Top 50 Financial Technology CEOs of 2019

The Financial Technology Report is pleased to announce this year's awardees for the Top 50 Financial Technology CEOs of 2019.  Awardees were selected based on a detailed evaluation of each CEOs career to date inclusive of magnitude of impact on the financial technology industry, demonstrated leadership achievements, dominance in their specific sub-specialty, organizational strength, and company growth capabilities, among other factors.  Congratulations to each of this year's awardees.

1. Douglas Cifu
Virtu Financial

Douglas Cifu is the CEO of Virtu Financial and was a Co-founder of Virtu in 2008. Virtu is one of the largest high-frequency trading and market making firms. The Company was founded in 2008 by Vincent Viola, a former chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange, and Douglas Cifu. Previously, Douglas was a partner at the international law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. At Paul Weiss, he served as a member of the Management Committee, Deputy Chair of the Corporate Department and co-head of the Private Equity Group. He serves on the board of directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the board of visitors of Columbia College at Columbia University. Douglas earned his JD at Columbia Law School and his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from Columbia University.

 

2. Gary Norcross
FIS

Gary Norcross is Chairman, President and CEO of FIS, an $8.4 billion global business that holds leadership positions in payment processing, financial software and banking solutions. Gary started his career with FIS more than 30 years ago when he joined Systematics Inc. in 1988 as an entry-level programmer. He went on to serve in a variety of leadership roles prior to being named president and chief operating officer in 2012, president and chief executive officer in 2015, and chairman, president and chief executive officer in 2018. Under Gary’s leadership, FIS has grown to more than 47,000 employees worldwide, serving over 20,000 clients in more than 130 countries. He was critical to the company’s acquisition and integration of Metavante Technologies, Inc., and was heavily involved in its acquisitions of a large number of companies, including Certegy and eFunds. Gary holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Arkansas.

 

3. Jeffery Yabuki
Fiserv

Jeffery Yabuki is the President, CEO and a board director of Fiserv, a leading global provider of financial services technology solutions. The Company reported $5.82 billion in revenues in 2018, with nearly 24,000 associates serving more than 12,000 clients. Jeffery has more than 25 years of experience in the financial services industry. Under his leadership, the Company announced a long-term strategic platform transforming Fiserv from its traditional holding company model into an integrated operating company focused on providing best-in-class financial software, systems and services that enable people to move and manage money at the point of thought. Prior to joining Fiserv, Jeffery was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at H&R Block for more than six years. Before H&R Block, Jeffery held a progression of leadership positions during 12 years at American Express, culminating with President and CEO of American Express Tax and Business Services.

 

4. Eric Poirier
Addepar

Eric Poirier is CEO of Addepar, an investment management platform for investors and advisors. Previously, Eric spent nearly 7 years at Palantir Technologies, a multi-billion dollar software company that allows organizations to make sense of large disparate datasets. He joined the company in 2006 as one of its first 20 employees, and continually shaped the core technology there while building the finance business, which now represents half of the company’s revenue base. Before Palantir, Eric worked in Lehman Brothers' Fixed Income Analytics group where he focused on modeling, simulating and visualizing data across a broad range of debt and credit instruments. Eric co-founded his first technology business when he was 15, scaling mission-critical websites with high performance requirements, winning eBay, Priceline and Novartis as customers. Eric graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor’s degree in computer science.

 

5. Dan Shulman
PayPal

Dan Shulman is President and CEO of PayPal. Shulman was recruited to Paypal as its CEO in 2014. Recently, he explained that the jewel of Paypal is Venmo, which has grown tremendously with a volume that’s expected to hit $1.0 billion by the end of this year. It taps into the cultural adoption wave of social and peer-to-peer technologies. Previously, Dan served as Group President at American Express and prior to that was President of the Prepaid Group at Sprint Nextel Corporation following its acquisition of Virgin Mobile USA, where he led the company as its founding CEO. Earlier in his career, Dan was President and CEO of Priceline Group. He began his career at AT&T, and was the President of the Consumer Markets Division. Dan serves as the non-executive Chairman of Symantec. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College and an MBA from New York University.

