OnDeck Hires Capital One Exec to Head Products

Online lender OnDeck appointed Capital One Garage co-founder, Gagan Kanjila as vice president of Product to lead design, manage channels and spearhead business initiatives.

Kanjila joined Capital One in 2001 as program manager in the credit card collections department. Since then, he has built and ran the digital product for financial services, auto finance and home loans divisions.  With 20 years of experience, Kanjlia launched the first savings product that earned airline miles, the mortgage industry’s first instantly-issued mobile prequalification and the country’s second largest digital-only bank.

“This newly created role on our senior management team reinforces our commitment to product and technology innovation as key drivers of our growth,” said CEO Noah Breslow in a statement. “In addition to leading the product team to optimize our customer experience and existing credit offerings, Gagan will spearhead new initiatives that build upon OnDeck’s expertise in using new data, analytics, and technology to transform small business lending.”

This comes at a time when the company is transitioning from a marketplace lender to a balance sheet lender. Earlier this week, (August 8th) the company reported a $17.9 million loss in its Q2 earnings but funded a record $590 million in loans. The move cost the company a fair share of its cash reserve —  from $160 million on December 31, 2015 to only $78 million at the end of Q2. OnDeck CFO Howard Katzenberg said that this wasn’t a burn, but rather cash being invested into their loans, all part of their plan of moving away from the marketplace.