Vemo Co-Founder Renée Mang Joins Stride

Vemo Education Co-founder Renée Mang has joined Stride Funding Inc as its vice president of operations as part of a larger expansion of the Stride leadership team, the education financing company said in Monday (April 4) press release.

“I’m thrilled to be joining the team at Stride. I’ve admired their growth, passion, student centricity, and platform from afar and can’t wait to bring my 40+ years of experience and passion to accelerate Stride’s momentum and operational rigor,” Mang said in the release.

Mang co-founded Vemo in 2016, following a 20-year career at Sallie Mae, where her duties included managing $30 billion in new loan origination volume each year. At Stride, Mang will lead all customer success, origination, servicing, and income verification teams, while instilling “operational excellence in teams focused on school partners and student customers alike.”

Read more: It’s Not Easy Solving For $1.5 Trillion In Student Debt

Meanwhile, Blessing Chimwanda, who oversaw Eastern Bank’s consumer lending compliance management program, has been named chief compliance officer for Stride. Chimwanda is a 20-year veteran of the financial services field, including a stint as large bank legal and compliance bank examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Also joining Stride is Pete Klipa, the new director of loan servicing, who comes to Stride with 25 years of experience in collections and recoveries in the utility, credit card, and auto finance industries. Klipa oversaw creditor relations at the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC), as well as loss mitigation at American Credit Acceptance, and managed collection agencies at Discover Financial Services.

Finally, Dr. Travis (TJ) Gonzales has been named vice president of credit and analytics, fresh from his role as chief analytics officer and acting chief risk officer at Purpose Financial.

Based in Boston, Stride provides education funding through income sharing agreements (ISAs), in which borrowers pay a percentage of their future earned income with rates based on what they are expected to earn. The company says this method offers lower and more flexible terms than a traditional student loan.