Senior tech leader at Square, published author, and established engineering mentor to join CommonBond’s Board of Directors
CommonBond, a pioneering fintech company for young professionals, today announced the addition of Sonali Sambhus to its Board of Directors. Sonali currently leads the developer platform at Square, where she has also led the company’s machine learning and mobile platforms. The addition of Sonali to the CommonBond Board is consistent with the company’s strategy of building best-in-class products for its core consumers.
“Technology is at the core of what we do, and it will continue to play a central role as we enter our next stage of growth,” said CommonBond CEO & co-founder, David Klein. “Sonali’s wealth of experience as a technologist, operator and leader at some of America’s most innovative and tech-centric companies, makes her a perfect addition to CommonBond. We look forward to leveraging her expertise as we scale the business with products that continue to resonate with our core customer segment.”
Board expansion
Sonali has two decades of experience building first-of-their-kind technology products, from leading the development of consumer-facing technology at Realtor.com, to heading up the engineering organization at Vuclip, a media and entertainment company with 100M+ active monthly users focused on emerging markets. Earlier in her career, Sonali co-founded 10Jumps – a real-time mobile intelligence company – which was acquired in 2013 by a tech firm focused on big data, modernization and monetization. Sonali started her career as an engineer at Cisco, where she was founding member of the Collaboration Business within Cisco’s Emerging Technologies group, led the B2B SaaS product and received three US patents for her work.
Sonali is a published author, a passionate advocate for gender diversity, and has coached hundreds of engineering leaders nationally, including most recently at divHersity.
“I am impressed by how CommonBond has systematically grown and built a compelling set of products with a highly engaged user base,” said Sonali. “In joining the Board I’m looking forward to enabling the next level of scale for the company and helping it reach ever-increasing heights.”
Growth story
In 2020, CommonBond was named to the Inc 5000 list, which highlights the fastest growing private companies in the U.S. The company has grown 20% month-over-month in 2021 and nearly 3x since Q4 2020. This growth has been driven in large part by a resonant brand, outcomes-focused technology and the development of new products.
CommonBond consistently drives a world class net promoter score (NPS) among its customers of 80+ and is statistically tied for 1st place with family when surveyed on who customers trust most for financial guidance.
“Customers keep asking us for more products to help them meet their evolving needs,” said Klein. “As a trusted financial partner for so many young professionals, CommonBond has been focused on developing products that are lifecycle relevant and enable financial independence for the next generation of financial consumers.”
The company continues to launch new products in service of its vision to meet the evolving needs of its customer. New products this year include a “Flex” product that allows customers to lock in a low interest rate on their student loan today without having to pay interest for six months. The company’s next large-scale product will launch in the summer of 2021 and will combine key elements of “point of sale” (POS) and “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) financing, in a space that is highly relevant to its core customer.
Customer-centric founding
CommonBond was founded by graduate students who needed to pay their way through school with loans and in doing so realized the market was broken. When financing their education, they felt like a number – they faced high interest rates, confronted unnecessary red tape and endured poor customer service. The founders of CommonBond knew there had to be a better way.
Built from this personal experience, CommonBond is a financial technology company that builds product with a “customer-first” mindset. The company offers innovative loan refinancing, affordable private loans and a suite of financial benefits to employers and employees through its Enterprise platform.
Today, over 800,000 users have come to CommonBond for financial help and guidance. The company is on track to save customers more than $1 billion over the course of their loan repayment through the company’s comprehensive suite of debt management products. That’s more money in the pockets of consumers and less money in the pockets of loan companies and servicers. The company also powers financial solutions for 1000s of enterprises nationwide.
In 2018, Fast Company selected CommonBond as one of the 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World. CommonBond is also the first and only company of its kind with a “one-for-one” social mission: for every loan it funds, CommonBond also funds the education of a child in need, through its partnership with Pencils of Promise.
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