Community Lending Fintech Salad Appoints Craig Pennington as Chief Strategy Officer

Salad Craig Pennington has been appointed Chief Strategy Officer, bringing a lot of experience in fintech and investing to help the ethical lending platform grow. This strategic move makes Salad’s leadership stronger as it continues to grow its mission-driven approach to making money more accessible.

He joins Salad from Fair4All Finance where he was responsible for managing investments and partnering with mainstream finance with the aim of attracting investment capital to community finance providers. Salad is a community development finance institution (CDFI) which serves full-time workers excluded from mainstream credit. It is an investee of and partner to Fair4All Finance.

An experienced finance director, board trustee, portfolio manager, investment analyst and business founder, Craig is also a mentor to social enterprises, avid theatre goer and Arsenal fan. His appointment comes as Government, policymakers and regulators seek to increase the supply of fair and affordable credit for people in financially vulnerable circumstances.

Salad’s choice of Craig Pennington shows that they want to combine impact finance and fintech scalability to create responsible lending models.

Craig Pennington said: 

“Everything Salad does is centered around its mission and I’ve been constantly impressed by how it harnesses innovation and entrepreneurialism to serve this core purpose, providing more choice and better options for people underserved by mainstream finance. It has been an exceptional partner to Fair4All and is valued by its other partners and social investors for delivering real, measurable change in people’s lives and transforming the credit market. I am excited to be joining Salad as it seeks to work with more partners aligned with its purpose of helping people access fair credit and build their financial resilience.”

Tim Rooney, Salad CEO, said:

“We are delighted to welcome Craig to Salad. He brings expertise and passion for community finance, analytical and strategic skills, and has been at the entrepreneurial coalface running businesses and organisations. His knowledge and experience working with social investors, family offices and mainstream finance will be invaluable as we scale Salad, a social enterprise itself, to expand financial inclusion in underserved communities.”

Salad recently announced an extension to its facility agreement with Ceniarth, a family office which funds market-based solutions to benefit underserved communities, in a “catalytic” investment part-guaranteed by Fair4All Finance [FF News coverage here https://ffnews.com/newsarticle/funding/ceniarth-increases-impact-investment-in-ethical-lending-fintech-salad/]. The firm’s applicants need to borrow, are excluded from mainstream credit by credit scoring, and want to avoid high-cost and illegal loans; Salad uses Open Banking and its own human- and machine-learning technology to make fair lending decisions and even signposts appropriate, relevant and trustworthy support to people it can’t lend to.

With Salad Craig Pennington now in a strategic leadership role, the company is in a good place to grow its mission-driven fintech business and credit solutions that are open to everyone.