Fintech Focus — October 2019

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.

Fintech’s Annual Fiesta

The Intersection team just wrapped up a jam-packed few days in Las Vegas at Money20/20. Although overwhelmingly large, it remains a fantastic place to reconnect with old friends and meet new ones.

As usual, there was a healthy cross-section of challenger fintechs, incumbent financial firms and investors. As a barometer for the Fintech industry, this year’s event seemed encouraging: high attendance, some significant announcements (notably Uber Money) and a general sense of optimism and enthusiasm. We can’t wait to see you there in 2020!

Select Leadership Moves

October 2019

• Better.com: Devang Thakkar joined Better.com as Chief Product Officer. Devang was previously Vice President of Marketplace and Head of Auctions at Artsy. Link
• Bill.com: Allison Mnookin joined Bill.com as a member of the board of directors. Allison is a senior lecturer of technology and operations management at Harvard Business School. Link
• Brex: Neal Narayani and Milo Spirig joined Brex as Chief People Officer and Head of Partnerships, respectively. Neal was previously Head of Workforce Strategy and Planning at Uber; Milo was previously the New Products Lead for Financial Partnerships at Stripe.
• Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC): Melissa Netram joined the CFTC as Director of LabCFTC, the CFTC’s fintech innovation group. Melissa was previously Director of Global Public Policy at Intuit. Link
• DriveWealth: Julie Coin joined DriveWealth as President. Julie was previously Chief Operating Officer at Galaxy Digital. Link
• eXp Realty: Raymond “RJ” Jones joined eXp Realty as Executive Vice President of Finance and Growth. RJ was previously Vice President of Investor Relations at Zillow. Link
• Fifth Wall: Kevin Nee and Nic Poulos joined Fifth Wall as Head of Capital Formation and Technology Partner, respectively. Kevin was previously a Managing Director and Partner at Arixa Capital; Nic was previously a Partner at Bowery Capital.
• Figure: TJ Milani was promoted from Vice President of Finance to Chief Financial Officer at Figure.
• Fundbox: Leslie Olsen joined Fundbox as Chief Marketing Officer. Leslie was previously Vice President of Marketing at Medrio. Link
• General Catalyst: Quentin Clark will be joining General Catalyst in January as a Managing Director. Quentin is currently the Chief Technology Officer at Dropbox. Link
• Guideline: Thomas Buley was promoted from Vice President of Business Operations to Vice President of Product at Guideline.
• Justworks: Mike Seckler and Lisa Calvert joined Justworks as Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, and Senior Vice President, Chief People Officer, respectively. Mike was previously on the board of Justworks and is an investor in the company. Lisa was previously Chief People Officer at GetG5. Link
• Kraken: Pierre Rochard joined Kraken as Evangelist. Pierre is the founder of Bitcoin Advisory and the co-host of Noded Bitcoin Podcast. Link
• Lendeavor: Rosanna Leroe-Munoz joined Lendeavor as Vice President of Revenue. Rosanna was previously Vice President of Sales at Guideline.
• Lightspeed Ventures: Anoushka Vaswani joined Lightspeed Ventures as Fintech Growth Partner. Anoushka was previously an investor at SoftBank. Link
• MarketAxess: Justin Gmelich joined MarketAxess as member of the board of directors. Justin was previously the FICC Chief Operating Officer at Goldman Sachs. Link
• Opendoor: Gautam Gupta was promoted from Chief Operating Officer to Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer at Opendoor. Tom Willere and Julie Todaro joined Opendoor as Chief Product Officer and President of Homes and Services, respectively. Tom was previously Chief Product Officer at Coursera; Julie was previously Vice President of Consumer Electronics at Amazon. Also, Carrie Wheeler and Jason Kilar joined as members of the board of directors. Carrie is the former Head of Retail and Consumer Investing at TPG Capital; Jason was the founding CEO of Hulu. Link
• Paystand: Sameer Govil, Peter Knight, Mark Ortung and Scott Thompson joined Paystand as members of the Fintech Advisory Council. Sameer the former Senior Vice President of Global Commerce Products and Public Policy at Visa; Peter is the founder of CheckFree; Mark is the former President of Bill.com; and Scott is the former President of PayPal. Link
• Personal Capital: James Burton joined Personal Capital as Chief Growth Officer. James was previously Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Personal Investments at Fidelity. Link
• PwC: Sean Joyce joined PwC as US Cybersecurity and Privacy Leader. Sean was previously Chief Trust Officer at Airbnb.
• Redfin: Chet Kittleson was promoted from Director of New Ventures and Industry Relations to Head of Digital Revenue and Partners Programs at Redfin.
• Revolut: Martin Gilbert joined Revolut as Chairman. Martin was previously Vice Chairman of Standard Life Aberdeen. Link
• Ripple: Susan Friedman, Ben Melnicki, and Craig Phillips joined Ripple as International Policy Counsel, Head of Regulatory Affairs, and member of the board of directors, respectively. Susan was previously Senior Advisor to CFTC Chairman, Heath Tarbert, in his previous capacity as Treasury’s Assistant Secretary for International Markets; Craig was previously Counselor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Link Link
• Robinhood: Dan Gallagher joined Robinhood as the company’s first independent board member. Dan is Deputy Chair of the securities department at WilmerHale and was previously SEC Commissioner. Link
• SoFi: Clara Liang joined SoFi as a member of the board of directors. Clara is Vice President and General Manager of Lux at Airbnb. Link
• Stealth: Alek Koenig is launching a new firm, currently in stealth-mode. Alek was previously Director of Strategic Partnerships at Affirm.
• True Ventures: Madeline Kolbe Saltzman joined True Ventures as Vice President of Culture. Madeline was previously Director of People and Talent at Cadre. Link
• Trumid: Paris Pender joined Trumid as Head of Data Products. Paris was previously a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs. Link
• Quicken Loans: Paul Yatooma was promoted from Divisional Vice President to the newly-created Vice President of Sales role at Quicken Loans.

What We’re Following

• NYTimes article: Inside a Brazen Scheme to Woo China: Gifts, Golf and a $4,254 Wine.
• Fast Company interview: Why VC Ben Horowitz chose such unconventional subjects for his new book, What You Do is Who You Are.
• Inc. Founders Project podcast: Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan built an exclusive club for C-suite women and explain how they’re bringing more women into positions of power.
• BBC’s The Missing Crypto Queen podcast series: Dr Ruja promised financial revolution. And then, two years ago, she disappeared. Why?
• NY Times articles: How unpredictable work hours turn families upside down and the fight for schedule equality.
• The Atlantic long read: Jeff Bezos’s Master Plan — What the Amazon founder and CEO wants for his empire and himself, and what that means for the rest of us.

Happy Halloween!
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.