Lending Club Hires BlackRock’s Patrick Dunne to Head Investor Group

Lending Club has a new chief capital officer.

The company hired Patrick Dunne who headed iShares Global Markets and Investments at BlackRock. With 25 years of industry experience, Dunne has overseen 700 investment products with over $1 trillion assets under management.

As the resurging online lender looks to amend investor relations, as the new chief capital officer, Dunne will manage Lending Club’s Investor Group which spans individual investors, strategic partnerships with retail distribution partners, banks and other institutional investors including asset managers, pensions, foundations, and endowments.  “Patrick will play a key role in reaffirming our continued commitment to our investors,” CEO Scott Sanborn said in a statement. 

After founder and initial CEO Renaud Laplanche exited the company on May 9th, Lending Club has been playing musical chairs with its management team while slashing 179 jobs. At the company’s last annual shareholder meeting held last month, Scott Sanborn was named CEO while executive chairman Hans Morris was appointed chairman of the board.

The challenge for most online and marketplace lenders in this credit environment lies in diversifying their capital sources and roping in more investors to buy their loans. And, lenders are turning to investment bankers for this purpose. Last week, UK P2P lender Funding Circle roped in Nomura’s European head, Jeremy Bennett as chief financial officer who designed and ran UK’s Asset Protection Scheme, which insured risky assets of big banks like Royal Bank of Scotland.

Lack of deposits as a capital source has led non-bank lenders to depend on securitization and retail and institutional investors. The road is long and the trudge is harder. Will the new crop of hires lead the way?