Plaid, the San Francisco-based fintech startup, has appointed Jennifer Taylor, former Chief Product Officer at Cloudflare, as its first president. This strategic move follows the recent hiring of Eric Hart as Plaid's CFO, a step often associated with companies preparing for an initial public offering (IPO). Taylor, with extensive leadership experience at Salesforce, Facebook (now Meta), Adobe, and a venture capitalist role, played a crucial role at Cloudflare during its IPO, potentially signaling Plaid's trajectory towards a public offering.
In a LinkedIn post, Taylor expressed excitement about her role at Plaid, where she will oversee teams working on building the network shaping the future of finance. Plaid, initially known for connecting consumer bank accounts to financial applications, has expanded its services to include lending, anti-fraud, and payments. Despite a failed acquisition attempt by Visa, the company raised funds at an approximate $13 billion valuation and continues to diversify revenue streams. Plaid CEO Zach Perret emphasized Taylor's experience in scaling products to meet customer demand as invaluable for supporting ongoing innovation in financial services. With 8,500 customers and over 1,000 employees, Plaid's backers include prominent names like a16z, Index Ventures, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs, among others.
