Stuart Doignie

Senior banking executive with over 25 years' experience in SME and retail lending, spanning 15 years in senior risk and fraud leadership at Barclays followed by a decade leading credit, product and P&L functions at fintech and challenger banks, most recently as Managing Director of Digital SME Lending at Shawbrook Bank until June 2026. Broad experience across credit risk strategy, regulatory governance and P&L ownership, with SM&CR Senior Manager accountability and a strong track record of building compliant, well-controlled lending businesses that scale profitably. Particular expertise in designing and building digital customer journeys from the ground up, having stood up product teams and led end-to-end journey design across origination, execution and servicing.

Particular strength in balancing commercial growth ambition with the risk and control discipline expected of a regulated bank.

Managing Director – Digital SME Lending at Shawbrook Bank (2023-01 – 2026-06)

Owned the P&L and balance sheet for Digital SME Lending, with accountability for credit, operations, compliance and customer experience across the business. Designated SM&CR Senior Manager, holding personal accountability for regulatory standards and conduct across the Digital SME business.

• Set strategy within the bank's risk appetite, presenting major investment cases at Board level.
• Led a team of Digital SME Managers, with a strong focus on culture and capability in a hybrid, fast-growing business.
• Grew originations 300% in year one and sustained circa 50% annual growth thereafter, while reducing people costs by 20% through disciplined use of technology in the credit process.
• Introduced automated decisioning and AI-assisted underwriting, improving decision speed, consistency and control while reducing manual risk.
• Built a partner distribution model that opened new origination channels; led the acquisition of a fintech lender.
• Continued to shape end-to-end digital customer journeys — origination through to servicing — building on the product-led approach established in the prior role.

Managing Director – SME Fintech Strategy & Commercialisation at Shawbrook Bank (2020-01 – 2023-01)

Owned fintech lending strategy, ensuring commercial lending products were positioned in the right markets and connected to the right distribution partners.

• Set up dedicated product teams and, working closely with them, designed and built digital lending customer journeys from scratch across origination, execution and servicing for the SME product portfolio.
• Designed the bank's scalable digital lending architecture and established the fintech infrastructure partnerships underpinning it.
• Introduced product-led development, a structural and cultural shift for the business that put customer journey design at the centre of how products were built.

Chief Commercial Officer at OpenPayd Group (2019-05 – 2020-01)

• Defined commercial strategy for a new modular banking and payments platform, including product-market fit and go-to-market approach.
• Built the lending proposition as part of an 18-month roadmap toward becoming a regulated bank.
• Signed a major UK challenger bank on a full-service basis, ahead of target on both revenue and timeline.
• Developed a credible financial model for the lending business and a strong partnership pipeline.

Head of SME Lending at Starling Bank (2018-12 – 2019-05)

• Designed Starling's SME lending proposition and supported the RBS Remedies Pool A application during its latter stages.
• Built marketplace lending partnerships and developed the accountant referral model.
• Contributed to Starling's successful £100m BCR award and the go-live of the RBS ISS with minimal manual processing.
• Left a clear blueprint for SME credit decisioning, a system build plan and a strong partnership pipeline.

Chief Risk Officer at EZ Bob Ltd (2015-07 – 2018-12)

Held FCA controlled function accountability; ran the complete SME credit lifecycle — underwriting, collections, fraud, compliance and MLRO — and built the Risk function from scratch.

• Led platform strategy, licensing the firm's risk technology to UK banks and consulting on their SME propositions.
• Lent over £130m to UK SMEs through digital channels with strong risk-adjusted returns; won Best Fintech Solution at the Banking Innovation Awards, 2017.
• Signed RBS, CYBG and Amex to the technology platform, with further deals in the pipeline on departure.

Senior Risk & Fraud Leadership — Multiple Roles at Barclays Bank Plc (2000-01 – 2015-01)

15 years at Barclaycard, progressing from Business Analyst to Director level across SME credit risk, commercial card portfolios, acquiring fraud and large corporate operations. This period built the risk and control foundation for everything since.

• Director – Head of Central Risk & Fraud (2013–2015): tightened fraud and credit defences, saving £3m+ in year one; redesigned the Risk & Fraud operating model, including offshore migration.
• VP & Chief Risk Officer – Global Commercial Payments (2010–2013): covering the commercial card and small business credit card issuing businesses; held an EXCO seat with accountability for a £900m card portfolio; delivered a £3m impairment benefit and led the migration of four UK operations to India.
• Earlier career: built probability-of-fraud scoring from scratch (£2m+ savings in year one), introduced risk-based pricing for SME, and developed an automated credit limit decisioning tool that remained in use well after moving on.

BA (Hons) in Business Studies — Financial Services – Sheffield Hallam University (1995-01 – 1999-01)