CreditNinja Financial Review Board
Our Financial Review Board is composed of seasoned professionals and accomplished experts in various fields of financial services and technology, banking, and investment. They bring years of hands-on experience and a depth of understanding that ensures the content we produce is not just accurate, but also relevant, actionable, and trustworthy.
How we create and review our content
- We thoroughly research the financial questions that are important to you, to determine what topics to include in the CreditNinja Dojo. Topics like personal finance basics, loan management, and credit scores.
- Our team of writers research each individual article, read and review trustworthy sources, and draft content while keeping you and your financial journey in mind.
- Our editor then reviews articles for accuracy and clarity, makes suggestions to our writers when needed, and ensures that articles are as helpful and actionable as possible.
- Once our writing staff makes necessary edits, articles are published to the CreditNinja Dojo, Financial Terms Glossary, or our helpful FAQ section.
Meet Our Review Team
These individuals are leading financial technologists, entrepreneurs, investment strategists, financial analysts, accountants, legal experts, and more. Their role is to ensure that the financial advice, insight, and information on our site meet the highest standards of accuracy, objectivity, and rigor. With their guidance, we’re dedicated to delivering financial content that you can depend on to help you make informed decisions. We understand that these subjects are complex—we are here to make things simple for you.
Executive Summary:
Mark Friedgan is a recognized technology leader and an early-stage investor, with a rich background in the Consumer Financial Industry and Energy sector. As an award-winning CIO, he brings a wealth of experience in technology strategy, startups, technology management, predictive analytics, and predictive modeling. He holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. His entrepreneurial journey includes serving as a co-founder and executive board member at Eligo Energy, CIO and co-founder at Enova, and as the co-founder and CEO of NinjaHoldings. Mark's specialized skills and leadership have consistently brought innovation, efficiency, and growth to the organizations he has worked with.
Current Role:
Co-founder and CEO at NinjaHoldings
Education:
B.S., Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon
M.S., Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon
Expertise:
Financial Technology, Startups, Predictive Analytics and Modeling, Underwriting, Software Development
Career Overview:
Mark Friedgan's career is characterized by his commitment to technological innovation and his leadership in executing successful technology strategies. He has been instrumental in designing and implementing enterprise architectures and financial technology software platforms. As CIO and co-founder of Enova (NYSE:ENVA), he built an online lending platform and oversaw all technology and analytics for a $500 million fintech business. In his current role as CEO of NinjaHoldings since 2017, the company has served over 250,000 borrowers with its comprehensive suite of digital banking and lending products through its CreditNinja® and NinjaCard™ brands.
Mark has been an active early stage investor and advisor in over 50 startups over the last 15 years and has had a number of successful exits. In addition to his advisory roles, Mark has served in executive positions at significant organizations. He co-founded Eligo Energy, a retail electricity, natural gas, and community solar supplier, where he serves as an executive board member. Under his leadership, the company gained significant recognition, ranking #111 on the Inc 5000 list in 2017.
As CEO and co-founder of NinjaHoldings, Mark currently oversees three subsidiaries: CreditNinja, an online lending platform, NinjaCard, an FDIC-insured neo-bank product, and Edge, a pioneering B2B technology that serves as the first Consumer Reporting Agency (CRA) for cash flow risk analytics. Edge leverages consumer-permissioned bank data to offer income verification and credit risk assessments for lenders while adhering to the strict consumer protections of the FCRA. Edge provides a unique value proposition to lenders by delivering industry-first risk models such as EdgeScore and EdgeEnrich, and fosters financial inclusion for consumers by granting them increased visibility and control over their data, significantly transforming the credit decision-making landscape.
Overall, Mark Friedgan's career trajectory demonstrates his ability to leverage technology for business growth and his commitment to supporting startups in realizing their full potential. His contributions to the industry are marked by innovative technology solutions, successful startup mentorship, and strategic leadership at notable companies.
Executive Summary:
Kenneth Schultz began his career as a senior associate at PwC and then transitioned to investment banking where he worked in the Global Financial Sponsors Group at Lehman Brothers. He was the CFO of FinTech startup Enova that grew from 11mm to over 570mm during his tenure. He took his expertise in financial technology to Denver-based SaaS company, OrthoFi, where he was CFO and Board Director. Currently, he is the co-founder and CFO of financial technology company NinjaHoldings,
Current Role:
CFO and Co-Founder at NinjaHoldings
Education:
BA Accounting, Michigan State University
MBA Finance and Entrepreneurship, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Expertise:
Corporate Finance, Financial Analysis, Angel Investing, Business Valuation, Accounting, Organizational Development
Career Overview:
In Kenneth’s current role as CFO at NinjaHoldings where he oversees finance, accounting, legal, and HR teams, and has administered the growth and financial health of the company since its beginning.
