Ben Leonard | Founder
META Finance

Ben Leonard. Founder at META and CEO at FirstHomeCoach
Ben founded META in 2017 to Help People Help Themselves. META’s mission is to accelerate how personal data is used to empower people, thus creating a more consumer-centric society. META = ME, Think, Act. This is something he is putting into practice by building the META Finance community (www.metafinance.co.uk) and as CEO of FirstHomeCoach (www.firsthomecoach.co.uk), a Homebuying platform which uses the ME-Think-Act design approach to create better outcomes for first time buyers.
Prior to FirstHomeCoach and META, Ben spent 18 years in Investment Banking at HSBC leading a number of businesses. Most recently, he was Co-Head of the UK Financial Services team where he advised a range of clients on Strategy, Operational & Regulatory change and Capital raising. 
Over the past 5 years Ben has been actively engaged in Wealth Management Policy developments including the Financial Advice Market Review, Pensions Dashboard and is currently part of the Social Impact Investing Implementation taskforce.  
His interests include natural wine, live music and walking with his wife and kids. He graduated with a first-class degree in International Management from the University of Manchester in 1998.