Our purpose and
what we stand for

We exist to ensure that every business can access the finance they need to grow, regardless of any difference that they may have.

We focus on the one thing that every finance provider needs - healthy, growing businesses to support.

Fairness, inclusivity and authenticity are key values for us.

After two decades of providing inclusive business support, including lending directly to SMEs, our founder felt that the financial services market was failing to meet the access to finance needs of all businesses, fairly.

On one side you have finance providers who want to help high growth potential businesses, but did not want to take higher risk with those who don't meet their own biased risk criteria.

On the other side, you have businesses who did not meet traditional profiles, but have significant high growth potential - historically, SMEs have been heavily underserved and underestimated by the finance sector, and often don’t have the same business characteristics that finance providers like about larger businesses and organisations. This includes lengthy and substantial credit histories, detailed and audited financial accounts, and a strong portfolio of assets that could be used as collateral on debts.

What was missing was a data-driven technological approach to help finance providers unlock new business opportunities, that would enable ALL SMEs to evidence why they are healthy and growing, at scale.

That is why GFA Exchange was born.

We are creating a new and inclusive financial services model, ensuring financial inclusion for all. A place where ambitious businesses, finance providers and the wider financial services market truly benefit from one another.  

A place where risk is managed fairly and with more confidence, based upon the one crucial element that ALL finance providers have in common - the need to work with healthy, growing businesses.

Our approach enables us to understand and evidence the growth potential and performance of a business, no matter who or where they are, across any sector and size, anywhere in the world. Through the GFA Exchange, they are always fairly appraised against a set of growth KPIs that are focused on business health performance, sourced collaboratively with other businesses, at scale.

Our inclusion algorithm scores fairly and consistently from one single source, and is built to cater for all businesses. This means that diverse characteristics like ethnicity, size of business, gender, revenue, country of origin, etc do not determine who gets the service they need.

By partnering directly with finance providers, our partners benefit from the data network effect generated through our unique data intelligence technology bespoke to their needs, with the confidence that our solutions have been co-designed with leading organisations across the global financial market.

This inclusive approach helps them access continuous hidden intelligence on new and existing clients and their own portfolio that they don't already have, to identify businesses with the highest growth potential.

From driving efficiency within lending, growth finance and investment processes, to supporting inclusive ESG strategies, GFA Exchange helps our partners make more informed decisions, whilst reducing financial risk and reducing service costs.

We believe a culture of inclusivity is key for financial services markets to adapt to change, in a modern data-driven world. Inclusivity is something that underpins everything that we do.

It’s not a wishy washy value that we preach for brand or PR.

It is in the very DNA of our business.















But
Our inclusion algorithm scores fairly and consistently from one single source, and is built to cater for all businesses, no matter who or where they are. This means that diverse characteristics like ethnicity, size of business, gender, revenue, country of origin, etc do not determine who gets the service they need.

By partnering directly with finance providers, our partners benefit from the data network effect generated through our unique data intelligence technology, with the confidence that our solutions have been co-designed with leading organisations within the global financial market.

This inclusive approach helps them access continuous hidden intelligence on new and existing clients and their own portfolio that they don't already have, to identify businesses with the highest growth potential.

From driving efficiency within lending, growth finance and investment processes, to supporting inclusive ESG strategies, GFA Exchange helps our partners make more informed decisions, whilst reducing financial risk and reducing service costs.

We believe a culture of inclusivity is key for financial services markets to adapt to change, in a modern data-driven world. Inclusivity is something that underpins everything that we do.

It’s not a wishy washy value that we preach for brand or PR.

It is in the very DNA of our business.















Our team

With over 80 years of core experience across Finance, Business Growth Support and Global Technology and Software Design, our award-winning team understand the practical and real-life challenges, of responding to industry and business disruption.

Joel Blake OBE
Joel Blake OBE
founder & Ceo
Joel has over 20 years' experience of inclusive business growth support. From providing consul to No.10 Downing Street advisers, to public speaking on international stages, Joel is passionate about inclusive finance and SME growth.

Previously, he co-founded a financial lending firm, is the former President of the Commonwealth Chamber of Commerce, and was awarded an OBE in 2016 for Services to Business Support and Enterprise.
Stuart Muckley
Milan Miskov
HEAD OF PRODUCT
 With 20+ years of technology and product experience in Belgrade, US and the UK, Milan has a proven track record of managing complex projects, utilising the latest tools and advanced technologies. 

He has previously worked with Google, Visa-Mastercard, Coca-Cola, and Virgin Media among many others, helping to drive innovation to support the
growth of businesses.
Joanna Hill
John Macpherson
HEAD OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
John is a business leader with over 20+ years of extensive B2B commercial experience in FinTech, financial services and data management across global markets and geographies.

Having previously worked for JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup and Nomura, John also supports the wealth and asset management market as Chair of the Investment Association (Engine).
Samuel Roberts
Theodora Hadjmichael
INDUSTRY SUPPORTER
Theodora is Chief Executive of Responsible Finance, the UK's leading body for the development and support of the responsible finance industry.

Theodora spent 6 years building the robust evidence base of data on member performance and industry trends. She previously worked in economic development consulting and community finance in the US.
Theodora Hadjmichael
Mark Body
ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER
Mark is the former Global CFO for HSBC ServCo, a £18 billion business unit with the global HBSC Group. He has also held several executive and finance positions within Standard Chartered, Aviva and KPMG. 

Mark is a Fellow of the CMI and the Association of Taxation Technicians, alongside advisory board member of Norwich Business School the Metropolitan University in Hong Kong.
Marcus Scott
Marcus Scott
ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER
Marcus is the former COO of The CityUK, the UK’s leading lobby group for the financial services sector. He was instrumental in the work of the ReCapitalisation Group recommendations to UK government on the £100bn COVID finance debt.

Prior to The CityUK, Marcus built up over 10 years' experience as a CFO for a number of technology companies, developing start-ups and high growth businesses.
Marcus Scott
Sam Roberts
ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER
Sam is a Demand Generation expert who helps B2B SaaS companies increase qualified revenue through marketing.

Sam has over 8 years of experience working across early to mid-stage B2B tech companies (from securing series A investment through to supporting the £65 million acquisition of a global CX vendor).

Our Awards

We are grateful, with a few reasons for you to be excited! 

Awarded one of Midlands Top 50 Tech Disruptors 2023  
Awarded
Fintech of the Year 2022  
innovate logo
UK’s Top 10% most innovative start-ups to help financial services tackle COVID impact

UK Top 40 Emerging FinTech (NatWest Accelerator)
the investment association logo
UK Top 8
WealthTech Firms
(IA Engine)



tech nation logo
One of the 50 most inspiring, prominent, and influential black voices in UK tech (Joel Blake OBE)
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UK Top 100 FinTech Startups of 2019


gfa exchange dashboard

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Speak to a member of our team to learn more about how you can identify best fit clients, with less risk, less cost and more inclusively!