 

6. Ajay Banga
Mastercard

Ajay Banga is President, CEO and a board director of Mastercard. He has been instrumental in advancing financial technology initiatives including the Company’s latest partnership with Apple Pay. Prior to Mastercard, Ajay served as CEO of Citigroup Asia Pacific. During his career at Citigroup, he held a variety of senior management roles in the United States, Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He also oversaw the company’s efforts in microfinance. Ajay began his career at Nestlé, India, where for 13 years he worked on assignments spanning sales, marketing and general management. He also spent two years with PepsiCo, where he was instrumental in launching its fast food franchises in India as the economy liberalized. Ajay is a member of the board of overseers of the Weill Cornell Medical College and the board of governors of the American Red Cross. In addition, Ajay serves as a Director of Dow Inc. He is a graduate of Delhi University and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

 

7. Richard Fairbank
Capital One

Richard Fairbank is Founder, Chairman and CEO of Capital One Financial Corporation, a broadly diversified financial services company ranked 100th on the Fortune 500. Richard founded the Company in 1988 based on his belief that the power of information, technology and testing could be harnessed to bring highly customized financial products directly to consumers. Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, Capital One is the 6th largest bank in the United States, offering a broad spectrum of financial products and services to consumers, small businesses, and commercial clients. Richard served on MasterCard International’s Global Board of Directors and, prior to that, as Chairman of MasterCard’s U.S. Region Board. He holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University.

 

8. Thiago dos Santos Piau
StoneCo

Thiago dos Santos Piau is CEO of StoneCo Ltd, a multi-channel ecommerce company focused on the Brazilian market. The Company is backed by Warren Buffet and went public in 2018. Previously, Thiago served as COO of StoneCo Ltd. and also served as its CFO since 2016. He is a partner at ACP Investment Ltd. – Arpex Capital, where he was responsible for the definition of the business strategy, investment structuring, merger and acquisition transactions and oversees the management of portfolio companies. In 2011, he founded Paggtaxi, a company that facilitated the payment of taxi rides through a mobile app and credit card machines, where he served as a partner until 2013. Thiago conducted studies in mechanical engineering at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro from 2007 to 2011.

 

9. Ryan Williams
Cadre

Ryan Williams is Co-founder and CEO of Cadre, an investment platform for institutional grade real estate. Prior to founding Cadre in 2014, Ryan worked at The Blackstone Group in its real estate private equity division. There he was involved in over $3 billion in transactions across multiple asset types. Prior to Blackstone, Ryan worked at Goldman Sachs in its technology media group where he worked on transactions totaling more than $5 billion. He founded and launched an institutional real estate single family homes fund in 2009, acquiring, renovating, and selling single family homes throughout the United States while acquiring more than 1,500 multi-family units. Prior to that, he founded a sports technology company. Ryan earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College.

 

10. Patrick Collison
Stripe

Patrick Collison is the Co-founder and CEO of Stripe, the developer-friendly way to accept payments online. Patrick co-founded Stripe with his brother in 2010 after personally experiencing the difficulty developers face when implementing a way to accept payments online for content and goods. The Company is expanding internationally and has launched in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Ireland, processing millions of dollars each day for companies including Heroku, Foursquare and Reddit. Patrick previously co-founded and sold Auctomatic, an auction and marketplace management system, which he started in 2007 at the age of 18. A year later, the company was acquired by Canada's Live Current Media for $5 million. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 

11. Noah Breslow
OnDeck

Noah Breslow is the CEO of OnDeck, a technology company providing businesses with access to capital. The Company uses data aggregation and electronic payment technology to make credit decisions in minutes and deliver funding to small businesses within 24 hours. As OnDeck’s first employee, Noah has held a variety of leadership roles since joining the Company in 2007, including chief product officer and chief operating officer, and became CEO in June of 2012. To date, OnDeck has delivered over $11 billion in financing to customers in 700 different industries across the U.S., Canada and Australia.  Previously, Noah was VP of Marketing & Product Management for Tacit Networks, guiding the company from initial launch to its successful sale to a public company. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from MIT and an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School.

