Rishi Khosla has built not one, but two high-growth businesses - first with Copal Amba, which he sold to Moody’s, and now with OakNorth, one of the UK’s most successful fintech banks. His career is a study in entrepreneurial conviction: a willingness to take risks, challenge industry norms, and build at scale.
In this interview, he reflects on the lessons learned, from securing funding when the system said 'no', to creating a bank that works for businesses like his own. Here he shares his views on leadership, resilience, and why capital efficiency matters more than ever in today’s economic climate.
Location: London
Languages Spoken: English
Current Role(s): CEO and co-founder of Oaknorth
Previous Leadership Roles: CEO and co-founder of Copal Amba
Boardwave Role: Member
What was your first memory of wanting to be an entrepreneur, and how did that develop over the years?
My inspiration first came from watching my dad, who had started his own business distributing commercial air conditioning and ventilation parts, while keeping his day job as an engineer. He worked at the engineering firm from morning to evening, coming home at 10pm only to work on his company until 1 or 2am every morning. That is how I learned the art of resilience by osmosis, watching my father at the kitchen table every night before going to bed.
By the time I was twelve, I was participating in every aspect of that business. From my father, I learned that if you go to work and have a good work ethic, there is no limit to where that can take you. I was extremely driven, but I was a far cry from the model student. I was never bookish so much as street smart and focused. As a kid, I started a few side-hustles – one of which was reselling pens from my parents’ friend who had a warehouse of back-stocked office supplies. I’d put up a desk in the lunch hall after school and sell them to the highest bidders.
Looking back at your childhood, were there any other early role models that influenced your entrepreneurial spirit?
From a very early age, I was lucky enough to have mentors who came into my life and I realised the value of being mentored. From then, all the way through to today, it's almost been like having a panel of advisors and mentors, which has been an incredibly helpful dynamic within my life. Looking at where we are now with OakNorth, I’ve established many valuable connections along the way, who have helped us shape the company and achieve success. As a business, we’re able to tap into the knowledge and experience of tech industry veterans, former regulators, and economic experts. It’s been vital to our growth and I’ve no doubt that we would not be at the scale we are today without the privilege of having had access to such support and insight.
Can you tell us about your educational journey and how it prepared you for your early career in banking?
I was always interested in maths and computer science, and fortunately benefitted from parents, teachers, and family friends who helped encourage me in these subjects. I had started programming when I was nine, mostly simple coding and computer games. I loved the logical flow of “if this,” and “greater than that,” “then this happens…” As I got older, I grew to enjoy school and learning. Things started to come together. I began to accelerate my schooling. I sat for my Computer Science GCSE’s early when I was eleven, and A Levels when I was twelve.
Where did the inspiration for founding Copal Amba come from and what gave you the courage to do it?
I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur from a young age. As a capitalist, I believe entrepreneurs drive innovation, social progress and economic growth, and that everyone can prosper by adopting an entrepreneurial mindset.
This belief led me to establish Copal Partners in 2002, alongside my business partner, Joel Perlman. We were in our late 20s and with only $60k of start-up capital, we launched Copal Partners - which became Copal Amba post-acquisition - a data and analytics business. Over the next 12 years, we scaled that business to 3,000 people across 11 markets, eventually selling it to Moody’s Corporation in 2014. Neither of us knew what we were doing a lot of the time in the beginning, but we had a hunger, a drive which meant we had to just go for it and not let any fear of failure stop us.
After selling Copal Amba, what motivated you to take the risk of starting OakNorth? Was there a specific moment or realisation that spurred this decision?
OakNorth was founded in September 2015 with one fundamental purpose: to empower the lower mid-market (businesses with £1m-£100m turnover) to support growth, prosperity, and innovation for the benefit of all. These businesses seeking to scale are routinely underserved or overlooked by traditional banks: what we call 'scale-ups'.
Joel and I experienced this first-hand while scaling Copal Amba. In 2005, three years after launching the business, we applied for a bank loan and the ‘computer said ‘no', despite the business being profitable and having strong cashflow. As entrepreneurs, our natural response was to build a digital bank for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs, ensuring businesses like ours get the products, services, and experience they need to succeed and scale.
As a leader, what core values and principles guide your decision-making, both in business and personally?
At OakNorth, we have seven core values across everything we do that guide our decision making. These include things like "10X" (better is good, ten times better is great) and something we call "Zero Base" - if it isn’t working, we start from scratch to produce the best solutions for customers and colleagues.
We also ensure all of our teams have a clear vision and path to success, via goal setting with OKRs. This ensures everyone’s rowing in the same direction and understands why they’re doing what they’re doing and how it feeds into the strategy of the whole business. Additionally, we hold an ‘all-hands’ call every Wednesday which provides staff an opportunity to shout-out colleagues for their great work and for us to celebrate key milestones as one team.
What drives you to continue pushing boundaries in the fintech space? Is there a particular mission or vision that keeps you motivated even through challenging times?
Because we founded OakNorth to serve and empower entrepreneurs, who we believe are the drivers of innovation, productivity and positive economic growth in communities, it has been an incredibly exciting journey so far. We have lent c.$15bn to these businesses across a wide range of sectors, achieving performance metrics that place us amongst the top 1% of commercial banks globally. Our loans have directly contributed to the creation of 47,000 jobs, and over 29,000 new homes across the UK and the US – the majority of which are affordable and social housing. But this is only the beginning, and there are still so many more businesses we want and need to help.
