Fintech Focus — Jan 2020

Every month we share a curated selection of people moves in fintech. If your colleagues or friends would like to subscribe to our newsletter, we’ve included a subscribe link here, or they can visit our website.

Select Leadership Moves

January 2020

• Afterpay: Laura Nadler joined Afterpay as U.S. Chief Financial Officer. Laura was previously Senior Vice President of Finance at Visa. Link
• Anchorage: We enjoyed partnering with Nathan McCauley and Diogo Monica to recruit Geoffrey Clauss to Anchorage as Head of Sales. Geoffrey was previously Director of Sales for the U.S. Western Region at Addepar.
• Apto Payments: Olivia Man joined Apto Payments as Head of Business Operations. Olivia was previously Senior Director of Corporate Finance and Operations Strategy at SoFi.
• Blockchain Association: Rachel Nelson and Breanne Madigan joined the Blockchain Association as Co-Chairs of the Market Integrity Working Group. Rachel is Senior Director and Associate General Counsel at Coinbase. Breanne is Vice President and Head of Global Institutional Markets at Ripple. Link
• Branch: Izzy Dawood joined Branch as Chief Financial Officer. Izzy was previously Chief Financial Officer at WageWorks.
• Brex: Paul-Henri Ferrand joined Brex as Chief Operating Officer. Paul-Henri was previously President of Global Customer Operations for Google Cloud. Link
• Cadre: J. Allen Smith joined Cadre as President. Allen was previously President and Chief Executive Officer at Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. Link
• Canaan: Hootan Rashidifard was promoted to Principal at Canaan. Hootan is the Co-head of Canaan Beta, the firm’s seed program, and also focuses on blockchain investments. Link
• CollBox: Russell Fujioka joined CollBox as a Strategic Advisor. Russell was previously President of the Americas at Xero. Link
• Earnin: Erbil Karaman joined Earnin as Vice President of Product. Erbil was previously Head of Product for Consumer Product and Platforms at Lyft. Link
• Edison Partners: Kelly Ford Buckley was promoted from Partner to General Partner at Edison Partners. Kelly leads investments in SaaS and fintech. Link
• Esusu: Albert Owusu-Asare joined Esusu as Chief Technology Officer. Albert was previously a software engineer for Marcus by Goldman Sachs. Link
• Figure: Asiff Hirji joined Figure as President. Asiff was previously President and Chief Operating Officer at Coinbase. Link
• Finix: Girish Balasubramanian, Billy Chen and Austin Spires joined Finix as Vice President of Product and Data, General Manager of International Markets and Director of Technical Solutions, respectively. Girish was previously in Product Management for Payment Methods at Stripe. Billy was previously Director of Global Payments at Uber. Austin was previously Director of Product Management at Fastly. Link
• Fundbox: Marten Abrahamsen joined Fundbox as Chief Financial Officer. Marten was previously a Partner and Growth Equity Investor at The Chernin Group. Link
• Gemini: Blair Halliday joined Gemini as Chief Compliance Officer and Money Laundering Reporting Officer for the UK and Europe. Blair was previously Head of Compliance for EMEA at Circle. Link
• General Catalyst: Alexander Tran and Peter Boyce II were both promoted to Partner at General Catalyst. Alexander focuses on fintech investments; his investments include CRED and Monzo. Peter focuses on early-stage investing; his fintech investments include Cadre, Circle and Atom. Link
• Great Hill Partners: Bob Anderson was promoted to Vice President at Great Hill Partners. Bob focuses on late-stage growth investments; his fintech investments include BlueSnap, AffiniPay and Vanco. Link
• JPMorgan: Gavin Leo-Rhynie joined JPMorgan as Head of Engineering and Architecture for the Corporate and Investment Bank. Gavin was previously Head of Platform Technology at Goldman Sachs. Also, Leslie Gillin was promoted from President of Co-Brand Credit Cards to Chief Marketing Officer, succeeding Kristin Lemkau, who was named Chief Executive Officer of a new U.S. wealth management division. Link Link
• Justworks: Yujin Kim joined Justworks as Vice President of Engineering. Yujin was previously Chief Technology Officer at WorkMarket, an ADP company. Link
• LendingUSA: Andrew Cosgrove joined LendingUSA as General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer. Andrew was previously Associate General Counsel at Upgrade. Link
• Mastercard: Kevin Stanton has taken on a new role as Chief Transformation Officer at Mastercard. Kevin was previously President of Data and Services and will be succeeded by Raj Seshadri. Raj was previously President of U.S. Issuers and will be succeeded by Linda Kirkpatrick. Linda was previously Executive Vice President of U.S. Merchants and Acceptance and will be succeeded by Kush Saxena. Kush was previously Chief Technology Officer of Markets and Digital Transformation. Link
• Nav: Greg Ott was promoted from Chief Operating Officer to Chief Executive Officer of Nav. Greg succeeds Levi King, Nav’s co-founder, who stepped down from his role as Chief Executive Officer but has been named Executive Chairman of the board of directors. Link
• Oak HC/FT: Jack Chou joined Oak HC/FT as Senior Advisor. Jack was previously Chief Product Officer at Affirm. Link
• OnDeck: Scott Totman joined OnDeck as Chief Product and Technology Officer. Scott was previously Head of Engineering and Product Development at DivvyCloud. Link
• Plaid: Patrick Doyle joined Plaid as Head of Financial Planning and Analysis. Patrick was previously Director of Financial Planning and Analysis at Dropbox.
• Revolut: Edward Cooper was promoted from Head of Mobile to Head of Crypto at Revolut. Also, Soups Ranjan has left Revolut to join an undisclosed startup. Soups was previously Revolut’s Head of Crypto. Link
• Stripe: Maria Teresa Arnal joined Stripe to lead its Latin America business. Maria was previously Head of Google Mexico. Link
• UiPath: Ashim Gupta was promoted from Chief Customer Success Officer to Chief Financial Officer at UiPath. Link
• Xero: Sarah Scott joined Xero as Head of Ecosystem and Partnership Communications. Sarah was previously Head of Public Relations at Westpac. Link

What We’re Following

• Business Insider article: “What’s a fintech? 44 insiders at powerful Wall Street firms, hot startups and big investors weigh in on the buzzy but hard-to-define term”
• Andreessen Horowitz article: “Inside-out vs. outside-in: the adoption of new technologies” by Chris Dixon, General Partner at a16z
• LinkedIn article: “Diverse Leadership Is Needed More Than Ever — Here’s What We’re Doing” by David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs
• Cointelegraph article: “From Meatspace to Cyberspace: top execs moving from traditional to crypto jobs in 2019”
• NY Times article: “Silicon Valley’s newest rival: the banks of the Hudson”

We hope you had a fantastic new year!

Catherine, Elizabeth, Hugh, Marissa and Scott

Intersection Growth Partners is a retained executive search firm that builds the leadership teams transforming financial services. Our clients include challenger fintechs, global financial institutions and leading investors in the space.