LendingHome, one of the nation’s largest lenders to real estate investors, announced it has hired Bruce Schuman, the former chief financial officer at Intel Capital – the venture capital arm of chipmaker Intel and one of the world’s largest corporate VC funds – as the company’s new CFO. The company also named Cherie Yu, formerly with Lyft and Google, as chief marketing officer and added Roberta Sydney, a real estate entrepreneur, CEO and senior corporate executive with a long record of leading successful companies, to its board of directors. These strategic additions bring the kind of talent and experience needed to help LendingHome maintain its rapid growth, according to Michael Bourque, LendingHome CEO.
“All three of these talented leaders know firsthand the disruptive impacts that ground-breaking technology, high-volume data and imaginative thinking can have on legacy industries,” said Bourque, the former GE executive who took over as CEO in December. “They learned it at Intel and Google or from spending decades in real estate creating value. This kind of knowledge and ability is essential for LendingHome, which relies on leveraging artificial intelligence and massive amounts of data to help real estate investors unlock value in aged homes.”
LendingHome created a unique position for itself in a vital U.S. industry. As the market for residential real estate continues to heat up, investors remain on the hunt for fixer-uppers they can renovate and sell for a profit – all the while helping to reduce the housing shortage. LendingHome has grown its business by providing residential real estate investors with reliable, fast and hassle-free financing.
To date, LendingHome has provided $7.8 billion in loans, covering 35,000 projects, helping real estate investors create more than $3.8 billion of value in their renovations of aged homes. At the core of this success are the proprietary machine learning and predictive-analytics built to help investors avoid overextending themselves.
“Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege to see firsthand the power of technology to improve people’s lives,” said Schuman, LendingHome’s new CFO. “I am thrilled to join the LendingHome team, which is truly transforming real estate lending, one of the most important market segments in the United States.”
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During his more than 25 years at Intel, Schuman oversaw large finance organizations for numerous lines of business and functions, including the Data Center Products Group, Supply Chain, and Corporate Strategy. Schuman brings innovative thinking and a successful track record working with startups to LendingHome’s technology-driven approach. Schuman will oversee all finance functions, including FP&A, Accounting and Treasury, and will report to Bourque.
Yu led the Local Marketing team at Lyft, the publicly traded ride-sharing company. Prior to that, she worked at Google overseeing marketing for such marquee services and programs as AdSense, Display, Ad Management, and Shopping. “It’s inspiring to see how LendingHome is bringing a data-driven approach to help real estate investors unlock the true value of America’s aged housing stock and create homes for more families during this housing shortage,” Yu said.
Sydney is a 30-year veteran of the real estate industry. She founded and operated her own real estate firm for decades and achieved success in a huge swath of industry segments, including commercial, residential, development and construction – she financed over $1 billion in real estate transactions across multiple market cycles throughout her career.
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“I’m looking forward to advising LendingHome,” Sydney said. “This is an excellent opportunity to draw on my experience running a mortgage company, founding and operating a real estate development and management firm, and mentoring other FinTech and PropTech startups. I believe in the products and people at LendingHome and I’m excited to work with the team.”
Schuman and Yu are respectively based in Portland, Ore., and the San Francisco Bay Area and both will work remotely. About half of all new hires since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic were located outside of the markets where LendingHome has offices. Leadership believes a remote-first work policy is more productive, meets staff needs, and helps attract top talent.
