CrowdProperty names Mike Bristow as chief executive
CROWDPROPERTY co-founder Mike Bristow (pictured) has been appointed as chief executive of the peer-to-peer property lender, taking over the reins from fellow co-founder Simon Zutshi.
Bristow, who was also a non-executive director at CrowdProperty, had been acting as interim chief executive for around two months before taking on the role on a permanent basis, effective from 1 May.
The board recommended him for the position as they felt he could dedicate more time to the firm than Zutshi, who has interests across a number of businesses including the Property Investors Network that he founded in 2003.
Zutshi has now been appointed as chairman of CrowdProperty.
Bristow told Peer2Peer Finance News that it is his combination of experience in property, P2P lending and private equity firms focused on strategic growth that made him suitable for the role.
Read more: CrowdProperty raises £900,000 via Seedrs
Bristow has been a property investor since 2002 with a multi-million pound portfolio focused mainly in London, as well as elsewhere in South East England and internationally. He is also a career strategy consultant advising major corporates, private equity buyout funds and global real estate businesses that invest in billion-dollar developments.
Bristow was, most recently, managing partner at the strategy, M&A and ventures consultancy Growth Strategy, is a very active investor in early-stage proptech businesses and is also a mentor and investor at Pi Labs Property Innovation, Europe’s first venture capital platform exclusively investing in the proptech sector.
He is also co-founder and chairman of The Cooperative Property Company, a property investment company focusing on acquiring, developing and operating high-yielding residential property in London.
Read more: Want to invest in property? Then take a look at these peer-to-peer platforms
With regard to his new role, the immediate focus is on expanding the team, Bristow said, in order to avoid the “growing pains” that some businesses face when scaling up.
“We’ve practically doubled the size of the team since I became interim chief executive and have ambitions to double it again by the summer,” he said.
“We’re very careful about recruiting. We don’t want to compromise anything by growing too quickly and then not having the right team to support that growth.”
CrowdProperty launched in 2013, connecting investors with property developers and professionals in need of funding. The platform holds first charge on the loans, which range in size between £200,000 and £2m.
It has funded more than £15m of property loans to date.
It launched its Innovative Finance ISA in February, offering target returns of up to eight per cent.
This story featured in the May edition of Peer2Peer Finance News, now available to read online.
