10 Things You Didn't Know about Hubert Fenwick

Hubert Fenwick is the CEO of Selina Advance. For those who are curious, the fintech company can provide interested individuals with a home equity line of credit. Selina Advance seems to have managed to secure a lot of investor interest, seeing as how it has just managed to secure a great deal of funding.

1. Went to University of Cambridge

Education-wise, Fenwick went to the University of Cambridge, which is one of the most famous universities in the English-speaking world. After all, the school has been around since the early 13th century, thus making the second oldest institution of its kind that can be found in Great Britain. In fact, it is believed that the University of Cambridge came into existence because of an incident involving in the University of Oxford. What happened was that Oxford scholars came into conflict with Oxford townspeople. The situation got so bad that some of the Oxford scholars fled to other places, which included Cambridge. When the situation settled down, some of the Oxford scholars returned to the University of Oxford. However, enough remained at Cambridge to form the nucleus of a new school.

2. Studied Economics

Subject-wise, Fenwick focused on economics. It isn't hard to see how an economics education can help out someone headed into business and business-related fields. Microeconomics provides useful insight into the decision-making of both individual consumers and individual businesses. Meanwhile, macroeconomics provides useful insight into economic matters on a national scale as well as an international scale, both of which have a huge influence on the business environment.

3. Has a Lot of Finance Experience

Fenwick has a lot of finance experience. Moreover, it is interesting to note that he didn't gain this experience from a single place. Instead, he gained his finance experience from a number of companies operating in a number of places. Unsurprisingly, London was one of those places. However, so were Beijing and New York City.

4. Speaks Mandarin Chinese

Speaking of which, it should come as no surprise to learn that Fenwick is bilingual. Unsurprisingly, his native language is English. However, he is capable of speaking business proficient Mandarin Chinese as well. Strictly speaking, Mandarin Chinese encompasses a number of Chinese dialects. However, it often refers to Standard Mandarin Chinese, which serves as the lingua franca for Chinese speakers as a whole. Standard Mandarin Chinese is sometimes called Standard Beijing Mandarin because that is where it came from.

5. Co-Founded Selina Advance

Fenwick is one of the co-founders of Selina Advance. Currently, he is serving as its CEO as well. Meanwhile, the other co-founder Leonard Benning is serving as its COO. Generally speaking, the latter is supposed to be a kind of second-in-command to the CEO. However, COOs are being phased out in a lot of places, not least because CEOs are now able to oversee more things than ever before because of new tools and technologies. Presumably, Selina Advance isn't one of those places.

6. Runs a Company Offering Home Equity Lines of Credit

As mentioned earlier, Fenwick runs a fintech company offering home equity lines of credit. These are pretty much exactly what they sound like, which is to say, lines of credit that have been secured using the borrowers' home equity. As such, they are similar to home equity loans, though a lot of people would argue that they are better because they are lines of credit rather than loans. After all, people don't get charged interest until they take out money from their lines of credit.

7. Runs a Company Offering Something New and Not So New

Speaking of which, one could say that Fenwick's company is offering something that is both new and not so new. Home equity lines of credit have been used for quite some time in a number of countries such as the United States and Australia. However, Selina Advance is nonetheless doing something new because it is the first company to offer these financial products in the United Kingdom.

8. Inspired By His Time in the United States

Fenwick got the idea for Selina Advance through a very straightforward manner. In short, he became aware of home equity lines of credit while he was working in the United States. When he returned to the United Kingdom, he saw that such financial products weren't available in said country even though they could prove useful there as well. As a result, Fenwick made a decision to fill that gap with a digital-first lender.

9. Regulation Was a Major Challenge

Home equity lines of credit having seen much use elsewhere doesn't mean that they were just automatically accepted in the United Kingdom. One of Fenwick's biggest challenges at the head of Selina Advance was apparently getting regulatory approval for what he and the rest of the company's leadership wanted to sell to interested parties. This makes sense because a bad financial product can have catastrophic consequences for consumers, meaning that such processes are extremely important. Still, Fenwick and the rest of the company's leadership were able to get regulatory approval by showing their product's usefulness, particularly in comparison with other financial products that were already on the U.K. market.

10. Is Focusing On the United Kingdom Before Expanding Elsewhere

Fenwick has stated that Selina Advance will be focusing on the United Kingdom before expanding elsewhere. In particular, the fintech company is planning to continue expanding its home equity lines of credit business while launching other financial products as well, meaning that it wants to both increase its market share in its existing market and break into other markets. Selina Advance isn't against the idea of expanding into other markets such as Europe. However, it wants to cement its position before making such an ambitious jump. This is particularly true because a successful European expansion will require a great deal of capital, meaning that Fenwick and the rest of the company's leadership will need to have plans for securing that in place before proceeding further.