It was with great fanfare that the trio of Stephen Vermut, Aaron Vermut and Ron Suber took the helm of Prosper early last year. Since then this team has executed on their game plan and taken Prosper from a downward spiral to rapid growth and in the process have established themselves as a serious #2 contender in the p2p lending space.
It is against this backdrop that we hear the announcement today of Aaron Vermut taking over from his father as the new CEO of Prosper. Perhaps more significantly, Ron Suber is now Prosper’s president, relinquishing his awkward title of Global Head of Institutional Sales. In fact, in recent weeks Suber had moved on from his institutional sales role into more of a borrower-centric role simply because Prosper no longer needed to focus on gathering new institutional investors.
I reached out to Ron Suber for comment and this is what he shared in an email to me:
We are witnessing the impact of technology, innovation and transparency on exchanges for credit. This goes beyond just peer-to-peer lending. We are talking about an exchange for online consumer finance. In 2014 it’s all about awareness and understanding. The lenders are aware of the opportunity. Now it’s time to educate consumers about the opportunity to get credit beyond the traditional institutions.
When I asked him specifically about this change and why make it now he said, “These roles are reflective of the jobs that we are all going to do in 2014 and they are a natural evolution for the business.”
Personally, I think this is a good move. Suber has been the public face of Prosper from the time they took over. He is constantly in the public eye spreading the word about not just Prosper but the entire p2p lending industry. In fact, I don’t think anyone has done more to evangelize this industry than Suber over the last 12 months.
While we can’t really call this a promotion for Suber, because the three executives are all equal partners, I think it is a title that better reflects the work that he has been doing being as the public face of Prosper. Same goes for the Vermuts. Aaron Vermut has always been my point person on any of the day-to-day issues at Prosper, so I think the new titles do reflect the reality of their jobs as Suber stated above.
Peter Renton is the chairman and co-founder of LendIt Fintech, the world’s first and largest digital media and events company focused on fintech. Peter has been writing about fintech since 2010 and he is the author and creator of the Fintech One-on-One Podcast, the first and longest-running fintech interview series. Peter has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New York Times, CNBC, CNN, Fortune, NPR, Fox Business News, the Financial Times, and dozens of other publications.