Fintech for Good - David Kafafian, COO of Clasp - March 5, 2025

Clasp (formerly Stride Funding) is a mission-driven fintech company headquartered in Boston that aims to revolutionize the way employers attract and retain employees in hard-to-hire fields, while simultaneously tackling the student debt crisis.

Speaker Bio:

David Kafafian has a diverse background across finance, technology, and law. His entry point into fintech began while at Harvard Law School, where he saw firsthand the challenges with the private student loan market (and generally the cost of education), causing him to jump into the outcomes-based funding space during its infancy (2015), advising university Presidents and CFOs who were exploring innovative funding models to support students. Prior to law school, David worked at IBM as a member of their Watson Analytics Group, where he worked with large banks and insurance companies designing and deploying AI solutions to support the use of alternative data and advanced analytics across lines of business. David also spent a number of years as an investment banker in JPMorgan’s M&A group, supporting Fortune 500 companies across a host of strategic transactions. At Clasp, David oversees product, credit, regulatory, and operations teams, while also leading all capital markets processes necessary to support the business.