Career Story
Fintech growth executive, start-up advisor, and operating executive, Ryan Herman, has spent twenty years powering market-shifting ideas by using technology to enhance team productivity, operating practices, and customer experiences—collectively building and commercializing three award-winning fintech companies that served 2+ million customers and funded more than $4.5B in loans.
Through Performance Fintech, Ryan today helps visionaries of disruptive technologies develop products, commercialization strategies, and operating plans to enter and capitalize in the financial services and enterprise BPO space, bringing to his work a unique blend of multidisciplinary B2B and B2C experience that helps companies make the most of resources, capital, and time.
As co-founder and CEO of Solstice Capital Group (SCG), Ryan and his team were among the earliest innovators of the tech-first consumer-direct industry—a billion-dollar fintech play that used sophisticated sales sequences to remove the middleman from the lending equation. Together, they developed a confidential customer experience that bypassed the bank-based loan officer and put the consumer in charge. Instead of shaking hands across a desk, consumers could now explore and secure financing from the comfort of their own devices. SCG’s fintech offering also offered unparalleled scalability, and HSBC acquired the company in 2006.
Following SCG’s sale to HSBC—and leveraging emerging operations, workflow, and lead-routing automation—Ryan built First Direct Lending, LLC, a tech-first consumer-direct concept that leveraged lessons from SCG to optimize the mortgage customer and fulfillment experience. Most recently, he built Refi.com, a lead gen-driven loan validation and matching technology enabling quick prequalification and deeper in-funnel consumer-lender engagements that prioritize speed and confidentiality.
Ryan brings to his clients experience on three private company boards, management of P&Ls up to $83M, and the design of funding structures and opportunities, with executive capitalization spanning angel investments, VC evaluations and demonstrations, PE consultations, and sell-side M&A.
Born and raised in Hawaii, Ryan has long divided his time between Irvine, Miami, and Scottsdale, as well as Park City, where he watched the “Silicon Slopes” slogan become a reality.