Kathleen Pierce-Gilmore is president of SoFi Technology Solutions, formerly Galileo, which processes card and account activity for fintechs and banks. A payments executive who grew up poor, she has spent her career in credit and payments at some of the largest companies in finance and joined SoFi in May 2026.
Growing Up Poor
"I didn't realize it when I was younger, but it created a very strong condition in me of financial discipline," she has said of her childhood. It also left her wanting to help others feel the same financial security.
Credit at American Express, Capital One and PayPal
She spent more than a decade between American Express and Capital One, where as a vice president she saw the heavy credit debts that can trap vulnerable customers. She then spent two years as vice president and general manager of PayPal's US credit division.
Gift Cards and Silicon Valley Bank
In October 2017 she left PayPal to become chief operating officer and president of Raise, a Chicago, Illinois, gift card marketplace, because prepaid products carried no risk of customers getting in over their heads. "We're not hurting anyone, only helping," she said. She later ran Lingua Franca Search and became head of payments at Silicon Valley Bank.
Issuer Solutions at Visa
From 2023 she spent three years at Visa as senior vice president and global head of issuer solutions, overseeing more than 150 products in a business with more than $4B of annual revenue and more than 7,000 issuer clients.
Running SoFi's Technology Arm
In May 2026 she became president of SoFi Technology Solutions, reporting to SoFi chief executive Anthony Noto. "I now work for a company with the sole mission to help people reach financial independence to realize their ambitions," she said.
She left the credit business once because she did not like what debt did to the people it served. She now runs the infrastructure behind other companies' cards and accounts, at a firm whose mission is the financial security she has said she found for herself.
