Andrew Denton recognised for outstanding contribution to a more inclusive asset finance industry

Andrew Denton, CEO of Alfa, has received the Finance Connect Outstanding Contribution to the Asset Finance Industry 2026 award, recognising his leadership in driving attitude and behavioural change and his long-standing commitment to making the industry more inclusive, diverse and welcoming to the next generation of talent.

Presented at the Finance Connect Summer Awards 2026, the accolade recognises Andrew Denton’s influence beyond his role at Alfa, including his work as co-founder of the Leasing Foundation and his wider involvement in initiatives promoting diversity, inclusion, equity, social mobility and opportunities for young people.

For Denton, the award also carries particular significance because it recognises the contribution made by a service provider to the wider asset finance community.

“It’s a recognition that as an industry we are an ecosystem,” he notes.

Denton believes that technology companies and other service providers can feel every bit as connected to the industry as its funders and brokers – and was particularly pleased that his work around inclusion and diversity formed a central part of the recognition.

At a time when some organisations internationally are reassessing or rolling back diversity and inclusion initiatives, he believes maintaining that commitment is more important than ever.

“A lot of these personal awards aren’t all that personal sometimes,” he said. “So it’s a good job by Finance Connect of just putting down a really big marker that inclusion and social justice are still important to us as an industry. And I’m obviously proud to have been that flag carrier.”

Leadership is about ‘giving permission’

Denton is keen to share the recognition with colleagues at Alfa, whose culture and support, he said, provide much of the momentum behind his wider industry activities.

Central to his philosophy is the idea that leadership is about “giving permission” – that the behaviour demonstrated by leaders establishes what others within an organisation feel able to do themselves.

Denton added that culture is not simply created from the top down. The people at Alfa, he said, create the culture he enjoys every day and give him both the motivation and opportunity to pursue his work outside the company.

From diversity to genuine inclusion

Denton’s focus on creating a more inclusive industry can be traced in part to the creation of the Leasing Foundation, which he co-founded with Derek Soper.

The pair wanted to do something different, including broadening the range of people involved in the industry and encouraging younger generations to see leasing and asset finance as a potential career.

Denton argues that greater diversity brings “different energy”, better decision-making and access to a broader pool of talent. But attracting a diverse workforce is only the beginning.

“Inclusion is that really big word,” he said. “It’s really relatively easy to have a diverse workforce. You get those people in the door; it’s inclusion that keeps them. And inclusion is not something you can take for granted.”

His thinking developed further following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, which Denton described as another important inflection point in his own approach to equity and social justice. His subsequent involvement has included supporting Letter to Zion and Mission 44, alongside a growing focus on education and expanding opportunity.

For Denton, however, inclusion is not only a question of social responsibility. It is fundamental to building better businesses. Particularly within a technology company where innovation is essential, people must feel safe to speak openly and organisations need diversity of thought alongside a strong culture.

“It kind of annoys me when people talk about DEI as being optional,” he said. “You can’t be a great business without diversity, inclusion, equity. You can’t be a great business if you don’t innovate. You can’t be a great business if you don’t have a great strategy and you just can’t leave any of those things to chance.”

Denton is equally wary of diversity initiatives becoming performative. Rather than treating inclusion as something separate from the organisation, he believes it needs to be embedded into how a business operates.

While concerned by the wider retreat from some inclusion initiatives, he has been encouraged by companies that have continued “quietly” getting on with creating inclusive workplaces.

He suggested the current environment could ultimately strip away some of the performative activity and leave organisations that genuinely believe in making a difference and building diverse and inclusive cultures.

Making asset finance a career of choice

One of the continuing challenges for the sector is making more people aware that asset finance exists – and of the scale and importance of the industry to the wider economy.

As Denton observed, relatively few people leave school or university actively intending to pursue a career in leasing. Instead, many still “fall into” the industry.

Changing that requires the sector to tell its story more effectively and communicate the opportunities available within it. It also means giving young people opportunities to grow once they arrive through mentoring, reverse mentoring, development programmes and opportunities to gain new experiences and visibility.

Crucially, however, Denton believes employers must look beyond the traditional graduate recruitment routes.

“What we need to be doing, I think, is – and this is also an inclusion angle – making sure that we reach right down into a broad range of educational establishments, secondary schools and colleges, just where people are thinking about what they might want to do.”

Businesses should look for potential rather than simply candidates who fit established profiles, he argued.

“Anybody with a fine mind can code. Anybody with a fine mind can sell asset finance. We need people to understand that they’re not locked out of these opportunities because of their social background, because of their gender.”

For Denton, that means reaching underserved and underestimated communities and nurturing talent before individuals have even considered applying for a role. Alfa’s work with organisations such as Codebar, which helps people develop coding skills, is one example of how employers can broaden those pathways.

There is also a collective responsibility. Rather than individual businesses competing solely to enhance their own reputations as employers, Denton wants the sector to work together to make asset finance more attractive to talent from every background.

“If you’ve got young people kicking around your business, having a good experience, they’ll tell their friends and they’ll tell their friends,” he said.

“We need to, as we are doing, and this is the way the Foundation works, be more collegiate as an industry… It’s actually working together to do that for the entire industry and then we all benefit.”

‘There’s still a lot to be done’

Despite the progress made, Denton is clear that the industry cannot consider the diversity and inclusion challenge solved.

Asked what success might look like over the next decade, he pointed to the continuing lack of ethnic diversity at many industry gatherings while also welcoming the significant growth of female talent within the sector.

“There’s still a lot to be done, and there are degrees of privilege,” he said. “I’m delighted with the growth of female talent within our industry… but we need to keep the focus and we need to continue to spread our net wide.”

The key, he believes, is to keep working together, innovating and adapting without assuming that the job of building an inclusive industry will ever be finished.

“A great future would be when we have a much more diverse industry where people know about the important role that we play in the economy,” he said.

That ability to attract the widest possible pool of talent will become even more important as asset finance itself evolves. Denton sees the industry increasingly as an engine of the subscription economy, providing customers with access to equipment and services rather than simply lending money.

Whatever products and technologies emerge over the coming decade, he believes the sector will require “the greatest awareness and the greatest depth of talent that we can possibly muster” if it is to adapt successfully.

Celebrating an industry built on relationships

The Summer Awards themselves offered an opportunity to celebrate not only individual and organisational achievements, but the relationships that have been built across the asset finance community.

For Denton, that sense of community remains one of the industry’s defining qualities.

“I have so many real friends within the industry. That’s the thing that I really, really like – just being able to come together and have all your friends in one place.”

It is a fitting sentiment for an award recognising a contribution that has extended far beyond one business: helping to challenge attitudes, broaden opportunities and encourage the asset finance industry to become a place where a much wider range of people can see themselves building a career.