Justin Basini (BSc 1995) is CEO and Co-Founder of ClearScore, the number one free credit score and financial product marketplace in the UK, South Africa and Australia. An industry leader for free access to individual credit scores, ClearScore aims to empower users to access their data and make positive financial decisions. He is also Chair of The Money Charity, which provides free financial education to schools across the UK, and he is a Trustee of the Chapel Royal.  

As our 2024 Alumni Award winner for Business and Industry, Justin shares some lessons he’s learned over a remarkable life and career.  

One of the most formative experiences of my life was singing at Hampton Court Palace. I was just a normal kid from southwest London singing in a concert at my state primary school, when my teacher suggested I audition for the Chapel Royal. The choristers are traditionally pupils of City of London School and it’s an Anglican church, whereas I was raised Catholic, but my mum was persuaded and from the age of 7 to 12 I sang in this 15^th century palace every week.  

Studying at Bristol gave me confidence. I loved living in Bristol – my friends and I rented a big old house on Jamaica Street – and I was so impressed by the quality of teaching and research. As a student of Biochemistry I specialized in molecular modelling in Professor Holbrook’s laboratory and it felt like we were on the cutting edge of new discoveries. I had too much fun when I was 18 and I didn’t make my expected A-Level grades, so studying at Bristol and getting a first helped build my confidence back and reminded me that I could do difficult things.  

I went into business with no idea what it was. I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher because both my parents had been teachers and all they seemed to do was moan about it! I applied for lots of different jobs and ended up at Procter & Gamble as a young graduate, where I started out in technical brand management and marketing. It was instrumental to where I’ve ended up now.  

The reality is, you will fail. In 2001, when I was in my mid to late twenties, I set up my first company. It went really well for a year, and then it started to falter. The business eventually failed and it was an extremely difficult period for me. I ended up having a nervous breakdown and a suicidal episode. One of the reasons why I talk about mental health in the workplace so much is because I’ve seen in my own life how much of an impact work can have. 

Learn from your mistakes, and keep going. In Babe Ruth’s most successful years as a professional baseball player, he hit a lot of home runs but he also missed a lot. He was the most and least successful player at the same time. How can that be? Because he was swinging the bat all the time. To build resilience means to keep going, to keep swinging.  

Anybody can be an entrepreneur. The lifeblood of our economy is based on small businesses run by entrepreneurs – dry cleaners, newsagents, fish and chip shops. Small and Medium Enterprises make up 99.9% of businesses in the UK. Being an entrepreneur requires a specific mindset though. You have to want to be your own boss and trust yourself. You have to be comfortable with risk and ambiguity. And ideally, you’ve got to love the product or service you’re offering. Running your own business takes so much work, you have to love what you’re doing to be motivated to keep going.   

There is data everywhere about all of us. I wanted to make a person’s data accessible to them and easy to understand. I also wanted to address the unfortunate reality that the less money you have, the more you pay for financial services. So that’s where ClearScore came from. We empower consumers to own their own data by giving everyone free access to their credit score and report, and we help them get the best market value by matching them with financial products suited to their individual situation. There’s no obligation for users to buy products through ClearScore, in fact most users don’t, but the option is there for them to find the best financial products for their situation should they need it.   

Financial education is so important because no one really talks about money. It’s especially true in this country. People often think it’s impolite, or it’s such a source of stress they don’t want to think about it. It means that we’re not generally raised to understand how our family finances work – what a mortgage is, what a credit card is, how we save and spend. The work I do, through ClearScore and as Chair of The Money Charity, aims to empower people to know what to do and how to improve their financial situations.  

I’m doing what I do now – building a business and trying to give back – because of the generosity of the British state. My mum was born in Jaffa in Palestine to Polish refugee parents and my father’s parents were Italian, so I have immigration on both sides. My maternal grandparents were taken from their home in a part of Poland that is now in Ukraine and sent to work camps in Siberia by the Russians in the early years of the Second World War. They had two babies, my uncles, who died on the journey and are buried in unmarked graves on a roadside. In early 1942 my grandparents started the journey back towards Europe - they had been separated while in the camps, and couldn’t return to their home, so they each made their individual journeys not to Europe but to the Middle East. Many of these displaced Polish prisoners were Jewish or Catholic, like my grandparents, and so the journey via Persia to the Holy Land was a common route.  

My grandparents found one another on a Red Cross list in Persia (now Iran) in 1943. They had made the journey from Siberia to Tehran separately, walking thousands of miles and not knowing if the other was alive. You’ve lost your home, your children and possibly your partner, and you see their name on a notice board – I just can’t imagine how they must have felt. Reunited, they settled in a refugee camp in Jaffa and my mother was born there in July 1944. They later came to the UK as part of the refugee relocation service.  

I want to show refugees that we value them and we welcome them in our community. My mum and grandparents were always so grateful for the home the British gave them. It’s been hard for them, but they’ve also had a great life here. It’s why I’m so motivated to support refugees and those seeking sanctuary, and it’s why I donate to the University’s Sanctuary Scholarship programme.