Ashanti Bentil-Dhue
Founder & CEO, Vera
“I founded Vera to make systems answer to people — not the other way around.”
Why I Started Vera
I’ve spent my career helping institutions confront the uncomfortable — from financial inclusion to regulatory reform. But it wasn’t enough. I saw the same thing, over and over again: power sitting with the creditor, and systems stacked against the individual.
Vera is my answer. A platform that makes debt negotiation faster, fairer, and more human — using AI not to extract, but to restore dignity.
I’ve not only worked on debt — I’ve lived through it three times. That dual lens makes Vera both technically precise and personally urgent.
From Policy Rooms to the People
As a former regulatory advisor, I’ve seen both sides of the system: the mechanics of public finance and the lived realities of debt.
My early career included work as a Senior Adjudicator at the UK Financial Ombudsman Service and then later in the Consumer Credit Teams at Barclays and Santander — giving me a front-row seat to the procedural and psychological machinery of debt resolution.
Vera blends these worlds — combining regulatory insight with deep empathy for the people caught in the system.
A Vision Bigger Than Fintech
Vera isn’t just another app. It’s public infrastructure in the making — AI built for pre-escalation, not post-default. I believe consumer debt deserves the same innovation we’ve given to payments and credit. The next generation of infrastructure will be intelligent, relational, and public-serving. Vera is where that future begins — and I’m here to make sure we build it right.