on the FTSE 250 index, which tracks mid-sized companies on the London Stock Exchange.
Lisa Jacobs stepping down after more than a decade at the helm
Jacobs has been with Funding Circle since 2012 and was appointed chief executive in January 2022. According to a regulatory announcement published on Investegate, she has a 14-year tenure at the company, making her one of the longer-serving figures in the firm’s history. The group’s chairman, Ken Stannard, said her contribution had been “outstanding and ongoing”.
Stannard paid tribute in direct terms: “She has transformed the business, advanced our mission and built a great team. When she joined in 2012, Funding Circle was a start-up built on a simple conviction: that technology could transform how small businesses access finance. Since then, we’ve extended more than £18 billion in credit to more than 135,000 SMEs, and delivered the transformation plan set out in March 2024 to build a simpler, high-growth and more profitable business.”
Jacobs herself framed the timing as deliberate. “We have shown strong growth and profitability and great foundations for the future,” she said, “and now feels like the right time to start the process of handing over the reins.” She added that the results show the business is “in the best position that it has ever been”.
Profits more than treble as full-year guidance rises
The succession announcement landed alongside a set of half-year numbers that gave Funding Circle reason to raise its targets. Pre-tax profits more than trebled to £24.1 million in the six months to June 30, up from £6 million in the same period a year earlier.
On the back of that performance, the firm upgraded its full-year outlook. It now expects pre-tax profits of more than £40 million and revenues of £255 million, compared with previous guidance of at least £35 million in profits and around £235 million in revenues. Both upgrades are meaningful steps for a business that has spent recent years restructuring towards a leaner, more profitable model.
Despite the numbers, investors sold off the stock. Shares fell 11% in Tuesday morning trading, a reminder that markets sometimes read a chief executive departure as an uncertainty, even when the underlying figures are strong. Funding Circle offered no explanation for the share move.
A company built from a university friendship
Funding Circle was set up in August 2010 by three university friends: Samir Desai, James Meekings, and Andrew Mullinger. Their founding conviction, that technology could open up lending to small businesses that traditional banks often overlooked, has stayed at the centre of the company’s identity ever since.
Jacobs took on the top role when Desai, a co-founder, stepped aside. Her tenure covers a period in which the business evolved from a peer-to-peer lending platform into a more conventional but technology-led lender, navigating regulatory change, a stock market listing, and a major restructuring along the way.
The board has now begun its search for Jacobs’s replacement. With the handover deadline set at no later than September 2027, Funding Circle has given itself time to run a considered process rather than a rushed one. Whether an internal candidate steps forward or the search goes external, the result will shape how a business that has lent more than £18 billion to small firms since 2010 continues to grow.
