By Charlie Conchie
As recently as April last year, it was hard to imagine a Starling Bank without Anne Boden.
The Swansea-born banker built a reputation as one of Britain’s most formidable entrepreneurs at the top of the fintech she founded in 2014. She went to war with Tory peers over Covid-19 fraud, battled her male peers in public and led Starling from a packed field of loss-making lenders to clear the hurdle of profitability – one of few to do so.
Then in May, she dropped the unexpected bombshell that she was stepping down. Reports later emerged she was ousted in a conflict of interest spat with investors, which she and Starling deny.
Now, ten months down the line, after a new book and a deep dive into the landscape for women in investment, does she miss it?
“I’ve been extremely busy,” she insists in an interview with City A.M. “I’m still on the board. I’m still very much in touch with the business. I’m very proud of what we continue to do.”
She handed over the reins to chief operating officer John Mountain last year, and we speak days before the firm revealed it had poached Ovo boss Raman Bhatia to head the firm permanently.
While the appointment has been seen as a shrewd one ahead of a much anticipated IPO, Boden’s departure is a blow to an industry still in thrall to its male superstars.
She founded Starling in 2014 in the wave of fintech to take hold after the financial crisis, just before challenger bank peers Revolut and Monzo. While those rivals adopted the loss-making, hyper-growth models typical of 2010s fintechs, and won blockbuster valuations to match, Starling has struck a more prudent tone throughout.
“I was saying that we were going to have millions of customers. But my male competitors were saying that they were going to have a billion customers,” she says.
“Well, saying a billion customers is absolute and utter rubbish, because the population is not that big. However, that is seen [by investors] as being ambitious, aggressive and go-getting.”
It took Boden two years and over 300 meetings before she was able to secure backing for her more conservatively detailed business plans. She claims she was rebuffed by early backers on account of a lack of ambition and a near 30-year career steeped in traditional banking.
“They were much more prepared to invest in the founders that knew nothing about the industry, [founders] they thought were going to be brave and challenging,” she adds.
“Many investors turned me down because they felt I had too much experience and went and invested in fintechs run by people who are less experienced and probably not as courageous.”
“Many investors turned me down because they felt I had too much experience and went and invested in fintechs run by people who are less experienced and probably not as courageous.”
They will have subsequently realised “they’ve made the wrong decision”, she adds – a comment that could be read as a not-so subtle swipe at Boden’s former protege and Monzo founder Tom Blomfield, who left Starling amid a spat to set up its rival in 2015.
While venture backers clamoured to back loss-making peers a decade ago, interest rates have rocketed and investors have swung to a profit-first mindset. Starling’s strategy, laid out under Boden, is now looking like the better investment.
In a financial swansong for Boden after a decade at the helm last year, the bank reported record pre-tax profits of £195m, a six fold increase on the previous year’s figure of £32m.
‘Horrific’ barriers
But fundamentally, she says, those early rejections from investors pointed to a gender problem in the industry that still exists to this day.
That frustration with the male-skewed eye of tech investors has also dominated Boden’s post-Starling life. Two weeks ago, she launched her third book ‘Female Founders’ Playbook‘ and released a government-backed manifesto detailing the structural challenges facing women raising venture capital.
Across a 90-page report, Boden laid out plans to boost the number of female entrepreneurs by half and break down the “horrific” barriers she faced when raising money for Starling.
“It was difficult as a middle-aged woman to face up to very, very different people that make the investment decisions in big firms,” she says.
“One of the big things that we want to do is to put pressure on the private equity and venture capital industry to have more women making decisions.”
“One of the big things that we want to do is to put pressure on the private equity and venture capital industry to have more women making decisions.”
The recommendations have already won the support of ministers and the British Venture Capital Association, but it is still a troubling state of affairs that such a plan is needed to point to the still gaping gender gap in the often wild-west world of tech.
Just two per cent of venture capital funding goes to female entrepreneurs. Only 18 per cent of high-growth enterprises include one or more women, while all-male founding teams make up 82 per cent of high-growth in the UK.
Her exit and replacement by Bhatia at Starling has therefore disappointed some.
“We’ve lost another female CEO,” Simon Taylor from fintech consultancy Sardine told City A.M. yesterday. “Not only that, a female Welsh entrepreneur in her 60s, who’s challenged a lot of stereotypes. I think that’s a shame.”
Asked whether she was disappointed to hand over the reins to a man, she replied: “I think that Starling is an organization that’s very, very diverse. We have a high percentage of women on our executive team and we have a culture which is extremely supportive of women.
“And it is, you know… I’m really, really proud of what we do. And I’m very supportive of the leadership team.”
Growing up
Like Starling itself, the fintech industry is going through its own transition. Starling and its challenger peers that captured the imagination as start-ups in the 2010s have begun to behave like established players.
The banking battles that dominated the early fintech industry have “come to an end”, she says.
“There are winners and losers, and Starling is one of the winners.”
“There are winners and losers, and Starling is one of the winners.”
Those left on the field have begun to gear up for the next stage of growth. Starling’s IPO has been among the most hotly anticipated in the industry and Bhatia’s appointment has been seen as a key part of that.
As a major shareholder and board member, Boden will remain central to the move. But she won’t be drawn into specifics.
For now, Boden has more pressing issues to grapple with.
“In 1981, I came to London to work in technology in big financial institutions. And at that point, there were no women in finance, technology and entrepreneurship,” she adds. “Things haven’t got that much better in the past 40 years.”