In building OakNorth, you’ve faced significant obstacles - from economic uncertainty to regulatory hurdles. How do you stay resilient, and what advice would you give to other entrepreneurs facing adversity?
Ensuring you have hunger, conviction, depth, character, and courage, is how you stay resilient when faced with significant obstacles.
Hunger is never more crucial than when you are starting out. Going from having nothing to something is like lifting mountains — it doesn’t happen unless you have that fire in your belly.
After exiting from Copal Amba, neither Joel nor I had a desire for early retirement, or to spend the next few decades working the conference circuit or writing a memoir. Instead, that hunger remained within us and was in fact stronger than ever, as we felt we had discovered a gap in the market that would enable us to build an even more successful business with a strong social purpose. That gap was the funding gap that exists for small and medium-sized businesses, and the business we’ve built to address it is OakNorth.
We had immense conviction in the idea for OakNorth because we’d experienced the gap first-hand when trying to scale Copal. So, we went out and found external validation around the idea, and then had the confidence to get back on the treadmill and start building another business from scratch. We went straight from selling Copal into OakNorth, and in a fraction of the time and with a tenth of the workforce that we’d had at Copal, we were able to build OakNorth into a business worth several times more.
As long as you have the conviction and hunger for what you’re doing, you will be able to go from zero to one but going from one to two also has its challenges, which is why depth and character are so important. Depth is the ability to unpick a specific problem, customer, or category, and is central to our approach at OakNorth in ensuring that customers are constantly driving everything we do. Character means recognising that great companies are built by having the integrity to treat all your stakeholders fairly, taking a socially minded approach to business.
Be brave and believe that despite the economic headwinds ahead, the best time to be an entrepreneur is now - not next year or the year after that - it’s now. But you need to be hungry for it, and match this with strong conviction, depth, and character.
As an entrepreneur, what’s the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given or experience that you’ve been through?
Too much money in the bank when starting out is a bad thing. When a company has too much capital available upfront, it tends to be built on fundamentally bloated cost structures. Spending more money than is necessary becomes a part of the company’s DNA and changing this is hard. Having little to no money forces businesses to operate from a mentality of scarcity, and these businesses end up operating much more efficiently. So always try to bootstrap and build a profitable business from day one, rather than relying on venture capital to fuel your runway.
Are there any mistakes you’ve made along the way that turned out to be important lessons? How did they shape your leadership approach?
There are no mistakes/regrets, only opportunities to learn, and one that comes to mind is that rushing to fill an empty position within your business because you have a role that needs to be filled is never the right approach. Even if it means additional pressure on the team in the short term, it’s better to be patient and hopefully find the right person for them and the business in the long term.
What’s next for you and the company?
In terms of what’s next, the future looks hugely exciting for OakNorth, as we look to further increase our support in helping scaling businesses achieve their ambitions and maximize their potential. With regard to specific projects, the second half of 2023 saw us start supporting the most ambitious and innovative businesses in the US, and last August, we secured approval from the Federal Reserve and the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) for a Representative Office in New York. This will enable OakNorth to proactively market its products and services from its US office, while we continue to explore the possibility of acquiring a banking charter. Without doing any marketing, we've done about three times more business in the US over the last year than we thought we would have done by this point. This is a clear demonstration of the demand from the lower mid-market for a banking partner like OakNorth, which can provide the speed, flexibility, transparency, and entrepreneurial approach these businesses need to succeed and scale.
What does success look like for you now - both professionally and personally? Are there any goals outside of business that you’re passionate about pursuing?
Success is supporting customers to achieve outsized outcomes.
In terms of outside of business, I am deeply invested in encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit, supporting several initiatives in the educational space, and working with schools and academies to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit in the next generation.
I’m incredibly passionate about the work we’re doing through our 1+1% Commitment, whereby we donate 1% of our profits and 1% of our team’s time to supporting charitable causes and initiatives that are aligned with our mission to empower entrepreneurs. Now in its fourth year, our Mentorpreneurship Programme, run in partnership with the London School of Economics, has engaged over 9,330 students across 59 schools, and is projected to reach at least a further 4,000 students in the next academic year. Nearly all students (90%) participating in the programme have reported an improved understanding of entrepreneurship, while three quarters (75%) have expressed an increased interest in entrepreneurship as a career path.
Meanwhile, our STEM programme, run in partnership with Founders4Schools, the award-winning ed-tech charity, is entering its second year and aims to provide 100,000 students - at least 40% of whom are from disadvantaged background - with STEM education, mentorship, career advice, and work experience opportunities. One year in, the programme has benefitted 41,144 people, so we are well on our way to achieving this ambitious goal.
Quick Fire Questions
What is the most important skill for a leader today?
Hunger.
What is a book or resource that changed your perspective?
The hard thing about hard things by Ben Horowitz, and Right Kind of Wrong by Amy Edmondson.
What do you do to recharge after a challenging day?
Spend time with my family.
What piece of tech or software could you not live without?
My iPhone.
What’s one habit that has contributed to your success?
Yoga and meditation every morning.
If you could offer one piece of advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, what would it be?
It’s important to understand that being an entrepreneur can be a lonely experience – even if you have a co-founder like I do. You need to have absolute self-belief even if everything and everyone around you is telling you that you are wrong. You need to persevere and carry the rest of the team with you.
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