Lending Club and its founder, Renaud Laplanche, rank high on nearly every list of fintech disruptors. They are the biggest player in “marketplace lending” – online matching of borrowers with people and institutions willing to lend to them. Marketplace lending (which has evolved from “peer-to-peer” or P2P lending as more institutions join in as funders) is one of the fastest growing innovations in consumer finance.

In December, Lending Club did the largest U.S. tech IPO of 2014, at nearly $900 million.

Their success is attracting interest from every direction. Last year they announced a partnership with Chinese tech giant Alibaba. At the same time, they are partnering with BancAlliance, to connect with its network of 200 community banks in 39 states. 

Renaud is French-American. He has an MBA from HEC and London Business School and a JD from Montpellier University. He practiced law at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in New York and then founded the enterprise software company TripleHop Technologies, selling it to Oracle Corporation. In 2006, he began work on his disruptive ideas, leveraging his unusual combination of software, entrepreneurial and legal skills to create something truly different.

Business Insider named Renaud the "best start-up CEO to work for,” and he won the Economist Innovation Award in the consumer products category in 2014. He lectures at Columbia Business School and is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization.

On top of all this, Renaud holds two world speed sailing records, including crossing the English Channel in 5 hours and 15 minutes just this spring  – Alas, this is a topic we didn’t have time to explore, but clearly it’s no coincidence.

Renaud has been covered in leading publications like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, BusinessWeek and Barron’s and has been featured on CNBC, Bloomberg, ABC News, CBS News, and Fox Business News. We are delighted he could join us for Barefoot Innovation.