Climb Credit, a leading US online student lending platforms, announced that fintech pioneer Angela Ceresnie has joined the company as Chief Operating Officer. Ceresnie will be leading efforts to scale the business to a growing pool of partnerships with alternative education providers across the country. A seasoned and highly-respected executive, Ceresnie brings several years of experience as co-founder, CFO, and COO of Orchard Platform, the leading technology provider for originators and investors in the marketplace lending space. The Michigan grad began her career in Risk Management at American Express and Citibank before cofounding Orchard Platform, the institutional investment platform for the peer to peer, “many to many” and online direct lender with Matt Burton, Jonathan Kelfer and David Snitkof.
“I’m incredibly excited about what Climb is building and its mission to finance education programs that make a substantial difference in students’ lives,” stated Ceresnie. “The team has made impressive traction to date with all of our school partners, having made millions of dollars worth of loans to students all over the country. I’m honored to join such a strong team, and look forward to working with everyone to continue toward this mission.”
Ceresnie joins the leadership team alongside Rafael, Amit Sinha (CFO) and Chris Schaffer (CTO). Climb Credit is building the first large scale matching engine for all consumers to decision, action and finance how they can improve the value of their human capital. The platform finances education where such education delivers a meaningful economic return to the consumer — aligning post graduate economic incentives between students, schools and investors.
“We’re very excited to bring Angela on board. She brings a depth of experience and drive that will help take Climb from a multi-million dollar business helping thousands of students nationally, to a multi-billion dollar institution redefining how students find, and pay for higher education,” shared Climb Credit CEO and Co-Founder Zander Rafael.
Climb Credit incorporates both school and student data in its proprietary underwriting process, allowing it to work with students that may be overlooked by other lenders and to allow effective schools to significantly increase their enrollment. Climb Credit helps its school partners grow while offering their students affordable, fixed-rate loans with no pre-payment penalties. For more information, or to start working with Climb Credit visit climbcredit.com.
Climb Credit has raised over $400 MM in committed capital from a $300 BB global top 3 asset manager and venture funding from a group of diverse investors including the founder of okcupid/match.com to Learn Capital, a leading education venture fund, to Seer Capital, a major fixed income hedge fund, according to the fintech platform.