Greetings From Business Development

Greetings from Prosper! It has been a fast-moving three months since I had the opportunity to join the Prosper team to head up Business Development with Chris, John, Kirk and Catherine. Coming from a traditional banking and capital markets background, it has certainly been a change of focus, but I can’t pay enough compliments to the management team here. They are smart, innovative, creative, and collaborative. One of the first things that struck me when I joined is that every Prosper employee is passionate about their desire to make consumer lending better and more financially and socially rewarding.

I will be heading up strategic partnership opportunities and our institutional lender platform. I plan to post updates here as events transpire and appreciate all of the support and inquiries from the Prosper community.

—

Adrienne Penake, CFA is the VP of Business Development at Prosper

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6 Responses

Chrisfs | June 3rd, 2008 at 11:30 am

While institutional lenders are a big opportunity to Prosper and will make some loans easier to fund, I hope they will not dominate the platform so much that individual lenders become squeezed out or feel irrelevant.

Chrisfs | June 3rd, 2008 at 11:35 am

That may have sounded a bit plaintive. Institutional lenders are a sign of success for Prosper and I think they will provide help provide liquidity needed for a secondary market. I’m just wondering if/how an influx of large amounts of money will shift bidding and thus funding patterns on Prosper.

Yankeefan | June 5th, 2008 at 1:00 pm

Greetings, Adrienne.

I would expect institutional lenders to be even more interested in Prosper’s collection efforts than the rest of us are. I know Doug and Prosper have been working to strengthen collections, but the results here on the ground have not yet been evident. Can you share what you have been telling prospective institutional lenders about collections?

mike walker | June 17th, 2008 at 12:07 am

Greetings, Adrienne.

I am concerned the small lender will be cut out of the platform, that would be sad indeed as it was the small lenders as a group that help this platform develop to the point where
institutional lenders may take a look. Can we hear some assurance to the small lenders.
m

Scott Mohnkern | June 18th, 2008 at 12:55 pm

Dittos from the peanut gallery. Since my 30’s I’ve tried several different savings approaches from classic savings and Cd’s (to low a rate of return, doesn’t even match inflation) to “invest weekly” stock schemes (which have high front end costs). In 12 months, by investing weekly, I’ve managed to generate a decent ROI without feeling it too hard in the wallet. Every month or so, I re-evaluate and up my contribution a bit if I’m feeling like my wallet can handle it.

Institutional investors may cause a lack of focus here. I understand the desire to bring in more money in large piles, but remember what I perceived to be the original intent, to allow borrowers to borrow money from people who had spare cash that they were willing to lend, on a $50 at a time basis.

Bob Holtan | June 25th, 2008 at 5:35 pm

Since you have been criticized regarding your collection efforts, to include the Collections Agencies, why not let us as Prosper Members collect our own loans that have “gone south.”

Bob Holtan, Crockett, CA