Management Team Update
Every successful company is built on a clear strategy and, most importantly, the people who turn it into action. We are pleased to welcome two highly experienced professionals to Hive Finance Group: Anete Pallo, Group Chief Operating Officer, and Alexander James, Group Chief Risk Officer.
Let’s get to know them.
Anete Pallo, Group Chief Operating Officer
As Group COO, Anete will play a key role in strengthening operations across Hive Finance Group. Her experience in banking, fintech and debt collection will bring valuable expertise to our team.
Anete has built her career across Latvia’s banking and non-bank finance sectors and, most recently, at a debt collection company. Across these roles, she gained extensive experience in product strategy and development, sales strategy implementation and cross-functional project management.
Career Highlights
Throughout her career, Anete has led organisational transformation initiatives that delivered significant improvements in business efficiency. One of her proudest achievements was developing and implementing automation and digitalisation strategies that enhanced operational performance. In some areas, process efficiency improved by more than 40%. During the same period, the company’s net profit more than doubled.
She also played a leading role in launching new products, including leasing services at a bank and instalment financing products for a company within Eleving Group.
Why Hive Finance Group?
When we asked Anete why she decided to join Hive Finance Group and how she approaches operational improvement, she said:
“I have always been drawn to ambitious and goal-oriented companies that are ready to take action and turn their vision into reality. That is exactly how I see the companies within Hive Finance Group. I am also convinced that effective, well-organised processes can help a company achieve remarkable results. That is why it is so important to continuously challenge ourselves, support our teams’ development and never be afraid to improve practices that may have remained unchanged for years.”
Anete’s leadership approach is grounded in the principle that success is achieved together. We believe this approach will strengthen collaboration across the Group and support continued operational improvement.
Alexander James, Group Chief Risk Officer
Alexander has advised the Group for some time and already has a deep understanding of the business. By officially joining the management team, he brings continuity as well as extensive specialist expertise.
Alexander has extensive risk management experience across the fintech and consumer lending sectors. Over the course of his career, he has specialised in portfolio management, credit risk management, automated underwriting, credit scoring and risk policy development.
Career Highlights
Alexander highlights several career milestones of which he is particularly proud:
“I built a consultancy from scratch into an international specialist credit risk practice serving lenders in more than 17 countries. I have also managed and optimised lending portfolios typically ranging from $10 million to over $100 million, helping several businesses prepare for institutional funding and scalable growth. Another important achievement has been developing credit strategies across at least six distinct lending products serving materially different customer segments.”
Looking Ahead
Alexander believes that combining technology, AI and data creates an opportunity to rethink how lending decisions are made, making them more accurate, consistent and fairer for customers.
When asked where he sees the Group’s greatest potential, he said:
“Our biggest opportunity is to become a learning organisation in which every lending decision makes the next one better. Modern AI allows us to understand customer behaviour more accurately and test new strategies rapidly. Instead of making broad policy changes across an entire portfolio and hoping for the best, we can learn in a controlled way, iterate and focus on the segments showing the strongest early performance. Over time, these advantages reinforce one another: better decisions mean faster customer journeys, more accurate pricing, lower losses and stronger long-term relationships. That compounding effect can help distinguish us from more traditional financial institutions.”
His philosophy is that sustainable growth does not come from taking more risk, but from understanding risk better than everyone else. We believe this approach will support disciplined and sustainable growth across the Group.
What Does This Mean for Investors?
Although Anete and Alexander have joined at Group level, their expertise is also expected to benefit Hive5. Their work will support further improvements in loan originators’ operational and risk-management processes, helping balance portfolio growth with disciplined underwriting, effective controls and robust oversight.
They will also contribute to the continued development of credit-scoring models, which are key tools used to assess and manage borrower default risk. Their addition to the Group’s management team will further strengthen structured, data-driven decision-making across the organisation.