OakNorth has today announced the appointment of Sunil Chandra as CEO of its next-generation credit platform to lead the growth of the business with co-founders Rishi Khosla and Joel Perlman.
Sunil joined Google in 2007 and scaled the company’s talent and global footprint from 7,000 employees to over 100,000 today, spanning a product portfolio that touches the lives of billions of users every day. Prior to this, he was the Chief Operating Officer (Technology) at Barclays Capital for over two years, after seven and a half years as Director of Administration (Southeast Asia and Greater China) at McKinsey & Co. A global executive, he’s been responsible for scaling operations across geographies and has relocated from San Francisco to London to join OakNorth.
The platform helps banks and lending institutions around the world to cater to the lower mid-market business segment (loans of $1m-$25m) more holistically and profitably. The platform has enabled OakNorth Bank in the UK to become one of the most successful new banks in the country, lending c.$5bn in the last four years. Sunil will lead the platform’s expansion across the US, Europe, and Asia, ensuring that the business meets its commercial and strategic objectives.
Rishi Khosla, co-founder of OakNorth, said: “The last decade has seen the growth of tremendous technology companies like Google, and Sunil was instrumental to that growth and indeed the broader industry. Joel and I are incredibly excited to have him join us, as we scale to meet the strong interest our platform has garnered with clients globally. His strong management experience and track record in scaling one of the world’s largest tech companies will help shape OakNorth’s future evolution and expansion with partner banks around the world."
Sunil Chandra said: “It’s an incredible privilege to be joining the team at OakNorth. In a short period of time, the business has identified a key segment of the market that is underserved, proven that thesis with the profitable OakNorth Bank in the UK, and is now scaling the solution globally by licensing its platform to other lending institutions. SMEs account for roughly half of the GDP of the world. By supporting their growth, we are not only helping them, but also their local communities who will benefit from new jobs and additional GDP. After more than 12 years at Google, I am excited about this next challenge and look forward to building the business into what will no doubt be one of the world’s premier tech companies born out of Europe.”
