Kathryn is co-founder and president of Keep Financial, a fintech compensation platform that helps employers and employees stay together longer and happier. Prior to starting Keep, Kathryn co-founded Kabbage, a pioneering fintech based in Atlanta in the U.S. The company raised $400 million in equity and was a major player in the SMB lending space, using a proprietary credit-decisioning engine drawing upon real-time verified data to onboard customers, underwrite and manage risk. The product was also white labelled with several non-U.S. banks, ultimately allowing for over $16 billion in capital to be deployed in eight countries prior to its sale to American Express in 2020.
Before co-founding Kabbage, Kathryn spent nearly fifteen years working with large and small companies focused on credit, payments, and e-commerce. A graduate of Furman University with an English degree, in 2017 she was recognized as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the World by Forbes Magazine. Kathryn serves on the boards of CARE.org, PadSplit, Tricolor, CoreCard (NYSE:CCRD), Near (Nasdaq:NIR) PadSplit, the Atlanta Chamber Music Festival, is a member of the Digital Advisory Council at Fannie Mae, and a trustee for the Woodruff Arts Center.
“Frameworks for regulated open data are proliferating across the globe; this is no longer a phenomenon focused predominantly within financial services but one reaching across multiple sectors. We are at a pivotal time for supporting the successful delivery of healthy and ethical regimes. These will unleash the inherent benefits of innovative products and services fostering greater access, inclusion, and financial well-being for businesses and individual consumers. With a global presence and proven history of impactful advocacy leveraging cross market intelligence on behalf of a diverse membership, FDATA is uniquely positioned to not just pave the policy pathway but help enable the open data economy.” KATHRYN PETRALIA, CHAIR of the FDATA GLOBAL BOARD
“Kathryn is a profoundly successful serial entrepreneur and a renowned, passionate champion for regulated open data. She has deep, diverse industry and regulatory connections at the highest levels, extensive board experience, dynamic vision, and clarity of strategic insight. For FDATA, the immediate future will see a reimagining of the organization with continued governance reform, and a broadening of mission scope to face into market environments being shaped by distinct regulatory frameworks such as Australia’s CDR, Canada’s CDF, the highly anticipated rulemaking on Dodd-Frank 1033 in the U.S., proliferation of Open Finance predicated on or leapfrogging Brazil’s Open Finance regime, and the continued evolution of Open Banking in the U.K./PSD2 in Europe. As it becomes more the association for regulated open data, the organization continues to strategically monitor and engage with other markets including Africa and GCC. Kathryn is the perfect choice to guide us successfully through this period of transformation, and I greatly look forward to working with her in this role.” RICHARD PRIOR, CEO, FDATA GLOBAL
