Aveni.ai has appointed investment heavyweight Colin Clark as Chairman of its newly formed Board. The strategic appointment comes in the wake of a recent successful funding injection of £2.75 million to grow market share in the financial services sector. Clark will work closely with founder and CEO Joseph Twigg and COO Jamie Hunter to build out a diverse Aveni Board; expand and open up sales opportunities; and maintain the emphasis on offering best-in-class technology.
Clark’s 40-year executive career in asset and wealth management with S.G. Warburg, Mercury Asset Management and Merrill Lynch culminated in his role as executive director at Standard Life plc. Since 2018 he has gone on to hold a number of significant non-executive roles in financial services including Chairman of AXA Investment Managers UK, Senior Independent Director at Rathbones Plc and Chairman of The Merchants Trust.
Colin Clark commented: “I have known Joseph from his previous investment roles and always been impressed by his energy and desire to find solutions. I’ve followed Aveni closely since it was founded in 2018, so it was a role I was delighted to accept. The business has significant potential for scale and has focused very well so far on bringing in excellent people to develop a product which is truly solutions-focused for the financial services industry and regulatory needs. We will continue that as we build the board – identifying the right mix of experience, skill and diverse thinking to help the business thrive and expand.”
“The fintech market has only scratched the surface of its potential, in my view. It now faces a paradigm shift as technology advancements, data capabilities and regulatory demands create new opportunities. Consumer Duty in particular brings an excellent opportunity for Aveni, as the regulator takes further action to protect consumers and our customer-centric reporting technology can play a key role in providing strategic quality assurance solutions.”
Joseph Twigg, CEO of Aveni said: “Colin brings the essential mix of executive and non-executive experience which Aveni needs to move to the next phase of its strategic growth. His deeply embedded investment experience, strategic approach and honest insights will be crucial to help us address challenges and challengers, as well as identify new opportunities for market expansion. Colin shares our vision to grow a team of the very best people to develop best-in-class technology which addresses real needs to save time and money and enhance customer service. We are excited and proud to have him as our Chairman and look forward to working with him to make real impact.”
Aveni’s ground-breaking conversational intelligence technology is set to drive a new level of speech automation for regulated industries. The Aveni Detect AI-based platform uses the latest advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) to monitor every customer interaction. It gives businesses an improved level of understanding of their customers and outcomes and puts data-driven technology at the heart of their operating model and enables greater regulatory compliance.
In June 2022, Aveni announced a successful funding investment of £2.75 million pounds to support growth in the business and fund product development of the Aveni Detect platform across the financial services and utility markets in the UK. The funding round was led by The TRICAPITAL Syndicate LLP and Par Equity supported by Scottish Enterprise.