Personal finance startup NerdWallet is announcing a couple of big hires today — Dan Yoo (pictured) is joining as chief operating officer, while Florence Thinh is the company’s new vice president of talent.
Yoo was previously vice president of business operations and business analytics at LinkedIn. He replaces NerdWallet co-founder Jake Gibson, who is shifting to an advisory role at the company. Apparently Gibson and his wife just had twins, so he plans to spend more time with his family — he told me that it was “largely serendipity” he and his co-founder Tim Chen (the company’s CEO) connected with Yoo when they were looking for advisors.
“He not only provided us with great advice, he made it clear that he loved our story and wanted to be more involved,” Gibson said. “So, of course, we jumped at the opportunity to bring Dan on board.”
Thinh, meanwhile, is filling a new position. She was previously an operating partner at Khosla Ventures, and before that, director of talent acquisition at Zynga. The company says it plans to double its headcount from 75 to 150 this year.
Founded in 2009, NerdWallet has a team of “Nerds” who help consumers choose between financial products in areas like banking, credit cards, insurance, and mortgages. The company has not taken on any outside funding, and with continued profitability, it says it has no plans to do so.
“We have some really exciting ideas for how to revamp our product to answer an even greater number of complex financial questions — the kind people would put to a financially savvy friend or financial professional,” said co-founder and CEO Tim Chen.
By the way, you can check out our tour of the company’s “nerd lair” here.