Former Morgan Stanley chief executive John Mack has joined the board of Lending Club, an online lending platform.
He joined the Lending Club board after investing with the company, according to Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche. The company said Mack was unavailable to comment.
Lending Club specializes in providing loans to prime and superprime consumers by connecting borrowers directly with investors on its website. As of March 2012, the average borrower had a credit score of 715 and roughly $70,000 in annual income.
Mack, who stepped down as head of Morgan Stanley late last year, remains active in the financial community, serving as an advisor to the China Investment Corporation and recently joining the board of prepaid debit card company Rev WorldWide.
Mack, who invested in one of two diversified funds Lending Club offers, "was a very happy customer and we started talking more and he was providing strategic insights," says Laplanche.
"We tried to get him as a borrower but he wasn't interested," he jokes.
Laplanche says that the former head of Morgan Stanley, who is also credited with helping guide the investment bank through the financial crisis, will be a key addition to the company's growing board.
"John obviously has a long career primarily in fixed income investments," he says. Mack first joined Morgan Stanley as a bond trader in 1972, rising to manage the firm's fixed income division and leaving for a time, before eventually returning and taking the helm as its leader.
Lending Club's CEO says that the company expects to add several more board members in coming months, as it continues to expand.
The lending site has originated more than half a billion loans since it launched in 2007, and Laplanche says it anticipates originating $80 million in loans a month sometime this year.
"We started slowly, ramping up faster over the past two to three years," he says.
Mack joins Laplanche and investors Jeff Crowe of Norwest Venture Partners, Daniel Ciporin of Canaan Partners and Rebecca Lynn of Morgenthaler Ventures on the company's board.
