Errol Damelin

Errol Damelin
Born (1969-08-23) 23 August 1969
South Africa
Alma mater University of Cape Town
Boston University
Occupation Entrepreneur and early stage technology investor
Organization Wonga.com
Known for Founding Wonga.com and being an early backer of PurpleBricks, TransferWise, Skurt, VivaReal, Thread and CityMapper.
Home town London
Children 3

Errol Damelin (born 23 August 1969) is a South African born, Israeli/British entrepreneur and early stage technology investor. He was the founder and CEO and later Chairman of Wonga, a high profile British financial technology company that processed the worlds first straight through and fully automated consumer loans - and went on to processed over 15 million loans while Damelin was CEO. Today he's a highly regarded early stage investor and mentor to technology start-ups around the world. He's said to be working on a stealth health technology venture but this is unconfirmed.

Early life

Errol Damelin grew up in a Jewish family in Klerksdorp, a small town in rural South Africa, where his father was a country doctor who later specialised as an anaesthesiologist. He went on to attend the University of Cape Town where he studied Business Science and Law and took up numerous leadership positions, including winning election to the UCT Students Representative Council in 1991. He was politically active and associated with the left leaning non-racial and anti-apartheid NUSAS students grouping during the years immediately preceding the end of apartheid in South Africa and was detained at least once while a student for protesting against the apartheid government policy of detention without trial.

Following his graduation in 1992 he emigrated to Israel and then completed a Masters of Science in Management from Boston University.

Personal life

Damelin lives in London and has three children.

Entrepreneurship

He began his career working as a corporate finance banker at an Israeli investment bank that later merged into Israel Discount Bank.[1] where he focussed on the financing of technology start-up's.

In 1997 Damelin e left banking in search of making an impact as an entrepreneur and become part of the founding team at Barzelan, at the time, a high tech producer of speciality steel wire based in Beit Shemesh, Israel.,[2] which grew to export to over a dozen countries .

In 2000, Damelin founded Supply Chain Connect, an award winning cloud based supply chain software company in London, United Kingdom. The company pioneered what's become the ubiquitous sharing of supply chain collaboration data via the Internet. Supply Chain Connect listed customers such as Dow Chemicals, DuPont, Phelps Dodge, General Cable, Mondi Packaging and Corning. He sold the business in 2005 to ChemConnect for an undisclosed amount

In 2007, Damelin founded Wonga.com, a financial technology business that provided web and mobilebased short term loansin the UK and later in over a dozen countries. Wonga is regarded as the earliest of fintech companies. Damelin and his co-founder Jonty Hurwitz, conceived of and deployed the worlds first fully automated, real time risk decisioning system together with a breakthrough 'slider' user interface. Under their stewardship, and together with early investor, Chairman and close mentor Robin Klein, Wonga grew to one of the UK's most well recognised brands [reference] and successful companies. It sponsored premier league football teams Blackpool F.C. and Newcastle United F.C., where is purchased the naming rights to the historical home ground and promptly handed the naming back to the fans, renaming it St James' Park. The company had grown from a standing start to revenues of [£300 million] and over 500 staff in 2013, his last year as Wonga CEO. The company had. launched a number of new products and services including Everline (formerly Wonga for Business), which was designed to provide short-term cash flow solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses [3][4] and Damelin lead the acquisition of Germany-based BilPay as part of its international expansion. Wonga came under pressure from the media amidst allegations of exploitation of the most vulnerable in society.[5] A few weeks after he stepped down, Wonga was required by the Financial Conduct Authority to offer about £2.6 million in compensation to customers for poor historic debt collection practices, including sending fake solicitor letters to customers. It later surfaced that their practices were industry standard and that most UK utilities and banks had long been using similar approaches to collection. Damelin always called for better regulation of the consumer lending sector and more transparency in the wider financial services industry within the United Kingdom.[6] The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) was responsible for regulating the industry during Damelin's tenure building the business. From April 2014, responsibility for consumer lending companies moved to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), a change Damelin welcomed. In a statement published in The Guardian newspaper, he disclosed that he felt no moral personal issues relating to Wonga's criticised trading ethics because credit can be an important force for good when transparent and fair and Wonga's customers were overwhelmingly happy with and supportive of the company.

Financial interests

Damelin is a major shareholder in Wonga.com, owning 16.8m shares through Castle Bridge Ventures, an offshore company based in the British Virgin Islands.[7]

In 2014 the Daily Mail estimated Damelin's personal wealth as more than £34 million.[8]

In June 2014, after 8 years as CEO, and having grown it from nothing to over £300m in annual revenue, he stepped down from the management of Wonga. Wonga stated that Damelin wanted to "begin an orderly exit from the company" and to focus on "new business ventures".

Angel Investing and Mentoring

After stepping away from executive involvement at Wonga.com, Damelin seems to have focussed on investing in and mentoring the next generation of early stage technology entrepreneurs. He has been an early stage backer of successful young technology companies including TransferWise, CityMapper, Thread, Skurt, Farmdrop, VivaReal, BitPay, Songkick and PurpleBricks.

Awards

Damelin has been recognised with multiple top entrepreneurial awards including:

1. Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, 2011 [9]

2. The Guardian’s Digital Entrepreneur of the Year, 2011 [10][11]

3. Ruban d’Honneur in the RSM International Entrepreneur of the Year category of the European Business Awards, 2009

4. Founder of the Year, Founders Forum 2012 [12]

5. Credit Suisse Entrepreneur of the year at the National Business Awards, South East, 2008

6. Digital Entrepreneur of the Year (Digital Entrepreneur Awards), 2010 ">Winners of the 2010 Digital Entrepreneur Awards

7. Entrepreneur of the Year (Growing Business Awards), 2010 [13]

8. Founder of the Year (Tech Crunch – The Europa's), 2010 [14]

Wonga is also ranked in the Sunday Times Tech Track Top Three, with 2012 seeing the organisation being awarded "fastest growing company" at the Media Momentum awards in Berlin.

Philanthropy

Damelin is active in Jewish charities, and has appeared on panels and discussions for World Jewish Relief and Jewish Care.[15][16]

Damelin has also been an ambassador for Charity: Water, the New York-based charity that builds wells to provide sustainable, clean water in Africa and Asia. He ran the Antarctic Ice marathon in 2012 where he raised substantial funds for the charity.

Founders Pledge: In 2015, Damelin was listed as a founding member of the group of technology entrepreneurs who pledged 2% of the equity in their companies to philanthropic causes.

References

External links

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