Plaid named Jennifer (Jen) Taylor, who most recently served as Cloudflare’s chief product officer, as its first president.
The move is notable in that it comes just months after fintech startup form first financial manager. CFO recruitment is a step usually taken only by companies planning to go public.
In announcing Taylor’s appointment, San Francisco-based Plaid noted that her nearly seven-year tenure spanned before, during and after Cloudflare’s IPO — perhaps signaling that Plaid itself is nearing an initial public offering (IPO).
Modernize: A Plaid spokesperson told TechCrunch after the publication: “I can confirm that an eventual IPO is a milestone we’re tracking, but we don’t have any details or a timeline to share beyond that. Jen will be a critical component of maturing our technology and product strategy as we continue to grow and evolve.”
Image Credits: Jen Taylor, president / Checkers
On a LinkedIn Positiontaylor wrote:I’m very excited to share that I’ve joined Plaid as President, where I’ll oversee teams across technology + products that are building the network that will power the future of finance.”
Prior to joining Cloudflare, Taylor held senior leadership positions at Salesforce, Facebook (now Meta), and Adobe and had a two-year stint as a venture capitalist.
Plaid started out as a company that connects consumer bank accounts with financial apps, but has since gradually expanded its offerings to also include lending, anti-fraud and payments. The 11-year-old company was nearly acquired by Visa for $5 billion before antitrust regulators shut down the deal. Plaid continued to raise funding at worth $13.4 billion after the deal fell throughand has worked to diversify its revenue streams ever since.
In a suspensionPlaid co-founder and CEO Zach Perret wrote that Taylor’s experienceScaling products to meet growing customer demand will be invaluable,” as Plaid continues to expand its platform “to support continued innovation in financial services.”
Plaid has 8,500 customers and over 1,000 employees. Its backers include a16z, Index Ventures, Altimeter, Silver Lake, NEA, Kleiner Perkins, JP Morgan, Citi Ventures, Amex Ventures, Goldman Sachs and Spark Capital, among others.
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