Santander UK hires McKinsey advisor to run FinTech unit

Santander UK has hired former McKinsey Associate Principal Mariano Belinky as Managing Director of its $100 million Innoventures Fund, set up to invest in fintech start-ups. 

The Innoventures Fund, formerly known as the Fintech Fund, has been set up by Santander UK, which is part of the Spanish Santander Group, in July this year to invest in fintech firms around the globe. The fund will focus on start-ups that lead the financial services digital revolution and are involved in e-commerce and payments, online lending, e-financial investments, and big data analytics. To run the $100 million Innoventures fund, Santander UK recently hired Mariano Belinky as the Managing Director of the fund.

Belinky joins Santander UK from consulting firm McKinsey & Company where he acted as Associate Principal in the Corporate and Investment Banking and Global Risk Management practices for more than six years at the firm’s New York office. Prior to this, he was a Ph.D. candidate in the Artificial Intelligence programme at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya for five years, during which he was a Research Associate at the Columbia Business School, and a Research Assistant at the INSEAD Business School and IESE Business School. In addition, he worked as Research Technology Associate at Bridgewater Associates for three years and as Junior Trader in equities and equity derivatives at CCC La Capital del Plata. Belinky holds a Bachelor degree in Philosophy & Computer Science from the New York University.