Plaid, the San Francisco-based open banking fintech, has appointed Jennifer Taylor as its first president. With a distinguished background, Taylor previously served as Chief Product Officer at Cloudflare for seven years, and she held leadership roles in product strategies at Salesforce, Meta, and Adobe earlier in her career. Plaid, founded in 2013, specializes in providing APIs that facilitate the connection of consumers' bank accounts to various fintech platforms, allowing for seamless payments through open banking. The appointment of Taylor, described by Plaid's CEO Zachary Perret as a "product leader," is seen as a strategic move to leverage her experience in scaling products to meet growing customer demand as the company aims for expansion.
Taylor will oversee Plaid's technology and product teams in her new role. This announcement follows another recent addition to Plaid's leadership, Eric Hart, who assumed the position of Chief Financial Officer in October. Industry observers speculate that these appointments may signify Plaid's strategic preparations for a potential initial public offering (IPO) in the future. Plaid's recent funding history includes a Series D extension in August 2021, contributing to its valuation of $13.5 billion following a $425 million Series D funding round earlier in the same year.
