Lending Club Has A New CFO

Embattled marketplace lender Lending Club has appointed a new CFO.

Thomas Casey will replace Lending Club’s longtime financial chief, Carrie Dolan, who resigned last month. Dolan was the first top executive to depart Lending Club after the explosive series of revelations about questionable (and possibly illegal) underwriting and investment practices turned up by an internal audit of the firm. The fallout from the investigation included the resignation of Renaud Laplanche, the firm’s founding CEO, on May 9. 

At this time last year, Lending Club was considered the standard-bearer for the rising wave of alternative lenders proliferating online — powered largely by the rise of mobile and a years-long credit freeze that left many consumers and SMBs scrambling for new sources of credit.

Changing economic conditions, including a slightly increased interest rate and a notable upswing in the number of defaults on the loan platform, have already started undermining investor faith in the alternative credit marketplace. That trepidation was greatly enhanced by the Lending Club conflagration and the subsequent Justice Department investigation, loan investor freeze-up and mass layoffs.

Now, Lending Club faces the marketplace more as an underdog than a coming conqueror. Last quarter saw the firm’s biggest losses in its history as it struggled to keep qualified, desirable borrowers on its platform and lure back investors spooked by the various revelations of impropriety released earlier this year.

Suffice to say, Casey enters into a pretty big job. He comes to Lending Club from Acelity, where he was CFO. Acelity is an advanced wound care and regenerative medicine company.

Bradley Coleman, who was appointed interim CFO following Dolan’s resignation, will remain principal accounting officer and corporate controller, the company said on Monday (Sept. 12).

The news had little effect on Lending Club’s stock price, which has lost half its value this year alone.