Gail Pemberton, AO

Independent Non-Executive Chairman

Gail has been a Director of the Company since May 2018 and Chairman since February 2019. She was previously a Director of Prospa Advance Pty Ltd from March 2018. 

Gail has more than 35 years’ experience in banking and wealth management and is a specialist in technology and operations.

Prior to taking up a Non-Executive Director career, Gail was COO, UK at BNP Paribas and CEO and Managing Director, BNP Paribas, Australia and New Zealand. She was previously Group Chief Information Officer and Financial Services Group COO at Macquarie Bank.

Gail is currently a Non-Executive Director of Eclipx Group (ASX:ECX), Land Services WA and Sydney Metro and MFN Group. 

Gail has previously served on the Boards of ARQ Group (ASX:ARQ), OneVue (ASX:OVH), SIRCA and RoZetta Technology and Onthehouse (ASX:OTH) as independent Chair, and as a Non-Executive Director on PayPal Australia, QIC, UXC (ASX:UXC). 

Gail has an MA from UTS, and a Graduate Certificate in Finance from Griffith University. She is also a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

In January 2018 Gail was awarded an Order of Australia for distinguished service to the finance and banking industry, to business through a range of roles, as an advocate for technology and as a mentor to women.

Gail is a member of the Audit and Risk Committee and a member of the Remuneration, People and Nomination Committee.

Greg Ruddock

Independent Non-Executive Director

Greg has been a Director of the Company since April 2018, and was previously a Director of Prospa Advance Pty Ltd from October 2015.

Greg has more than 30 years’ experience in private equity and operations management and specialises in investment strategy, business development and mergers & acquisitions.

Greg is a founder and Joint Chief Executive Officer of Ironbridge where he co-leads Investment and Portfolio Management activities. Since 2003 Greg has led many of its successful financial services investments including Prospa, Judo Capital, Eclipx Group and Stardex Insurance. Greg also led and served on the Boards of Easternwell, Super A-mart, BBQs Galore, Tandem Group, and AOS.

Prior to this role, Greg spent 7 years with leading Australian industrial group Wesfarmers in mergers and acquisitions and 5 years with Gresham Partners and Gresham Private Equity where he led the development of financial services payments provider Cashcard Australia. Greg also spent 5 years with diversified listed company Avatar Limited, where he was Finance Director and Managing Director of one of its major subsidiaries. 

Greg is currently a Director of Ironbridge Capital Holdings Pty Ltd, Judo Capital Limited, Workclub Australia Pty Ltd and AOS Pty Ltd. 

Greg is a qualified accountant and holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Western Australia and post graduate qualifications from the Financial Services Institute of Australasia and the Australian Society of Accountants. 

Greg is the Chair of the Remuneration, People and Nomination Committee and a member of the Audit and Risk Committee.

Fiona Trafford-Walker

Independent Non-Executive Director

Fiona has been a Director of the Company since May 2018, and was previously a Director of Prospa Advance Pty Ltd from March 2018. 

Fiona is currently an Independent Non-Executive Director of Link Administration Holdings (ASX:LNK) where she also chairs the Audit Committee, Perpetual Limited (ASX:PPT) and the Victorian Funds Management Corporation (VFMC).  She is also a member of the Investment Committee for the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. 

Fiona was previously an Investment Director at Frontier Advisors, where she was a member of the firm’s Investment Committee and Governance Advisory team.  She was the inaugural Managing Director at Frontier Advisors and played a critical role in growing the firm.  Fiona has more than 25 years’ experience advising institutional asset owners and investors on investment and governance-related issues.

Fiona holds a B.Ec. (Hons) from James Cook University and a Master of Finance from RMIT University. She is also a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

In 2013, Fiona was awarded inaugural Woman of the Year in the Money Management/Super Review of Women in Financial Services Awards and was ranked one of the top 10 global Asset Consultants from 2013 to 2016, and again in 2019. In 2016, Fiona was announced as a winner in The Australian Financial Review and Westpac 100 Women of Influence Awards in the Board/Management category.

Fiona is the Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee and a member of the Remuneration, People and Nomination Committee.

Avi Eyal

Non-Executive Director

Avi has been a Director of the Company since May 2018 and was previously a Director of Prospa Advance Pty Ltd from its incorporation in 2012. Avi has been instrumental to the development of Prospa.

Avi has almost 25 years’ experience in founding, scaling and running global technology and finance companies.

Avi is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Entrée Capital which led Prospa’s seed and series A funding and has participated or led in each funding round. Avi brings extensive finance and technology, governance, risk and compliance (GRC) knowledge to Prospa. In 2004 he co-founded Cura Software Solutions which sold GRC software to Global 1000 companies and served as CEO until 2009 when it was sold to a global public technology company.

