It appears that SoFi thinks that Twitter Chief Operating Officer Anthony Noto is the right person to lead the online lender out of its recent rough patch.
SoFi has been on the hunt for a new CEO ever since Mike Cagney abruptly resigned as CEO back in September amid controversy.
SoFi initially announced in mid-September that Cagney planned to resign “by the end of the year” while the company dealt with claims that the company fired a former employee for reporting sexual harassment allegations to his superiors.
The former employee, Brandon Charles, formerly a senior operations manager at SoFi, said in a lawsuit that he witnessed his female colleagues being harassed by managers.
Cagney later responded to those claims, saying in an email to all of SoFi’s employees that the company does not tolerate this type of behavior and was conducting an investigation into the allegations.
The company then announced that Cagney would be stepping down at an undetermined point between mid-September and the end of the year.
But that time period ended up being much shorter, as just five days after announcing that Cagney planned to step down, Cagney immediately stepped down.
Now, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal, SoFi is pursuing Noto, who helps lead operations at Twitter, to take over as the company’s permanent replacement for Cagney.
From the WSJ:
The San Francisco-based company has offered the job to Mr. Noto, currently Twitter’s operations chief and before that a top Silicon Valley banker at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Noto is likely to make a decision in the coming days, the people said.
Mr. Noto may turn down the offer, and terms haven’t yet been completed, the people said. Or Twitter might lobby hard to keep him, especially as Chief Executive Jack Dorsey splits his time between the social-media service and the other company he runs, Square Inc.
As the WSJ notes, Noto is a former banker at Goldman Sachs and also served as chief financial officer of the NFL in the early 2000’s.
According to the WSJ article, Noto wants to run a company, an itch he could scratch with SoFi.
If he does take the job, Noto would take over a company that’s lost some of its luster over the last year.
During the last few years, SoFi grew from a student loan company into one of the largest online residential mortgage retailers. Just under three years ago, SoFi broke into the mortgage business.
In 2016, SoFi made waves when it announced a partnership with Fannie Mae, which included a new loan option that allows homeowners to refinance their mortgage at a lower rate and pay down the balance of an existing student loan.
Last year, SoFi announced its intentions to break into banking and applied for a bank charter under the name SoFi Bank in Utah.
That move was met by resistance from other banks and members of Congress alike.
That plan was abandoned, at least for the time being, after Cagney stepped down.
While some may not have liked SoFi’s plans, investors showed significant interest in the company.
Last year, SoFi raised $500 million in Series F financing led by Silver Lake. That capital raise came roughly 18 months after it raised $1 billion in its Series E funding, which was led by SoftBank. At the time, the capital raise was the largest single financing round in the fintech space to date.
The company also previously indicated that it may go public in the future, plans that were almost certainly delayed by the controversy.
As the WSJ notes, Noto could make a decision soon on whether he wants to try to right the ship at SoFi or if he’d rather wait on a better offer.