Previously, Mr. Schultz served as Enova’s Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer in the E-Commerce Division. From August 2003 to February 2006, Mr. Schultz worked as an investment banker in the Global Financial Sponsors Group for Lehman Brothers. Prior to that, Mr. Schultz was an investment banker for A. G. Edwards & Sons and a consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Mr. Schultz received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Accounting from Michigan State University and a Master of Business Administration from The University of Chicago.
Executive Summary:
Jack Snitovsky is a seasoned executive, with experience spanning IT, operations management, strategic planning, and project execution. With an ability to marry technological needs with business objectives, he's consistently enhanced organizational efficiency and improved user experience and customer satisfaction in his roles. His tenure as Director of IT at both Enova and TMX Credit, as well as CTO and President at unite4:good, showcase his leadership in navigating complex IT environments, integrating innovative solutions, and directing pivotal restructuring projects. As COO at CityBase, Inc. Jack demonstrated his adeptness at managing transformative projects and steering organizations to operational success. He is currently COO of NinjaHoldings and has been pivotal in building this organization from the ground up–having overseen the development of the organization’s operations since its inception.
Current Role:
COO at NinjaHoldings
Education:
BS Business Administration and Management, University of Illinois, Chicago
Expertise:
Leadership, Strategic Operations
Career Overview:
As Director of IT at Enova, Jack demonstrated exceptional leadership, effectively restructuring the IT organization and creating a strategic IT roadmap, leading to a 30% rise in user satisfaction and a 300% improvement in service speed. His implementation of process automation and a successful Windows transition project—winning the 2010 Sustainable Innovation award from CIO Magazine—not only saved the company $300K annually but also achieved a 20% improvement on capital expenditures and general expense within a $10M operating budget.
During his tenure as Director of IT at TMX Credit, Jack managed a $7M deployment, achieving significant savings by bringing the project 50% under budget. Through strategic implementations, including a Nobel System and a comprehensive Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity environment, he reduced costs, increased automation, and enhanced operational efficiency, achieving a system uptime of 99.99%.
As CTO and later President of unite4:good, Jack steered the start-up company to operational success, creating a strategic roadmap, coordinating P&L operations, and negotiating a business acquisition with improved terms, saving $4M and retaining company equity. His leadership in building a robust technical platform, including a web platform and mobile application, along with efficient resource utilization, contributed to significant operational improvements and aligning the company's product architecture with business objectives.
In his role as COO of CityBase, Inc., Jack spearheaded a transformative project that replaced manual processes with a mobile application, enabling Chicago taxi drivers to purchase virtual tax stamps for airport access, resulting in a significant increase of $2M in monthly revenue for the City of Chicago. He also successfully implemented a citywide payment platform encompassing 46 agencies and won notable RFPs from the City of Indianapolis, Marion County, and the City of Chicago, bolstering CityBase's reputation and operational efficiency.
He later brought his skills in operational efficiency and internet technology to several roles as a management consultant and advisory board member to organizations such as F&L Galaxy and TransUnion, where he remains an advisory board member and is recognized as one of the most skilled and knowledgeable executives in the short-term lending and financial technology industry. Throughout his career, Jack has consistently exhibited strategic innovation while leading organizational transformation and maximizing operational efficiency across various roles in diverse industries. His proven expertise in technology-driven solutions, leadership, and fiscal responsibility make him an invaluable asset in his current role as COO for NinjaHoldings, where he has overseen the development of the organization since its inception.
Executive Summary:
Stephen Schaller is an attorney and regulatory compliance expert with over two decades of experience in the consumer financial services industry. Before joining NinjaHoldings as General Counsel in 2018, he served for over twenty years as Deputy General Counsel of OneMain Financial in Baltimore and as General Counsel of CNG Financial in Cincinnati. He brings his expertise in bank-agent loan programs, regulatory compliance, and consumer lending operations to his current role at NinjaHoldings. He graduated from the University of Illinois College of Law in 1992 and from Illinois College (Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude) in 1989. He is licensed to practice law in Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. He is also certified by the American Banking Association’s Institute of Certified Bankers as a Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager (CRCM®). Finally, Stephen is a lifetime member of the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) and an approved arbitrator for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), qualified to hear—among other cases—those involving injunctive relief (Arbitrator ID A57554).