Avi is a current Board Director of monday.com, BreezoMeter, BW Robotics, Torii, Broadlume, Niio, Shopic, thumbzup and other technology companies in the UK, EU, USA and Israel. Avi has previously served as Board Director for Riskified, Gastrofix (TSE:LSPD), HouseParty (Epic Games), Flyt (LSE:JE), Scan Inc. (NYSE:SNAP), Cura Software Solutions (NSE:CURATECH), and Datatec Limited / Insight Technologies (JSE:DTC) and others.

Avi has a BSc in Electronic and Computer Engineering from the University of Natal in South Africa. In 2010 Avi received the Johnnie Walker Entrepreneur of the Year Award and in 2018 and 2019 was listed by Forbes Inc as one of the Top 25 European venture Capitalists (Midas List).

Avi is a member of the Audit and Risk committee and a member of the Remuneration, People and Nomination Committee.

Mary Ploughman

Independent Non-Executive Director

Mary has been a Director of the Company since March 2021.

Mary has 30 years of financial services, capital markets, securitisation, mergers and acquisitions, governance and risk management experience on a range of financial institutions, infrastructure and not for profit boards in Australia and New Zealand.

Mary is currently Chairman of Plenti Group Limited (ASX: PLT) and serves as Chairman of the Remuneration Committee and as a member of the Audit & Risk Committee. Mary is also a Non Executive Director and Chair of the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee of global financial markets trading platform TF Global Markets (Aust) Limited and a Senior Advisor at Gresham Partners Limited.

Prior to these roles, Mary served as Joint Chief Executive Officer of non-bank lender Resimac and as Non-Executive Director of Sydney Motorway Corporation, until its sale to Transurban in 2018. Mary was also Deputy Chair of the National Committee for the Australian Securitisation Forum from 2013 to 2017.

Mary has a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Sydney, is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and an Associate of the Securities Institute of Australia.

Ross Aucutt

Chief Financial Officer

Ross is the Chief Financial Officer for Prospa. He has responsibility for financial control, financial planning and analysis, yield management and treasury.

Ross has over 20 years’ experience in senior finance roles, and was previously CFO at FlexiGroup Limited (ASX:FXL) for almost four years. Before this, he was Group Treasurer at Latitude Financial Services.

Ross has a strong background in non-bank disruptive finance models and the financial markets where he has worked at a senior level in large domestic and international organisations, including the Royal Bank of Scotland / NatWest Group (London), Westpac (Sydney) and Barclays (London).

Ross has a B.Com. in Accounting and Finance from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and a Masters in Finance from London Business School and is a Chartered Accountant.

Ben Lamb

Chief Commercial Officer

Ben joined Prospa in April 2016. He has responsibility for operations including customer acquisition, retention and collections. 

Ben has 13 years’ experience in financial services including product development, customer experience, operations, procurement and establishing offshore operations.

Prior to joining Prospa, Ben was Head of Product & Customer Solutions at ASX-listed financial services company Eclipx Group; and Head of Customer Experience and Operations at ASX-listed financial services company FlexiGroup.

Damon Pezaro

Chief Product Officer

Damon joined Prospa in June 2017. He has responsibility for product development and management including design, data and analytics.

Damon has more than 20 years’ experience in digital focused businesses working across online and technical environments, having held key product and operational roles in several successful start-ups and large corporates.

Prior to joining Prospa, Damon was Chief Product Officer at ASX200-listed Domain Group, Head of Operations at OurDeal.com.au (acquired by Groupon), and Senior Manager – Product & Technology at News Digital Media (NewsCorp).

Shai Haim

Chief Technology Officer

Shai joined Prospa in July 2019. He has responsibility for delivery of Prospa’s technology platform and cyber security. Shai has over 20 years’ experience in the technology sector.

Prior to joining Prospa, Shai has scaled technology teams in Asia, Europe, America and Australia and has been based in Silicon Valley where he was VP of Engineering at Brigade, and also Engineering Manager at Twitter. Most recently, he was Chief Technology Officer at Campaign Monitor where he delivered major initiatives around technology, operations and M&A.

Shai has a BCompSc from IDC Herzliya in Israel and a PhD in Computer Science (AI) from UNSW.

Elise Ward

Executive General Manager, People and Culture

Elise joined Prospa in December 2018. She has responsibility for the design and delivery of our people strategy.

Elise has more than 11 years’ experience in delivering progressive people and culture strategies across start-ups and multinational organisations.

Prior to joining Prospa, Elise led the People & Culture team for Canadian-based technology company Elastic Path Software and has held senior HR roles at Samsung and Tabcorp.

Elise has a Bachelor of HR Management from Macquarie University and a Graduate Certificate in Change Management from AGSM at UNSW.