Clayton Howes - MONEYME: The leadership shift every founder must make to scale

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Clayton Howes is the co-founder and CEO of MONEYME (ASX: MME), a Sydney-based non-bank lender that has originated over $5 billion in consumer credit since 2013 and manages a $1.9 billion loan book today. In this conversation, Clayton covers the full arc: bootstrapping without external capital, listing on the ASX two months before the pandemic, acquiring SocietyOne on the day Russia invaded Ukraine, and how MONEYME's proprietary Horizon platform has become a competitive moat in Australian consumer finance.

About Clayton Howes

Clayton Howes is the co-founder and CEO of MONEYME (ASX: MME), which he has led since founding the business in 2013 after nearly 10 years at Vodafone Hutchinson Australia in commercial finance, sales strategy, and retail transformation. He holds an undergraduate degree from Oxford Brookes University and previously worked at GlaxoSmithKline in the UK in M&A analysis.

The MONEYME journey

• How MONEYME grew from a self-funded startup in a desk-sized office to a $1.9 billion loan book serving hundreds of thousands of Australians across personal loans, credit cards, and car finance
• Why Clayton believes consumer fintech is the hardest vertical in startup land and how regulatory complexity becomes a barrier to entry once you reach scale
• The IPO timing that saw MONEYME list in December 2019 and face a pandemic two months later, and how a challenger mindset beat every forecast during Covid
• How the SocietyOne acquisition closed on the day Russia invaded Ukraine, the capital markets fallout that followed, and why the asset ultimately thrived under MONEYME management
• Why the Horizon technology platform, built with over 450,000 developer hours, is MONEYME's core competitive moat and why Clayton refuses to white-label it
• The leadership shift every founder must make from player on the field to coach, and the cultural signals Clayton watches to know when it is time to change roles
• What it actually takes to keep 250 staff coming into the office voluntarily, and why MONEYME placed its Newcastle office next to the university it hires from
• Why being a Certified B Corp (B Impact Assessment score of 91.2) and a listed company are congruent with what's right for shareholders, communities, and the business
• The product innovations in car finance and credit cards that Clayton believes will drive MONEYME to $5 billion, and the future role of cryptocurrency in the product mix

Links and Resources

• Clayton Howes LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/claytonhowes/
• MONEYME Website: moneyme.com.au
• MONEYME Investor Centre: investors.moneyme.com.au
• ASX ticker: MME
• Careers: media@moneyme.com.au / clay@moneyme.com.au

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