More executive changes at Santander Consumer USA became public last week, as the finance company announced that Betty Jotanovic will assume the role of president of Chrysler Capital and Auto Relationships
According to a news release, Jotanovic will be reporting to Bruce Jackson, who was recently named head of the Santander US Auto business and CEO of Santander Consumer.
In this capacity, Jotanovic will be responsible for, among other things, all aspects of Santander Consumer’s Chrysler Capital and Auto Relationships. Jotanovic brings 25 years of auto and financial services experience to this position, most recently serving as head of originations for all Santander Auto and Chrysler Capital’s credit, funding and dealer management activities.
Prior to joining SCUSA in 2018, Jotanovic held senior leadership roles at Bank of America, GE Capital and Chrysler Financial.
“I am excited to welcome Betty to her new role and to work together to ensure a smooth transition across all Santander Consumer dealer and OEM relationships. Chrysler Capital has been a Santander Consumer priority for almost a decade and our commitment to this business is unwavering,” Jackson said in the news release.
“Betty’s depth of auto industry knowledge coupled with her financial and operations experience will enable her to build upon our strong foundation and continue to deliver a best-in-class dealer and customer experience,” he added.
In an effort to handle “explosive growth,” TurboPass announced the hiring of Zahid Kassem as chief product/technology officer on Tuesday
TurboPass, an Emerging 8 honoree that offers an electronic multi-verification solution for credit, fraud and compliance, has increased its user base to 3,000 dealerships with plans to expand to more than 7,000 users by the end of the year.
“This growth has led to the need for additional executive leadership to support the company's success, including plans to expand into further industries outside of the automotive space,” the company said in a news release.
TurboPass highlighted Kassem brings a wealth of experience in fraud management to the team, boasting more than 25 years of first and second line of defense experience in the field.
“Our team is so excited for the future to add this accomplished and respected industry leader on board. With Zahid, the future will continue to be bright for our company, but more importantly for the dealers, lenders, and car buyers we serve,” TurboPass COO and co-founder Ken Jarman said in the news release.
Prior to joining TurboPass, Kassem held leadership roles at several major companies in the finance and credit industry, including Santander Consumer USA, Ally Financial and Equifax.
At these companies, TurboPass said Kassem played a key role in developing and implementing strategies to detect and prevent fraudulent activity, as well as leading teams of experts in data analytics and risk management.
With his wealth of experience and expertise, the company thinks Kassem is well-equipped to help TurboPass continue its rapid growth and success in the automotive industry.
“The use of data and technology in auto has grown tremendously over the past 10 years, but innovation in the verifications space has been limited. Now that so many dealers and lenders are using TurboPass reports to simplify the verification process, that has changed,” Kassem said.
Securrency, a developer of institutional-grade, blockchain-based financial and regulatory technology, recently announced Nadine Chakar joind the company and assumed the role of chief executive officer.
The company highlighted Chakar’s leadership will combine her deep financial services, technology and market experience with Securrency’s technology to deploy market-leading solutions on a global scale. She has been recognized as one of the most powerful women in finance and is a vocal champion for using technology to revolutionize financial services.
Chakar brings more than 30 years of experience in global wealth and asset management to Securrency. Most recently, she served as executive vice president and head of State Street Digital, where she built and led the team that is helping State Street, institutional investors and regulators successfully navigate the bank’s transition into a modern digital economy.
Chakar also led State Street Global Markets, where she oversaw its trading, product, and operations platform, helping to drive successful client solutions.
Prior to State Street, she served as global head of operations for Manulife’s Global Wealth and Asset Management Division and led the Global Asset Servicing teams for BNY Mellon.
In addition to her leadership at State Street Digital, Chakar has served as a member of the board of directors of Securrency since 2021. Her appointment as the CEO of Securrency highlights the growing importance of compliance aware tokenization, interoperability, and institutional DeFi to the future of global finance.
“The financial services industry is at a critical tipping point as it tokenizes regulated real-world assets and automates legacy financial processes using the power of blockchain technology,” Chakar said in a news release. “The Securrency team has done a remarkable job of developing the most robust technology on the market.
“As the new CEO, my priority is to accelerate the commercialization of what is in essence the digital asset intelligence and interoperability foundation for major financial institutions and the global ecosystem. Dan Doney is a true visionary and innovator in the industry, and I look forward to working closely with him and the team to create the global digital assets marketplaces of the future.”
The company also said Chakar’s appointment will allow Doney, Securrency’s founder, who has served as the company’s CEO and lead architect since its inception, to focus on innovation, technology delivery, and commercialization by continuing to serve as the chief technology officer of Securrency.