 

12. Jennifer Bailey
Apple, Internet Services

Jennifer Bailey heads up Apple Pay as the Company’s Vice President of Internet Services. It should be no surprise that Jennifer has had a leading role in shaping Apple Pay’s ongoing goals. She’s been vice president of the division since the beginning, transitioning from her role as vice president of online stores - a position she held for 11 years. Prior to joining Apple in 2003, Jennifer held a number of senior positions at tech companies such as myCFO, Spark and Kindling and Netscape Communications. She began her career in 1984 as a software engineer at ATP Boston. Jennifer received her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Middlebury College and her master’s from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

 

13. Baiju Bhatt
Robinhood

Baiju Bhatt is the Co-founder and Co-CEO of Robinhood, the fastest growing brokerage in the world. Baiju earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and a master’s in mathematics at Stanford University before starting two finance companies in New York City. In 2015, Bhatt co-founded Robinhood with Vlad Tenev, aiming to democratize the financial system. By February of 2017, the Company had executed over $30 billion in trades. Robinhood has millions of users across the country and is currently valued at $5.6 billion. Investors include CapitalG, Google’s growth equity fund, Index Ventures, ICONIQ, Sequoia, and Kleiner Perkins, among other notable names. Reportedly, the company is targeting to go public in 2019.

 

14. Brian Armstrong
Coinbase

Brian Armstrong is the CEO and Co-founder of Coinbase, the world’s leading digital currency exchange. As CEO, Brad is responsible for Coinbase’s retail and institutional arms and all products and services that are developed by both trading platforms. He co-founded Coinbase in June 2012, and since then, has led Coinbase to serve over 10 million customers across 32 countries, providing custody for more than $10 billion in digital assets. The Company has raised over $200M in funding from leading investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, IVP, USV, DFJ and NYSE. Before founding Coinbase, Brad worked as a software engineer at Airbnb from 2011-2012 as part of the hospitality marketplace, focusing on fraud prevention. Previously, he worked as a developer for IBM and consultant at Deloitte. Brad holds three degrees from Rice University - bachelor’s of computer science, bachelor’s of economics, and a master’s of computer science.

 

15. Rob Frohwein
Kabbage

Rob Frohwein is Co-Founder and CEO of Kabbage, which provides the most advanced lending infrastructure available globally enabling small businesses to borrow the funds they need. The Company employs a direct SMB lending product and technology platform adopted by banks and non-banks worldwide. It has provided more than $6B since its founding. Rob believes deeply that small businesses are at the core of economic development around the world. He is a serial entrepreneur across several industries including media, financial services and financial technology. He is also a 3-time author, former co-host of a radio show, inventor with more than 30 patents and applications, and the owner of a lifetime pass to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Rob earned his bachelor’s in economics from Dickinson College and a JD from Villanova University.

 

16. Guy Goldstein
Next Insurance

Guy Goldstein is the CEO of Next Insurance, a leading provider of small business owners insurance. Guy has over 20 years of experience in all aspects of technology, product development, management and strategy. Prior to Next Insurance, he was the CEO of Check, a mobile payment company, which was acquired by Intuit for $360M. Previously, Guy served in an executive position of Corporate Development at HP software, responsible for mergers, acquisitions and strategy and before that, he spent 9 years in various R&D executive roles at Mercury Interactive. Guy holds a bachelor's degree in business and computer science, cum laude, from the Tel-Aviv University and served in the Israeli Air Force as a major and fighter pilot.

 

17. Jon Stein
Betterment

Jon Stein is the Founder and CEO of Betterment, the largest independent online financial advisor in the U.S. with over $18 billion under management. Jon founded the Company in 2008 seeking to make life better by helping people save time and money and empower them to reach their important goals faster. Jon manages Betterment’s core retail platform, often referred to as a “robo-advisor”, a 401(k) platform called Betterment for Business and a digital advisory platform called Betterment for Advisors. Previously, he worked as a consultant for First Manhattan Consulting Group where he focused on product development, risk management and investment portfolio policy. Jon earned a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Harvard University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

 

18. Mike Hayford
NCR

Mike Hayford is President and Chief Executive Officer of NCR Corporation. The Company is a global leader in developing transformational transaction technologies including online banking, POS systems, and mobile payments. Previously, Mike served as Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Executive Vice President of FIS, Fortune 500’s #1 financial technology company, from 2009 until 2013. As the President and Chief Operating Officer of Metavante Technologies, Inc., he led the successful completion of Metavante’s merger with FIS to create the world’s largest financial technology company. Mike was instrumental in building Metavante from a $93 million annual revenue company into the global leader of financial technology with over $6 billion of annual revenue. Mike is a Certified Public Accountant and holds an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin.

