NCA Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year
Financial Services
Award recipient
Renaud Laplanche
founder and CEO
Lending Club
Renaud Laplanche has twice built successful ventures despite nearly inconceivable obstacles.
One night while working late, he became frustrated when he could not find the information online he was looking for. This was the birth of TripleHop Technologies and eventually Matchpoint.
TripleHop’s offices in the World Trade Center were demolished on 9/11. While the entire team survived, the work was lost. Work soon began again after a replacement office was acquired, allowing the company to rebuild. His perseverance proved successful when TripleHop’s keynote software was sold to Oracle in 2005.
After the sale, Laplanche got an idea for another venture when he noticed the gap in interest rates between the percent you pay to borrow money and the percent you earn by having your money in the bank. So, he created a platform for investors to lend money directly to borrowers, thus began Lending Club.
As founder and CEO, Laplanche has seen his share of difficulties at Lending Club, too. The SEC started investigating, believing that the borrowers were the issuers of notes. Laplanche and his team came up with a different solution: Lending Club would issue the notes, and money would be transferred to the borrower on the condition that the lender pays the company. Lending Club is now one of the largest SEC filers in the U.S.
Every new product and service at Lending Club must follow two guiding principles: to deliver value to its customers and only make loans to people who have the capacity to pay back in full.
Laplanche and his management team encourage every employee to question what they see, and look for ways to improve operations, products and services. Lending Club allows employees to test new ideas in a controlled way, and every employee has stock options.
The company has more than doubled its business each year since it was founded.
How to reach: Lending Club, www.lendingclub.com
