Lindsey McMurray, Co-founder of Pollen Street Capital: How Capitalising on Change Can Drive Benefits for Financial Services Industry

The firm identifies and champions businesses that are on the cusp of transformation, with agile operations that deliver solutions to customers underserved by mainstream providers.

“The financial services sector touches every aspect of our lives, something that has never been more apparent than in the past 12 months,” she says. “We consider our work through this lens; by accelerating change in financial services, we can have a huge positive impact on the overall economy.”

Lindsey McMurray has been a private equity and credit investor for more than 25 years, with a focus on the financial and business services sector. She chairs the Pollen Street Capital private equity and credit investment committees and serves as non-executive director of several portfolio companies, including Shawbrook, a leading UK challenger bank, consumer lender Oplo and Freedom Finance, a service provider to lenders.

“Across our private equity and credit business, we are dedicated to helping businesses reach a wider audience and reflect their potential,” McMurray says. “Through our credit strategy we can provide support to SMEs and community development and have a positive impact on regional growth.

“In our private equity work, we want to accelerate the progress of the sector by drawing on the capabilities of the entire portfolio. In doing so, we drive revenue at an accelerated pace, and create a community of trust, partnership and value-add.”

One of the ways it does this is through the Pollen Street Capital Hub. “Through our Hub initiatives, we can address portfolio-wide issues and develop solutions for common opportunities such as digital marketing, data and technology, as well as advancing the ESG agenda.”

Before founding Pollen Street Capital, Lindsey McMurray led the principal finance business for the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). From 2007, she led the launch of the Special Opportunities Fund within RBS, raising some £1bn from external institutional investors.

When not working to drive positive impact in financial services, Lindsey Mcmurray is a keen runner and completed the Marathon Des Sables in 2007 and 2011. She supports a number of charities, with a particular focus on mentoring children in state schools, supporting climate action initiatives through producing documentary films, as well as supporting the speech and language charity, Auditory Verbal UK, that provided early years therapy to her daughter Grace.