 

19. David Zalik
GreenSky

David Zalik has served as the CEO of GreenSky since he co-founded it in 2006. David also serves as the Chairman of the board of directors. GreenSky is based in Atlanta and has facilitated over $13 billion in loans for home improvement projects via a network of banks and 13,000 contractors. The Company has also branched into financing for doctor, dentist and veterinary visits. Prior to co-founding the Company, David founded MicroTech Information Systems, a computer hardware assembly company, and sold the business in 1996. He also founded Outweb, a web and mobile-development consulting firm, and formerly was a director of RockBridge Commercial Bank. He was the recipient of the 2016 Ernst & Young National Financial Services Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

 

20. Jack Dorsey
Square

Jack Dorsey was born in St. Louis, Missouri. In his younger years he worked as a fashion model. He chose to attend the University of Missouri but then transferred out to NYU, where he began his fascination with short and instantaneous alert messaging – which eventually led him to founding and building Twitter. Dorsey, along with co-founder Jim McKelvey developed a small business platform to accept debit and credit card payments on a mobile device which they named Square – it was released in May 2010. Today, the Company continues to scale as a leading payments solutions for small and medium sized businesses. Square reached an estimated valuation of $3.2 billion in late 2012 and by 2015 went public. At the time of the IPO, Jack owned nearly 25% of Square’s outstanding shares.

 

21. Max Levchin
Affirm

Max Levchin is the Founder and CEO of Affirm, a financial technology company focused on providing consumer financing at retailers. Max was one of the original co-founders of PayPal where he served as the CTO until its acquisition by Ebay in 2002. In 2004, he founded Slide, a personal media-sharing service for social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, which he sold to Google in August 2010. Also in 2004, he helped start Yelp, where he was the first investor in and Chairman of the Board from 2004 until 2015. He has served on several boards such as Yahoo!, Yelp, and Evernote. He is currently Co-founder and Chairman of Glow, a data-driven fertility company, and Co-founder and general partner at SciFi VC, a private venture capital firm.

 

22. Noah Kerner
Acorns

Noah Kerner is CEO at Acorns, the first company to offer micro investing to the world. Noah’s background is diverse and ranges from Co-author of "Chasing Cool" with the former CEO of Barneys, founder/CEO of three startups, and former DJ for Jennifer Lopez. He built the leading millennial agency, Noise. Before being acquired by Engine, Noise developed hundreds of products and marketing campaigns for this generation including Facebook’s first app, the first credit card to reward fiscal responsibility for Chase, Vice's music property Noisey, and the top branded game in the App Store. Noah advises and invests in a variety of fast-growing startups, including WeWork ($16B valuation), where he also served as Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer. He is a graduate of Cornell University where he studied Psychology and Economics.

 

23. Jonathan Corr
Ellie Mae

Jonathan Corr is the President and CEO of Ellie Mae, the leading cloud-based platform provider for the mortgage finance industry. Previously, Jonathan served as the Company’s COO from November 2011 to February 2015, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer from November 2009 to November 2011, as Chief Strategy Officer from August 2005 to November 2009 and as the Company’s Senior Vice President of product management from October 2002 to August 2005. Prior to joining Ellie Mae, Jonathan served in executive and management positions at PeopleSoft, Inc., Netscape Communications Corporation and Kana/Broadbase Software/Rubric, a number of software companies that combined through acquisition. He earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Columbia University and an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

 

24. Sallie Krawcheck
Ellevest

Sallie Krawcheck is the CEO and Co-Founder of Ellevest, a digital financial advisor for women launched in 2016. She served as CEO of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and Smith Barney. It was through this experience that she realized that the “by men, for men” investing industry hasn’t worked very well for women. Sallie began her career as an equity analyst covering Wall Street Firms eventually rising to Director of Research and then Chairman and CEO of sell-side research firm Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. She grew up in Charleston, South Carolina and in high school was a local track star. She received a scholarship to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she received a degree in journalism. Sallie earned an MBA form Columbia Business School.

 

25. Marwan Forzley
Veem

Marwan Forzley is the Co-Founder and CEO of Veem, a next-generation global payment provider which enables businesses to quickly and securely send and receive payments in local currency. Veem uses the blockchain as a new settlement rail to enable frictionless and inexpensive payments. Previously, Marwan founded and served as CEO of eBillme, an online payments solution that extended online banking to the merchant’s checkout process. After selling eBillme to Western Union, Forzley joined the Western Union’s digital team as General Manager, eCommerce and Strategic Partnerships. With extensive experience and expertise in eCommerce infrastructure, mobile payments, content delivery, and alternative payments, Marwan is one of the top entrepreneurs working to pioneer better payment systems. He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Ottawa.