Securrency said Doney is recognized as one of the preeminent thought leaders in the blockchain and decentralized finance space. This focus will accelerate the growth of Securrency’s blockchain-enabled financial services infrastructure market share.
“Nadine is an exceptional leader and Securrency has been fortunate to leverage her extensive financial industry expertise as a board member and now as incoming CEO,” Doney said. “She knows capital market operations inside and out. Nadine shares my passion for innovation, and we are united in our determination to make financial markets more accessible and efficient. She has a razor-sharp view of where reform is needed and how our technology can help.
“I am excited to work with Nadine as we focus on evolving our solution to bridge traditional and decentralized finance,” Doney continued.
Jonathan Steinberg is CEO of WisdomTree and added these perspectives.
“The future of finance relies on regulation-forward and compliance-driven digital development and Nadine has long been a driver of this evolution,” Steinberg said. “Working with Nadine as a client and industry leader, I have witnessed not only her tremendous expertise in the integration of regtech and digital assets, but her steadfast belief that Securrency’s technology will pave the way for institutional DeFi.
“I congratulate Nadine, Dan, and the entire Securrency team on this bold move for the company,” Steinberg went on to say.
Auto Approve added to its management team and its offices in the Windy City on Wednesday.
The fintech innovator specializing in automotive refinancing announced it has appointed veteran automotive industry executive Jordan Batt as its president.
Auto Approve also announced that, after opening a Chicago office in Willis Tower in April, it has now doubled its space from 18,000 square feet to 27,000 square feet.
“As consumers face record inflation, Auto Approve is growing incredibly fast and helping more people than ever save money by refinancing their car payments,” chief executive officer Alex Hooper said. “We’re excited to bring Jordan onto our leadership team to lead our consumer-facing functions as we strengthen and expand our platform. We’re also growing our footprint in Willis Tower, which will help us continue to recruit talent and deepen our connection to Chicago.”
The company said Batt will work closely with Hooper and oversee marketing, sales, and customer service. Batt is an experienced entrepreneur with more than two decades of experience in leadership roles.
Batt began his professional career trading financial derivatives products at the Chicago Board of Options Exchange. Batt later co-founded Endurance Warranty Services, a company specializing in selling extended auto warranties, growing the company’s revenue to more than $600 million by the time of his departure in 2020.
In 2017, Ernst and Young named him winner of the prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Midwest Region.
Auto Approve’s established relationships with verified finance companies across the country, including many credit unions, can allow it to match consumers with the best contract in order to fit their unique circumstances in a simple, convenient, and hassle-free way, saving them both time and money.
“Auto Approve is a rapidly growing company that’s creating real value for our customers every day, and I’m thrilled by this opportunity,” Batt said. “I’m looking forward to working with Alex and the entire team after working for many years in the auto space.”
Refinancing firm iLending recently announced that Jason Oswald has been named director of sales at the company’s office in Columbia, S.C.
In this role, Oswald will be responsible for all sales functions for the company’s growing office in South Carolina’s state capital.
According to a news release, the facility began operations last September and currently employs 50 team members, with many to be added by year’s end and into 2023.
“The robust growth iLending has experienced this past year is the result of the combined efforts of our teams in Denver, Austin, and now Columbia,” iLending chief executive officer Tom Holgate said in the news release. “We are extremely fortunate to have Jason’s wealth of sales and operations experience to guide and strengthen our team in Columbia.
“We’re delighted with the progress we’ve made in South Carolina in such a short amount of time. Jason will deliver the leadership that will anchor iLending’s continued role as the innovator in auto refinance,” Holgate continued.
Prior to joining iLending, Oswald was with Global Lending Services as its Eastern region director of sales where he led sales, operations and training for five years. He also spent more than three years as regional sales manager and national sales trainer at American Credit Acceptance in South Carolina
“I love working with a company that’s looking to challenge the norm and change the way an industry looks and thinks,” Oswald said. “This is an incredibly passionate group of individuals, from the executive team to the loan consultants and staff.
“iLending’s deep commitment to help customers improve their financial outlook is what drew me to leading the future growth of the Columbia refinance center. I’m grateful for the opportunity,” he went on to say.
Solifi — the combination of IDS, William Stucky & Associates and White Clarke Group — announced its first president on Tuesday.
The global fintech software partner for secured finance filled this newly created position on the Solifi executive team with Mithu Bhargava, who brings more than 20 years of operational leadership to drive the delivery of scalable, sustainable, high-performing software-as-a-service (SaaS) products for the secured finance industry.
“I am delighted to welcome Mithu to the Solifi executive team,” chief executive officer David Hamilton said in a news release. “As we build our business and execute our global growth strategy, it is imperative that we scale our operating and delivery capability to ensure we continue to offer our customers world-class products and a high-quality experience and support their business in the same manner we have for decades.