Current Role:
General Counsel at NinjaHoldings
Education:
BA, Illinois College (Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude)
JD, University of Illinois College of Law
Expertise:
State and federal consumer credit laws, banking laws, payment systems, and government affairs
Career Overview:
Stephen Schaller began his career in private practice, litigating insurance-defense and commercial-dispute cases in state and federal courts. In this work, Stephen learned the win-win value of a company’s alternative dispute resolution (ADR) program for disputes involving consumers, employees, and commercial counterparties. He eventually went in-house with a litigation client and began his career as corporate lawyer, serving as an in-house attorney for two supervised lenders, CNG Financial (CNG) in Cincinnati and OneMain Financial (OMF) in Baltimore. Here, Stephen developed a subject matter expertise in state supervised-loan laws, federal consumer-protection laws, and consumer loan programs in which a federally-insured bank exports its home-state interest rate to other states and makes loans with the assistance of a non-bank agent such as a fintech operating a website. This experience underscored his conviction that consumers are best served when the regulatory environment allows markets—not politicians—to set prices and allows financial products to be scaled nationally, free (as much as possible) from the patchwork-quilt of state and local regulations.
At both CNG and OMF, Stephen supported government-relations activities, ghostwriting industry white papers, testifying at legislative hearings, and accompanying registered lobbyists in their meetings with legislators and staff concerning pending bills. The themes sounded in this government-relations work reflect the key role that non-bank financial service providers play in today’s marketplace: consumer choice (i.e., improving price and quality by allowing more—not fewer—providers to compete); financial inclusion (i.e., providing mainstream financial products to the unbanked and underbanked, segments that most observers peg at approximately 5% and 15%, respectively, of U.S. households in 2023); and responsible innovation (i.e., designing and delivering financial products that leverage technology and digital banking to increase convenience, enhance functionality, and foster persistent use).
In Stephen’s current role at CreditNinja, he ensures that the principles of consumer choice, financial inclusion, and responsible innovation apply to all the products the company offers. As a result, borrowers receiving a loan made or arranged by CreditNinja receive access to a wealth of financial-education content. This content adopts the life-cycle approach to financial wellness originally identified by the Financial Health Network (finhealthnetwork.org). The life-cycle approach recognizes that most consumers—especially the unbanked and underbanked—achieve personal-finance competence in a particular sequence as they age, first developing good habits and achieving desired results in Spending (e.g., budgeting and paying bills on time), then in Saving (e.g., creating an emergency fund of cash and establishing recurring contributions toward long-term savings goals such as college and cars), then in Borrowing (e.g., achieving a prime credit score and accessing mainstream banking products), and finally in Planning (e.g., investing for retirement, purchasing appropriate insurance to protect assets, and creating an estate plan).
The NinjaCard™, which the company will roll-out to a national footprint in 2024, will aid unbanked and underbanked consumers in moving along this financial wellness life-cycle of Spending → Saving → Borrowing → Planning. The NinjaCard is a Visa®-branded debit card that gives cardholders mainstream Spending access with merchants. The card is conveniently managed with online banking and an app available on Apple® and Android™ devices. Importantly, the cardholder opens not only a checking account, to which the card is attached, but also an interest-bearing savings account, into which a $10 monthly cash reward is paid if the cardholder demonstrates responsible Spending and Saving behavior (e.g., keeping accounts current, activating direct deposit, and creating an emergency fund in the NinjaCard savings account). As the cardholder moves along the financial wellness life-cycle, the cardholder will achieve higher belt levels and will receive commensurately greater rewards such as an increased monthly cash reward, access to credit-score information, and referrals to partners providing Planning services.
The NinjaCard™ is the capstone to Stephen’s professional efforts to bring unbanked and underbanked consumers into the financial mainstream by leveraging technology and digital banking to deliver convenient, competitively-priced products that move consumers along the financial wellness life-cycle. These efforts have been recognized by his industry peers in the form of frequent speaker invitations to trade shows and attorney groups, most recently at the 2022 Conference of Consumer Finance Lawyers (CCFL) in Plano, Texas and the 2022 LEND360 event in Chicago, Illinois, where Stephen spoke on bank-agent loan programs.
Executive Summary:
Jessica LaForte is a seasoned compliance and legal professional whose expertise is in highly regulated financial industries including consumer finance, investment management, and alternative investments.She brings two decades of experience to her role as Chief Compliance Officer and Information Security Officer at NinjaHoldings.