 

26. Karl Roessner
E*TRADE

Karl Roessner is CEO and Director of E*TRADE Financial Corporation, a position he has held since September 2016. E*TRADE is a leading financial services company that played a major role in pioneering the online brokerage industry. Karl joined E*TRADE in 2009 and previously served as the Executive Vice President and General Counsel of E*TRADE Financial Corporation for more than seven years. During that time, he also served as the Corporate Secretary to the Company’s Board of Directors. He is President of E*TRADE Bank and a member of the E*TRADE Bank board. He was a Partner in the Corporate Practice group of Clifford Chance US LLP. Karl earned a bachelor’s degree cum laude from Siena College and his JD cum laude from St. Johns University School of Law, where he was a Member of the St. John’s University Law Review.

 

27. Jay Sidhu
BankMobile

Jay Sidhu is the Chairman and CEO for Customers Bank and BankMobile, a mobile application that offers a branchless banking experience without fees. It is the first bank in the country to offer free checking and savings accounts without any fees, as well as a line of credit, access to over 55,000 surcharge free ATMs, and a higher savings rate than the top 4 banks in the country. Previously, Jay served as the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Sovereign Bancorp. There, he grew the organization from an Initial Public Offering of $12 million to a market cap approaching $12 billion, crediting it as the 17th largest banking institution in the country. Jay earned an MBA from Wilkes University and graduated from the Harvard Business School’s Leadership Course

 

28. Scott Galit
Payoneer

Scott Galit is the CEO of Payoneer, which empowers global commerce by connecting businesses, professionals, countries and currencies with its cross-border payment platform. Previously, Scott served as the President of i2c and before that was an Executive Vice President of Meta Payment Systems, a subsidiary of Meta Financial Group since 2007. Scott is a pioneer in the prepaid card industry and served as a Senior Vice President of Global Prepaid Products of MasterCard Worldwide as well as Senior Vice President and General Manager of First Data Prepaid Solutions. Earlier in his career, he worked as an investment banker with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. Scott was also Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Solspark and a Founding Board Member of the Network Branded Prepaid Card Association.

 

29. Hikmet Ersek
Western Union

Hikmet Ersek is President, CEO and a board director of The Western Union Company, a Fortune 500 global leader in digital and retail cross-border money transfer and payments services. Hikmet first joined Western Union in 1999 and became CEO in 2010. Under his leadership, the Company has successfully diversified and evolved its business to become a global payments company. Founded more than 166 years ago, Western Union has become one of the world’s most global companies, serving customers in 200 countries and territories, with a diverse base of agents, frontline associates, and WU employees. Hikmet holds a master's (Magister) degree in Economics and Business Administration from the Wirtschaftsuniversität (University of Economics) in Vienna, Austria.

 

30. Anthony Noto
SoFi

Anthony Noto is the CEO and a board director of SoFi, a modern financial products and services company that helps people borrow, save, spend, invest, and protect their money. Previously, Anthony was with Twitter, where he served as Chief Operating Officer since November 2016. Noto joined Twitter as Chief Financial Officer in July 2014. Before Twitter, Noto served for almost four years as co-head of global TMT investment banking at Goldman Sachs. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1999, was named partner in 2004, and served as the head of communications, media and internet equity research. Before returning to Goldman, Noto spent almost three years as Chief Financial Officer of the National Football League. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, Noto has an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

 

31. Chris Britt
Chime

Chris Britt is the Co-founder and CEO of Chime, a mobile bank account that helps people automate their savings and lead healthier financial lives. Chime launched to consumers in mid-2014, but didn’t offer the suite of features that would allow people to use Chime as a primary bank account until early 2016. Previously, Chris was Chief Product Officer and SVP, Corporate Development at Green Dot. Chris was also a senior product leader at Visa and one of the first executives at Comscore. Earlier in his career, Chris was a management strategy consultant for Accenture and business development officer for CMGI. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Tulane University.

