2021 has been an incredible year of growth for Freetrade.
Whether that’s growth to over 1 million registered users in the UK, growth in our assets under administration to more than £1 billion or our record-breaking recent crowdfunding round.
Another growth story, and as Head of People one very close to my heart, is our employee expansion. We’ve grown 200% this year from a company of 89 people in the UK only to 260 people across the UK, Sweden, Australia and Canada.
LinkedIn founder Reed Hoffman in his book Blitzscaling describes the growth of companies at different stages. We’re now at the “village stage” with ambitions to continue our fast-paced trajectory.
But that growth, as Hoffman says, means we have to work even harder to ensure we continue to recruit high quality talent and maintain the core of our company culture.
To grow at that scale in such a relatively short space of time is a major task and responsibility. It’s a testament to our Talent Function and our Hiring Managers that we’re succeeding on both counts. That’s reflected in our Freetrade employee surveys, which show our cultural alignment is stronger than ever, with Freetraders fully bought into our values.
Our five core values - Candour, Curiosity, Focus, Grit, Humility - are fundamental to our workplace culture, and ultimately Freetrade’s mission, which is why we’re so committed to living them everyday. Our humility means there is no room for complacency and we’re fully determined to continue our momentum into Europe and beyond.
We want to get everyone investing, and we mean everyone. That means creating a new culture of investing internationally that is approachable, customer-first and innovative.
With our values driving us forward, we’re excited about what 2022 holds for our customers, community, people and investors.
