Rob Straathof

Liberis

CEO

Rob Straathof is CEO of Liberis, a leading UK alternative finance provider providing simple, flexible and transparent funding to help SMEs achieve their ambitions. His current responsibilities include the leadership and management of the company, with a focus on honing its products to offer fairly priced, flexible finance for SMEs - always delivered responsibly.

Straathof is a leading financial services expert, with experience built from a range of SME-focused finance providers; including Director roles at Everline, the UK’s first digital SME lender, and at Newable BusinessFinance, a HMRC-appointed responsible finance provider backed by the British Business Bank. Rob has also held senior-level positions at Wonga, and in the J.P Morgan technology investment banking team in both London and San Francisco.

Originally from the Netherlands, he holds a Master of Science in Economics from Erasmus University and started his career as a co-founder at one of Rotterdam’s first online B2B lunch caterers. Straathof’s extensive commercial experience will support Liberis’ ambition to further empower small businesses, broadening customer reach through strategic partnerships and international expansion. Backed by the UK Government owned British Business Bank, Liberis is part of Blenheim Chalcot, the UK’s leading venture builder. The company has already supported over 24,000 UK jobs to date by advancing over £200m to over 6,000 companies.

Event Sessions Featuring Rob Straathof


Keynote

Embedded Finance: Is It Worth The Hype?

AltFi Festival of Finance 2021 - Tuesday 22 June 2021


Roundtable (Breakout)

Alternative Credit ‐ Round Table Discussion

London Summit 2018 - Monday 26 March 2018

  • The 22-strong roundtable discussed various aspects of opportunities in the non-bank lending space including the opportunities in SME lending, the maturity of the market and the sustainability of some platforms' business models and the need for greater transparency.
  • Christian Gut, manager of the P2P lending Fund, said investors need to fully understand track records of managers/funds and of how loans are performing. He said it is “really hard to understand” like-for-like comparisons when platform are changing underwriting models.  “Every country and platform is doing things in different ways. The industry should decide a certain level of credit and risk that should exist across the aboard,” he said.
  • Maseco’s Matthews added that niches are well suited to alternative credit but  “you can’t throw a lot of money” at them as this would harm yields.
  • RM’s Nicholl’s said that trust in the sector could be improved by third party audits leading to more capital into the sector.
  • AltFi Data’s Fekete added that lenders are showing more and more interest in having their data assessed and compared on a like-for-like basis. That is a vital part of the maturation of the sector, he said.


Roundtable (Breakout)

Customer focus

AltFi Europe Summit 2017 - Thursday 30 March 2017



Articles Featuring Rob Straathof

Liberis lands £140m debt round led by Barclays

28th September 2022 | Daniel Lanyon

Liberis raises £70m in debt for 2021 growth plans

22nd December 2020 | Oliver Smith

Worldpay Business Finance Goes Live

4th December 2015 | Ryan Weeks