 

32. Ken Lin
Credit Karma

Ken Lin is the Founder and CEO of Credit Karma, a personal finance website dedicated to helping consumers better understand the power of their credit and overall financial health. Ken started Credit Karma after growing weary of paying to see his own credit score. Previously, Ken worked with Upromise and Eloan; he was Eloan’s Director of Analytics, Research, and Cross Sell. These companies helped shape Ken’s vision for Credit Karma to provide education about personal credit, while giving free access to credit scores to all consumers. Prior to Credit Karma, Ken founded Multilytics Marketing, a data-driven marketing agency that actively managed more than $40 million a year in online marketing dollars for clients such as Wells Fargo, Liberty Mutual and eBay. Ken holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics from Boston University.

 

33. Jan Mason
QUEST Payment Systems

Jan Mason is the CEO of QUEST Payment Systems, an Australian owned technology company providing a diverse and innovative range of end-to-end payment solutions to businesses and financial institutions, both locally and abroad. Jan has a long impressive track record in payments. Starting in the early 2000s, Jan worked for National Australia Bank as a senior consultant in corporate payments. She was with the bank for twelve years eventually rising to Head of Acquiring Product. She joined QUEST as a General Manager in 2013. Today, Quest’s portfolio of solutions includes fixed line and mobile payment terminal hardware, software, gift card and online payment solutions, EMV smartcard, contactless communications and transaction routing solutions.

 

34. Dee Choubey
MoneyLion

Diwakar (“Dee”) Choubey is the Founder and CEO of MoneyLion. After beginning his career in investment banking, Dee co-founded MoneyLion in 2013 with the goal of combining AI and machine-learning technology and behavioral science to advance consumer finance to the next level. With its built-in system of rewards, points, and incentives, MoneyLion encourages good financial behavior and better financial outcomes for over 2 million customers. The Company has offices in New York, San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Previously, Dee held senior positions at leading financial firms including Goldman Sachs, Citadel and Barclays Capital, where he advised on mergers and acquisitions as well as capital raising deals with a specific focus on payments and specialty finance companies. Dee holds a bachelor’s degree in economics with honors from the University of Chicago.

 

35. John Beatty
Clover Network

John Beatty is Co-founder and CEO of Clover Network, a First Data company, which provides the largest open-architecture point of sale solution aimed at small and medium sized business owners. Its products are changing the consumer/merchant experience for the better, opening avenues for seamless customer-merchant interactions. Clover was acquired on December 28, 2012 by First Data Corporation. Bank of America Merchant Services was the first to announce it would sell Clover to its merchant base in October 2013. Previously, John was an executive-in-residence at Sutter Hill Ventures and a founding engineer at Bix (acquired by Yahoo!). He also built distributed systems at BEA and Sun and got his start in consulting at Cambridge Technology Partners. He earned a bachelors’ degree in Computer Science from Brigham Young University.

 

36. Milind Mehere
YieldStreet

Milind Mehere is the Founder and CEO of YieldStreet, a company which provides access to asset based investments historically unavailable to most investors. With the mission to build prosperity for all, YieldStreet allows investors to effortlessly participate in curated investments with low stock market correlation and target yields of 8-15%, across litigation finance, real estate and other alternative asset classes. Previously, Milind successfully built and scaled three businesses - his last company Yodle, was acquired by Web.com for $342 million in 2016. Milind earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Mumbai and a master’s in industrial engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

 

37. Matt Oppenheimer
Remitly

Matt Oppenheimer is the CEO and Co-founder of digital remittance company Remitly. The Company is based in Seattle and recently expanded its global reach to 40 countries while growing to nearly 800 employees worldwide. It has reportedly served one million customers to date. Its annualized send volume is $6 billion, up from $3 billion in 2017 and $1 billion in 2016.
Remitly now operates in 15 send countries, up from just three last year, and allows remittances to be sent from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Prior to Remitly, Matt was the head of mobile and internet banking initiatives at Barclays Kenya. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.

 

38. Steve Vamos
Xero

Steve Vamos is the CEO of Xero. Founded in 2006 in New Zealand, Xero is one of the fastest growing software-as-a-service companies globally. It leads the New Zealand, Australian, and United Kingdom cloud accounting markets, employing a team of more than 2,000 people.
Steve brings to the Company more than 30 years of experience in global technology and digital media. Previously, he worked in leading international businesses including Apple, IBM and Microsoft. He also led the growth of online media business Ninemsn from start-up to industry leader as the company’s CEO. Steve previously served on the boards of Telstra, David Jones and Medibank. He earned his honours degree in civil engineering from the University of New South Wales, Australia.

