Derek Higginbotham

Background

About Derek Higginbotham

As former CEO of one of the top-performing sponsor banks in the U.S, I led the company through a period of explosive growth - scaling annual lending from $1B to $14B in just four years, a 1400% increase. During that time, we became one of the highest ROE banks in the industry, serving millions of customers and ranking in the top 2% of growth banks nationally. Our clients included household names like Cash App, Imprint, Fundbox, Afterpay, Cardless, and other leading fintechs. We achieved this growth while navigating complex regulatory and operational challenges. Our team built a gold-standard fintech risk and compliance framework, reverse-engineering product-level risks and proactively resolved failure points before they could surface. Our approach bolstered our fintech partners’ business and became a reference model for fintech oversight across the industry. We did this while pushing boundaries: novel products working across the credit spectrum with partners as small as two guys in a garage to some of the largest public tech companies.Today, as a Partner at Klaros, I help fintechs and banks bridge the gap between innovation and infrastructure. My focus is on enabling responsible scale by matching fintechs with the right banking partners while helping banks build or expand their sponsor programs. I'm also the founder of Stitch Community Finance, where we are bringing Fintech innovation to the community banking ecosystem. My mission is to make sure our financial system is lifting up our neighbors and strengthening our communities.