Online lender OnDeck appointed Nick Brown as chief risk officer. In this newly created role, Brown will oversee OnDeck’s credit and risk management strategy and execution, including credit and operational risk controls, portfolio monitoring and the further development and optimization of OnDeck’s credit scoring models and credit policy.

Brown joins OnDeck from Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), where he most recently served as the general manager of the Group Decision Sciences team, and earlier as the general manager of Group Portfolio Optimization.

Prior to CBA, Brown ran the consumer lending business at Discover Financial Services (DFS), where he grew the personal loan book while simultaneously improving credit quality. While at DFS, he also led the acquisition of the student lending company from Citigroup.

During the financial crisis, Brown oversaw portfolio risk management and then acquisition risk management for DFS, helping create a highly durable risk management approach. He has worked across numerous functions in the last 18 years including IT, Marketing, Risk, Operations and Procurement, applying to each a unique combination of analytic focus, technology innovation and business operations pragmatism. Brown held earlier roles at MBNA and Capital One and holds a PhD in Organizational Behavior and Statistics from Cornell University.

“Nick Brown brings a wealth of experience in audit, compliance, credit and enterprise risk management with diversified and complex financial institutions. His extensive knowledge and credit experience will be a great asset to OnDeck as we continue our focus on making sound decisions in a changing financial and regulatory environment,” said Noah Breslow, CEO, OnDeck. “Credit performance is paramount to the health of our business and critical for sustaining our leadership in the market. As our chief risk officer, Nick will be a crucial member of our leadership team in fostering a strong risk culture that helps responsibly grow our business.”