Joel Perlman is a co-founder and senior managing director of OakNorth. He started his career as a consultant at McKinsey.
With Rishi Khosla he built Copal, later Copal Amba, a financial research firm. Moody's bought it in 2014 when it had grown to about 3,000 employees across 11 markets.
In March 2015 Perlman and Khosla won a full banking licence from the PRA and FCA. Products launched in September 2015. OakNorth lends to mid-sized firms using credit software that looks at future cash flows.
In 2019 OakNorth raised $440M from SoftBank Vision Fund and Clermont Group. Perlman also manages OakNorth Ventures.