 

39. Steve Polsky
Juvo

Steve Polsky is the Founder and CEO of Juvo, which has a mission to establish financial identities for the billions of people worldwide who are creditworthy yet financially excluded. Working with mobile operators, Juvo currently provides services in 27 countries across Latin America, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, helping over 100 million consumers build financial identities. Steve was recognized as a Technology Pioneer in 2018 by the World Economic Forum. His career has centered on founding, launching and managing early stage technology ventures, including Flixster/Rotten Tomatoes, Amber Networks, VoicePlex Corporation and Edusoft. He also holds five patents in telecommunications network architecture. Steve is a graduate of University of Pennsylvania’s Management and Technology program with degrees in computer science from the Moore School of Engineering and finance from the Wharton School.

 

40. Gary Beasley
Roofstock

Gary Beasley is the Co-founder and CEO of Roofstock, the leading online marketplace for investors to buy, own and sell single-family rental properties. Backed by more than 20 years of experience in the real estate industry, Gary’s leadership of Roofstock is helping to democratize real estate investing. Before starting Roofstock, Gary pioneered the use of cloud computing in the real estate investing industry as the CEO of Waypoint Homes, which he then led through a successful IPO. Previously Gary was instrumental in acquiring and integrating more than $800 million of resort properties for KSL Resorts, and spent five years as CFO of online brokerage pioneer ZipRealty, which he led through its successful IPO in 2004. Gary also served as CEO of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, then the second largest boutique hotel management company in the country. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Northwestern University and an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

 

41. Brad Garlinghouse
Ripple

Brad Garlinghouse is the CEO and a board director of Ripple. Ripple provides a seamless way to send money globally using blockchain technology. Prior to Ripple, Brad served as the CEO of file collaboration service Hightail. From 2009 to 2012 he was President of Consumer Applications at AOL and prior to that he held various executive positions at Yahoo! Earlier in his career, Brad helped to pioneer the VoIP industry as CEO of Dialpad Communications. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of OutMatch and has held board positions at Ancestry.com and Tonic Health. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

 

42. David Kimball
Prosper

David Kimball is the CEO of Prosper Marketplace, a leading peer-to-peer lending company. David joined the Company in March 2016 bringing more than 20 years of financial experience.
Previously, he served as senior financial officer of USAA’s chief operating office, where he oversaw USAA’s real estate unit, bank, P&C and life insurance companies, investment management company, and the call centers/distribution functions. During his time at USAA, he also served as USAA’s corporate treasurer and held several senior positions across several finance functions including capital markets, treasury, accounting, and FP&A.
Earlier in his career, David spent ten years at Ford Motor Company and Ford Motor Credit Company in both the U.S. and U.K., working on their securitization programs, debt issuance, and a variety of FP&A positions. David earned both a bachelor’s degree and MBA from Brigham Young University.

 

43. Guillaume Pousaz
Checkout.com

Guillaume Pousaz is the Founder and CEO of Checkout.com. He officially launched the Checkout.com brand in 2012 and has since dedicated himself to shaking up the way payments are handled, boosting transparency, efficiency, and accessibility. The Company helps businesses accept more payments around the world through one integration. Its unified global payment processing platform features in-country acquiring, relevant payment methods, feature parity across geographies, fraud filters, and reporting features, via one API. Guillaume was born and raised in Switzerland. He has since lived all over the world. Earlier in his career, he was the CEO of NetMerchant SA. He received degrees in mathematical engineering from Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne and in economics from HEC Lausanne.

 

44. David Velez
Nubank

David Velez is the Founder and CEO of Nubank Brasil. Over the last six years David has defied the odds; he is quickly building a digital bank and credit card powerhouse in Brazil. In 2018, Tencent invested $180 million in the Company valuing it at over $4 billion. Through the investment, Tencent will gain an understanding of how Nubank has managed to service more than 5 million credit card holders, and the strategy the Company is executing to develop its own savings accounts and additional banking services. Prior to Nubank, David was a Partner with renowned venture capital behemoth, Sequoia Capital. David began his career as an investment banking analyst in New York with Morgan Stanley then later becoming a senior associate with private equity firm General Atlantic. He earned a bachelor’s degree in management science and engineering and MBA both from Stanford University.