“Mithu’s strong leadership credentials and established track record of developing high-performing businesses globally make her a perfect fit for the company and for the talented team we have assembled,” Hamilton continued.
Previously, Bhargava served on the NCR executive leadership team where she focused on the adoption and acceleration of next-generation cloud-based platforms as the company made the shift to an as-a-service business model. She also led NCR’s global professional services business driving a significant transformation across the software services portfolio, and the delivery of end-to-end solutions towards a differentiated customer experience.
Prior to NCR, Bhargava held several senior leadership roles at Dell EMC and Akamai Technologies
As Solifi experiences global growth and the secured finance industry faces continued business disruption, Hamilton said it is investing in the right people provides expertise, business perspective, and vision to position the company and its customers for continued success.
“This is an exciting time to join Solifi,” Bhargava said. “It’s an honor to help lead the industry’s most talented team who genuinely cares about delivering breakthrough technology and market-leading solutions that drive tremendous value creation and enable more opportunities for our customers to grow.”
One of the speakers at this year’s Auto Intel Summit recently received a promotion by his fintech employer.
Lightico, a provider of digital customer interactions, promoted Yotam Haroosh to sales director of consumer lending as part of the company’s rapid growth in the financing space.
Lightico highlighted the promotion follows more than five years at the company and consistent leadership on large accounts across a variety of industries, especially auto financing.
“Lightico has been incredibly successful in the auto finance and consumer lending space, working with industry leaders in the likes of Capital One, Westlake and Global Lending Services,” Lightico chief revenue officer Gilad Komorov said in a news release.
“Yotam has been an integral part of building many of these key relationships from the early days of the company and is the ideal candidate to lead the consumer lending team to even greater heights,” Komorov continued.
Haroosh has been involved in tech consulting and sales for more than a decade, serving most recently as both senior and enterprise account executive in Lightico’s revenue group.
Prior to joining Lightico, Haroosh served as vice president of business development at Robohold as well as serving as a sales manager for several other companies in the financial services and insurance spaces.
“I’m honored and excited to lead the consumer lending team and help leading companies around the world enhance, optimize and digitize their customer journeys,” Haroosh said.
Using Lightico’s Digital Completion Cloud, businesses can complete high-friction interactions with their customers such as auto financing, insurance claims or the opening of new financial accounts quickly and efficiently.
The no-code, mobile first platform combines key elements of customer facing interactions including eSignature, document collection, identification and verification, payment into a powerful tool box for B2C businesses to improve efficiency and customer satisfaction.
“If the past two years have proven anything, it is that the need for seamless, mobile-first journeys are key to business continuity, efficiency and growth for customer-facing businesses,” Haroosh said. “I look forward to continuing my work alongside the rest of the Lightico sales team as we lead the way in digital completion.”
Last week, Equifax reinforced its human resources by announcing the appointment of former Visa executive Harald Schneider as chief data and analytics officer.
In this role, Equifax said Schneider will lead the company’s global data and analytics team and champion global data innovation, maximizing the benefits of Equifax differentiated data assets, leading analytics capabilities and single data fabric within the Equifax Cloud to drive new products and growth.
Schneider will serve as an extended member of the Equifax senior leadership team, reporting to Bryson Koehler, who is chief product, data & analytics and technology officer at Equifax.
“Data and analytics are at the heart of Equifax, and we are energized to have Harald join Equifax in such an important leadership role,” Equifax chief executive officer Mark Begor said in a news release.
“Strong global collaboration between our data and analytics, product and technology teams is the essential partnership that will drive the next era of innovation and growth at Equifax. This is a truly exciting time for Equifax and our data & analytics team — and we’re just getting started,” Begor said.
Equifax highlighted Schneider brings more than two decades of multinational experience to the role of chief data and analytics officer. He joins Equifax from Visa, where he served as global head of data products.
Prior to that role, Schneider held the position of chief analytics officer at Tandem Bank in the U.K. He also held international data and business leadership roles at Capital One, Citigroup and Pardus Capital.
“Harald has a proven track record in cloud-native data and analytics leadership,” Koehler said in the news release. “The new Equifax has set itself apart in the industry by leveraging the power of the Equifax Cloud to drive record levels of new product innovation.
“Harald will play an instrumental role in enabling our global D&A teams to maximize the benefits of the cloud, guiding our data catalog, data acquisition strategy, data quality management and innovation lab work to unlock even deeper decision intelligence for our customers,” Koehler went on to say.
Equifax Workforce Solutions & Paycor launch partnership
In other company news, Equifax and Paycor — a leading provider of human capital management (HCM) software — announced a new integration making The Work Number the exclusive provider of income and employment verifications for Paycor.