Current Role:
Chief Compliance Officer and CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) at NinjaHoldings
Education:
BBA, Information Systems Operations Management, Loyola University Chicago
JD, Law, Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology
LLM, Financial Services, Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology
Expertise:
Bank-agent loan programs, regulatory compliance, consumer lending financial technology, securities law, financial planning
Career Overview:
Jessica LaForte currently serves as Chief Compliance Officer for NinjaHoldings, a title which she has held for the last 8 years at various organizations, such as OppLoans. Her career is characterized by her expertise in securities law and financial planning, spanning litigation, advisory roles, and operational oversight. Her path from a Securities Litigation Associate to the Vice President of Operational Due Diligence, and now as a Chief Compliance Officer, reflects her multifaceted skill set in advocating for clients, advising on financial and investment strategies, leading due diligence processes, and driving business efficiency and regulatory compliance within financial technology companies.
Jessica began her career as a Securities Litigation Associate at Block and Landsman, where she advocated for clients in FINRA arbitration hearings against brokerage firms. She demonstrated prowess in drafting successful motions, managing portfolio analyses, and securing notable client settlements. In her next role as a Financial Planning Specialist at Morgan Stanley, Jessica utilized her knowledge of investment strategies and financial products to advise clients on their financial plans. She assessed clients' financial conditions, established investment strategies, and provided advice on economic and market conditions, further developing her financial advisory expertise.
As Principal at Jessica Jeffries Law Offices, Jessica undertook a leading role in representing plaintiffs in FINRA arbitration hearings against full-service brokerage firms, addressing various securities violations and breaches. Beyond litigation, she offered strategic legal counsel to investment companies on various aspects from product formation and maintenance to marketing and distribution, reflecting her comprehensive understanding of securities law.
As Vice President of Operational Due Diligence at FactRight, LLC, Jessica was responsible for oversight in quality control and the compilation of comprehensive due diligence reports on various investment program sponsors, effectively assessing and mitigating risks. She was instrumental in enhancing business efficiency and boosting revenue through a complete overhaul of due diligence processes, while also founding The Securities Club, a group committed to staying current on securities rules and promoting knowledge sharing within the organization.
Executive Summary:
Erik Thallemer is a finance and accounting professional whose expertise spans budgeting and forecasting, financial analysis, SEC reporting, and auditing, including Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Accounting from the University of Illinois. He began his career at Ernst & Young and held key positions as FP&A Senior Manager at Enova Financial and the VP of Finance and Accounting at Braviant thereafter. He currently serves as the Senior Director of Marketing and Partnerships at the financial technology company, NinjaHoldings, where he brings his expertise in lending and financial analysis to his role.
Current Role:
Director of Marketing and Bank Partnerships at NinjaHoldings
Education:
B.S., Accounting, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Expertise:
Budgeting and forecasting, financial analysis, SEC reporting, and auditing.
Career Overview:
Erik Thallemer's career is characterized by his expertise in finance and accounting, with a strong focus on strategic budgeting, forecasting, compliance, and operational efficiency across diverse industries. In his early career at Ernst & Young, Erik Thallemer was responsible for planning and executing audits of companies with annual revenues ranging from $300 million to $6 billion, assessing the effectiveness of internal control systems, reviewing financial statements for US GAAP compliance, handling SEC reporting requirements, and identifying weaknesses in internal control while providing strategic recommendations for improvements. At Playboy Enterprises, Erik Thallemer managed the general ledger system, streamlined consolidation reports for efficiency, and prepared comprehensive financial packages for board meetings while ensuring compliance with SEC, FASB, and AICPA reporting requirements.
As a Senior Manager At Enova, Erik Thallemer led the FP&A team, overseeing a budgeting and forecasting process for an $800+ million company, built standardized models improving projection accuracy, evaluated new business opportunities through financial modeling, and delivered critical analyses that drove strategic decisions for high-level executives.
In his role as VP of Finance and Accounting at Braviant, Erik Thallemer collaborated with the CEO to launch new financial models, tracked KPIs, updated forecasts to identify opportunities, secured funding through a mix of debt types, and developed robust internal and external reporting tools for stakeholders, investors, and lenders.
Finally, as Senior Direct of Marketing and Bank Partnerships at Ninja Holdings, Erik Thallemer drives the growth of the company by increasing its reach through marketing and its footprint via partnerships. While at CreditNinja, Erik has launched two bank partnerships in order to market installment loans in a large number of states. He also oversees the operation and maintenance of these programs, including compliance with bank and FDIC rules and regulations. In marketing, Erik focuses on managing his team in order to attract and retain the best quality customers for the CreditNinja portfolio.
Executive Summary:
Thomas Brock, CFA, CPA, is a well-rounded financial professional with over 20 years of experience in investments, corporate finance and accounting, and personal and business financial consulting. His investment experience includes oversight of a $4 billion portfolio for an insurance group. Varied finance and accounting work includes credit analyses, the development of multiyear financial forecasts and the evaluation of capital budgeting proposals and investment opportunities.