StepLadder

Our final get together of 2025 began at .london with the most fabulous gluten free croissants for Bella’s breakfast (she hadn’t eaten a decent croissant for four years so was extremely happy!), then onto for some strategy and planning for our next product launch. We can’t tell you anything yet, but we’ve designed something we think will continue to push the boundaries of collaborative finance.

Dmitriy was robbed of demonstrating his ice skating prowess from his days of playing ice hockey in the USA due to the rink timing not aligning with our own, but we got to wander round the stalls and soak up the Christmas spirit at Battersea.

The rest of the day was all about eating with lunch at and dinner at so suffice to say we all felt a bit full by the end of the day.

Here’s to wrapping up an impactful 2025 with the Dream Squad.

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Twice in two months! The South West contingent of the StepLadder Dream Squad (Sarah and Bella) managed another get together for Bristol co-working today . Such a cool space with a great vibe. Bella felt particularly at home in Hobbiton…

Our team syncs so well that even when we don’t provide a theme for our weekly Growth Meeting (this is not usual for our meetings - although Dmitriy does love a bit of fancy dress - especially at Christmas 🎅), we end up creating this beautiful spectrum of colour accidentally!

I (Bella) am wearing black today but in my defence my hair is purple so that is my contribution…

Part two of our Dream Squad team day in London on Monday...

⛳ Puttshack mini golf was the idea of our wonderful Head of Customer Success, Sarah Garrett who clearly had an ulterior motive... WINNING (see pictures for Sarah’s clear delight at this achievement).

Sarah dominated the course and won by such a margin that she walked away with the coveted Puttshack visor. And our Head of Marketing Bella Percy-Hughes did her bit to win us free pizza to wrap up a day of collaboration and plenty of fun.

Working remotely means it’s so important for us all to come together on days like this - we make the effort despite the logistics being made even more complicated by TFL strikes. But, never deterred, Dmitriy Portnyagin used all the ways of transport to get around it - including a Lime bike for his first part of his journey back to Kent.

On Monday the Circles team gathered for a day at our office at Barclays Eagle Labs in Shoreditch for a mix of building, testing and reflecting.

We got hands-on and tested some of the latest updates to our platform. They’re not ready to share with you just yet… but let’s just say our clients are in for some great new features and design and we’re excited.

Then we switched gears for some teamwork exercises. Our small team is mostly scattered across the south of the UK and London (with a couple even further afield - and we miss you Evgeniy Karpenko and Yaroslav Yakovets!). We don’t get to see each other very often but, when we do, we remember how lucky we are to get to work together. AND we welcomed back into the team a StepLadder alum - which just goes to show how powerful the draw of a great team is!

Each of us wrote a ‘superpower’ for each member of the team and anonymously allocated them. It was a simple and effective exercise that showed how much we value each other’s strengths. And how much stronger we are together.

We had to share this testimonial from the lovely Aline at Brazil’s largest bank, Itau. We work extremely hard to deliver a service that goes above and beyond… and it feels good to hear it confirmed by our clients.

“We’ve just wrapped up an incredible cycle with Matthew Addison and the amazing team at Circles powered by StepLadder. These were more than three years of partnership that went far beyond consulting: together, we dove deep into consórcio strategy, explored market trends, envisioned the digital future and built the entire vehicle management journey for our customers.”

“Matthew thank you for being more than a consultant – a true partner, challenger and innovator who believed in every step of this journey with us.”

“Lucy Mullins thank you for all the support and care behind the scenes, ensuring every move had consistency and impact.”

“This partnership transformed us and planted seeds that will keep growing. 💙🚀 Huge gratitude and doors wide open for the next chapters.”

Can anyone beat our amazing Co-Founder, Lucy’s, step count at Money20/20 this week? This was her day yesterday - 26,000 steps at one of the world’s largest Fintech expos is very good going! She’s had some amazing conversations with some really exciting new prospects and we can’t wait to see where Circles will be popping up next…

You can trust our Co-Founder, Lucy, to find a way to exercise - even at one of the world’s largest FinTech expos! She’s probably warming up for her panel discussion this afternoon - Grits, Guts and Gratitude: Path to Living an Entrepreneurial Life - where she will be talking about life as a busy Co-Founder and StepLadder’s journey from first-time buyers to creating a global category.

Being featured in Oxford Saïd’s Inspiring Female Founders series gave our Co-Founder and COO, Lucy Mullins, the chance to tell our story about how we built a Digital Savings Circles business in the UK.

She talks about what it’s like to build something ambitious and inclusive. Of raising investment and scaling a fintech product rooted in community, trust, and deep conviction that it was something needed.

This case study explores the wins, the setbacks, and the lessons we wanted to share with anyone trying to build something that matters.

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We’re giving away FREE Circles 360 licenses to help you amplify financial inclusion in your program.

“Circles 360 is capable of accommodating our community champion initiative group in efforts to scale their operations, reaching more members and expanding their impact without being limited by manual processes. I also really like the transparency and accountability that Circles 360 provides our operators and members. The members are able to see all the transactions in real time through the application.” — Mercy Ogembo, Country Manager at Biochar Life Kenya

If you, like Mercy, want to scale your operation and support a wider community to reach their financial goals, come and talk to us. We are looking for social enterprises and non-profit programs to support with a free Circles 360 license. We’d love to talk - please get in touch.

Taco team days are the best 🌶️ 🌮

Yesterday, the Dream Squad got together at our office in the brilliant Rise in Luke Street, London, for a day of connection, creativity, and clarity.

Apart from Yaroslav Yakovets and Evgeniy Karpenko in their international offices, the rest of the team is spread across the South of the UK - from Cornwall to Folkestone. So it’s a treat for us to sit face to face with each other when we have team days every couple of months.

After a morning of discussion on what’s working really well and what we want to improve for our clients, we took a break over at Wahaca and enjoyed some proper quality time as a team (and some excellent food).

We kicked the afternoon off with a deep dive into Management Information & Reporting. We pride ourselves in the quality of data we provide for our clients about their customers using Circles. But after yesterday’s working session, our reporting is now set to deliver SO much more - watch this space for the capabilities we’ll be including for our clients soon.

Grateful for this team and the energy we bring when we’re in the same room.