 

45. Jacob de Geer
iZettle

Jacob de Geer is a Co-founder and CEO of iZettle, a high-growth mobile payments Company that equips business owners with the ability to take card payments. Founded in Stockholm in 2010, the financial technology Company is revolutionizing mobile payments with the world’s first mini chip card reader and software for mobile devices. Before starting iZettle, Jacob was the first employee at performance marketing firm TradeDoubler. There he helped to build one of the largest advertising networks in Europe before leaving to co-found movie sharing firm, Ameibo, and Tre Kronor Media, an award-winning communications agency. Both companies were acquired in 2010. Currently, Jacob is fully focused on democratizing payments around the world through iZettle. He received a master’s in economics and business administration from Stockholm School of Economics.

 

46. Sebastian Siemiatkowski
Klarna

Sebastian Siemiatkowski is the Co-founder and CEO of Klarna, one of Europe’s main providers of payment solutions for e-commerce. Klarna's online-payments platform puts its emphasis on "buy-now-pay-later" financing. The Company lends millions of dollars to consumers each year and has more than $1 billion on its balance sheet. Sebastian, along with cofounders Adalberth and Victor Jacobsson, started Klarna in 2005 during the tail end of his master's program at the Stockholm School of Economics. Sebastian has received multiple awards for his leadership including the "Rising Star of the Year" by Ernst & Young, "Leader of the Year" by Adecco, "Manager of Tomorrow" by Sweden's leading Management Magazine and "European Entrepreneur of the Year Award" by TechTour.

 

47. Anne Boden
Starling Bank

Anne Boden is the CEO and a board director of Starling Bank, which is a UK mobile-only bank offering personal, joint and business accounts. Its app helps people better manage their money by letting them visualize and coordinate their finances in real time. After graduating in computer science and chemistry, Anne started her career at Lloyds Bank, where she helped architect CHAPS, the UK’s first real-time payments system. She worked at Standard Chartered and UBS, before becoming Head of EMEA, Global Transaction Banking across 34 countries for RBS and ABN AMRO. After the financial crisis, Anne spoke to people around the world about the changes in banking and technology. She joined Allied Irish Banks Plc as Chief Operating Officer to apply these learnings but was frustrated by the restrictions still imposed by outdated technology.

 

48. Kristo Kaarmann
TransferWise

Kristo Kaarmann is Founder and CEO of TransferWise, a peer-to-peer international money transfer business. The Company provides consumers the ability to access the mid-market exchange rate by cutting out traditional banking fees. It charges a modest transparent service charge. Prior to starting TransferWise, Kristo was a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting and PricewaterhouseCoopers. He worked with European banks and insurers to modernize their processes and systems. Aware of their inefficiency, he teamed up with Taavet Hinrikus, then Skype's director of strategy, to develop an entirely new system for moving money across borders. Kristo started his first business, an online investments tracking portal Investor.ee in 1999, when he was 19. He earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of Tartu.

 

49. Ron Clarke
Fleetcor

Ron Clarke is CEO and Chairman of Fleetcor, a leading global business payments company. Previously, Ron served as President and Chief Operating Officer of AHL Services, Inc., a staffing firm. From 1990 to 1998, Ron served as Chief Marketing Officer and later as a division president with Automatic Data Processing, Inc., a computer services company. From 1987 to 1990, Ron was a principal with Booz Allen Hamilton, a global management consulting firm. Earlier in his career, Ron was a marketing manager for General Electric Company, a diversified technology, media, and financial services corporation. Ron earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Colby College and an MBA from Cornell University.

 

50. Assaf Wand
Hippo

Assaf Wand is the Co-founder and CEO of insurtech startup Hippo. Based in Mountain View, CA, the Company is reimagining home insurance through the lens of homeowners – building policies with more comprehensive coverage for today’s consumers at up to 25% less than competitors. Prior to Hippo, Wand was founder and CEO of Sabi, which designed and produced elegant everyday products (Sabi was acquired in 2015), a consultant with McKinsey & Company and an investor with Intel Capital. He has an MBA from the University of Chicago and earned a bachelor’s degree in finance and LLB in Law from the IDC Herzliya in Israel.