As a result, Paycor customers can now offer their employees the benefit of seamless verifications in support of important life events, such as applying for a loan or social services.
SHRM reports that 54% of small businesses handle HR and employment tasks themselves. Experts said HR and business leaders often are left managing a growing amount of administrative work — from identifying employee tax credits to fulfilling requests for verifications of employment or income when current or past employees are applying for financial services.
With this new integration, Paycor customers can spend less time responding to requests from verifiers, saving time and resources for more strategic work.
“Paycor is helping its customers modernize people management at a time when HR is more vital than ever to businesses,” said Matt Krenik, alliance director at Equifax Workforce Solutions.
“This integration further expands the reach of The Work Number while enabling Paycor’s customers and their employees to benefit from the fast and secure verifications that help keep life moving forward,” Krenik continued in another news release.
Powered by the Equifax Cloud, the Work Number is a centralized commercial repository of income and employment data in the United States, offering credentialed verifiers access to more than 540 million active and historic records from 2.5 million employers.
“This new integration exemplifies our commitment to helping reduce business leaders’ administrative burden so they can focus on what matters, building winning teams,” Paycor chief product officer Ryan Bergstrom said.
“The Work Number is well known as the industry standard for instant verifications of income and employment, and we are pleased to extend the many benefits of that leading service to our customers and their employees,” Bergstrom went on to say.
Additional information about the Work Number service can be found via this website. Additional information about Paycor can be found via this website.
Former Santander and Capital One executive Josh Baer now is president of AutoFi, according to a company announcement made on Thursday.
The digital automotive commerce platform said this key hire follows a March development when the company landed $85 million in funding to accelerate its growth.
“Bringing finance innovation to the auto ecosystem is a critical part of our strategy and differentiation,” AutoFi chief executive officer Kevin Singerman said in Thursday’s news release. “Josh’s experience in credit, lending, automotive and risk management brings deep domain and operating expertise to better serve our dealer, OEM and lender customers with industry-leading products.”
As president, AutoFi said Baer will leverage his nearly 20 years of financial services experience to lead its lender and enterprise business segments.
A seasoned change leader, his focus will be on accelerating the growth in these segments by bringing transformative retailing and financing experiences to market, enabling AutoFi partners to better address changing consumer preferences.
“AutoFi is a pioneer in the digitization of the auto industry,” Baer said. “The company is uniquely positioned with manufacturers, retailers, and lenders to deliver digital experiences that will drive the future of the market.
“The opportunity to shape such a large and complex industry is compelling and I couldn’t be more excited to join the AutoFi leadership team in delivering on this promise,” he went on to say
Prior to joining AutoFi — among the first group of Emerging 8 honorees — Baer was a member of the Santander executive team, serving most recently as head of strategy following three years as the chief risk officer.
Baer also spent nearly 13 years at Capital One in various leadership roles across the firm’s consumer businesses.
Refinancing company iLending — which rebranded itself about a month ago — welcomed a new chief digital officer
Chosen to be responsible for technology-related, digital, and innovation services including infrastructure, security, communication services, and software development, iLending hired Christian Marcussen.
“Bringing Christian on will keep iLending in the technological lead and is absolutely key to our ongoing growth and success,” iLending chief executive officer Tom Holgate said in a news release. “Staying ahead in digital services paves the way for iLending to better deliver safe and secure car refinancing to potentially millions of consumers, empowering us to continue helping them save every month. By embracing innovative technology, we are set to improve upon systems and processes and be the automotive refinancing leader.”
Holgate added, “Christian is joining on the heels of the hiring of our new CMO, Renee Brown, and comes to iLending as the company launches a brand refresh and new logo, in addition to our exciting Wheels in Motion Sweepstakes, providing the chance for clients to win a new car. We are very well positioned for the future of this industry.”
Prior to joining iLending, Marcussen was with Abound Credit Union in Louisville, Ky., where he led strategy, technology, marketing and other areas for six years. Prior to Abound, he was at Mazuma Credit Union in Kansas City, Mo., for 12 years as the chief information officer.
“When the opportunity presented itself to join iLending, it was not a difficult decision,” Marcussen said. “This was a logical next step for me, this opens the door to implementing the kinds of strategies and technologies that will significantly enhance iLending’s digital platforms and clear a pathway to accelerated progress.
“I am joining a team of extremely dedicated professionals with a clear vision — to transcend being just a car refinance company. I am joining a team that shares my passion for improving consumers’ financial situations. Leading the evolution of experience-driven consumer technologies and core technologies is an exciting challenge — and something I am eager to meet head-on,” Marcussen went on to say.
