Bud Financial (Bud), a leading AI-powered data intelligence platform for the financial services and banking industry, has appointed two new senior leaders to continue ramping up commercial growth and product innovation.
Rachel Fairhurst joins the company as VP of Credit Risk & Client Success, and Jakub Piotrowski as VP of Product.
Rachel arrives at Bud with over 20 years of experience in senior credit roles, developing deep cross-sector knowledge of credit and risk functions in management roles at large corporations and startups alike, including Bank of America, Credit Kudos, Auden, and Equifax.
Passionate about financial inclusion, Rachel’s role at Bud will be to drive the strategy and success of Bud’s Assess solution, which enables clients in the financial services sector to supercharge their affordability and credit scoring and decisioning processes, to enhance their own client experiences and reducing risk across their portfolios This will involve working closely with Bud’s product department, headed up by Jakub Piotrowski.
Joining Bud with extensive experience as a commercially-focused product leader, including six years in the C-Suite at Meniga, a provider of digital banking solutions, Jakub will drive the expansion of Bud’s suite of AI-powered financial insights and data intelligence solutions. His role will ensure that Bud, as an AI trailblazer in the financial sector and the company behind an advanced enterprise-level AI with generative interface for banks, continues its strong momentum as a leading innovator in this space.
Bud, led by founding team Ed Maslaveckas, CEO, and George Dunning, COO, has built a stellar lineup of tech and finance experts to drive the business’s hypergrowth ambitions and enhance its AI-powered data intelligence offerings. Bud’s growth plans are powered by a strategic investment from TransUnion in 2023, following a strong Series B performance the previous year, which saw $80m raised from an impressive group including HSBC, Goldman Sachs, ANZ, Investec’s INVC fund and InnoCells.
Rachel Fairhurst, VP of Credit Risk & Client Success, said: ‘I’m very pleased to be joining a company I’ve long admired for its dedication to using open banking technology as the springboard for fairer, more accurate, and more accessible lending. One of my key priorities in this new role will be helping our clients, from niche lenders to large enterprises, to deploy and reap the full value of our solutions in their organisations. I’m also looking forward to working with the product and commercial teams to shape our strategy, carrying my passion for helping high-performing teams thrive into everything I do here.”
Jakub Piotrowski, VP of Product, said: ‘As the possibilities of AI and its applications in fintech grow, it’s a very exciting time to be joining one of the sector’s forerunners. Bud is a highly ambitious innovator, and it’s a great pleasure to be working towards some truly game-changing goals with such an impressive team. There’s huge potential to take our products further, and to do more than ever to level the financial playing field for consumers. Our upcoming launches will represent key milestones in this journey.’