FinTech OppFi Names Ex-Kiva Chief Neville Crawley as New CEO

OppFi, a FinTech that powers banks to broaden credit access, announced Monday (Dec. 20) that effective Dec. 31, company president Neville Crawley will succeed Jared Kaplan as CEO.

Kaplan will continue to be a member of the board of directors and will keep advising the company.

Crawley served as CEO of the FinTech platform Kiva from 2017 to 2021, and OppFi executive chairman Todd Schwartz cited Crawley’s “deep experience and expertise,” particularly his expertise in “serving financially excluded populations,” as part of the move.

Schwartz also said Kaplan had “been integral in building a leading FinTech platform that we believe will continue to grow and thrive under Neville’s leadership.”

Kaplan became CEO of OppFi in 2015, and has seen the company go through high growth and expand its products to try and help those who don’t have the same access to minstream options. He also took the company public in July 2021, through a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) combination with FG New America Acquisition Corp.

“I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished and built thus far, and I am excited to see OppFi continue to grow and maximize its potential,” Kaplan said in the announcement. “I believe Neville is extremely qualified to build upon the work we started — expanding credit access for the everyday consumer — and is the best person to lead this next phase of OppFi’s mission.”

Meanwhile, Crawley said he was “energized and excited to leverage my experience of building and leading high growth companies and disruptive financial technologies to further accelerate OppFi into the leading fintech platform for many millions of financially underserved consumers.”

PYMNTS wrote about OppFi’s SPAC combination over the summer, writing that the company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on July 21.

Read more: OppFi Combines With SPAC; Begins Trading On NYSE

At the time, Kaplan said that the company’s goal was to keep on serving “consumers excluded from the traditional banking system through fair, transparent products and an extraordinary customer experience.”

Kaplan said earlier in the year that OppFi’s product was an alternative to credit risk and evaluation that would go further and extend to more customers.