Tom Coombs

Tokyo, Japan

Member since January 21, 2019

Tom has 20 years of experience across finance/fintech, travel, people ops, and telecoms, in company sizes ranging from seed stage through to Xerox and Goldman Sachs. He co-founded and built a US fintech lending company where he led product and has also built consulting businesses and served clients across Europe, the US, and Japan. He has deep expertise in UX and a strong sense for design, having worked in design agencies and led designers.

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Project Highlights

LendStreet Loan Origination System
Led the strategy, design, and build of LendStreet's proprietary loan origination system.
Zuman People Ops Employee mobile app
Led the design of an employee app for Zuman's clients' employees.

Expertise

Fintech
Investor Relations
Product Management
Protoyping
Survey Development & Analysis
Tableau
User Experience (UX)
User Research

Education

Master's degree
Loughborough University
Bachelor's degree
University of Oxford

Employment

Co-founder, Head of Product
2011 - PRESENT
Lend Street Financial, Inc.
- Led product strategy to build a loan origination system from the ground up.
- Established the design process and user research/engagement protocol.
- Implemented data warehousing and business intelligence capability (using Redshift/Panoply/Tableau).
- Hired for and led design and product.
- Handled pitching and communication with existing investors and the board.
Founder, Lead Consultant
2004 - 2015
Man Woman and Child Ltd
- Created digital strategies for clients ranging from seed stage startups to government departments.
- Planned and led user research engagement on three continents.
- Created designs for websites and native mobile apps.
- Worked as an embedded consultant, leading teams, and as an international outpost for agencies' foreign clients.
- Managed processes from early-stage strategic through to development and QA cycles.
Digital and Brand strategist
2005 - 2008
Moving Brands
- Led Information architecture for the Nokia website, which launched in 55 countries.
- Led the brand strategy research and online information architecture for Swisscom (Swiss national Telco).
- Led user research, digital strategy, and information architecture for numerous clients across Europe and the US.
UX Designer/Information Architect
2004 - 2006
Opodo
- Designed customer service center admin portal for this online travel/leisure company.
- Conducted on-site user research.
- Designed and worked closely with the engineering team on design for new hotel booking system.
Analyst/Programmer
1997 - 2001
Goldman Sachs
- Developed software for internal proprietary systems (trade booking and equity research).
- Performed database architecture and optimization.
- Conducted user research with equities trading desk, and back office settlement team users.

Project History

LendStreet Loan Origination System
http://lendstreet.com
Led the strategy, design, and build of LendStreet's proprietary loan origination system.
As co-founder and head of product, I played numerous roles in building the company and the loan origination system.

- Led product to create a loan underwriting and origination system from the ground up
- Created strategies for handling data from multiple sources to be used for underwriting decisions
- Handled requirements for regulatory compliance e.g. Truth in Lending Act, as well as the US state-by-state legislation requirements
- Created workflow processes and sourced tools for design and product management functions
- Built product management automation tool, akin to a front end testing tool (using Selenium and Ruby)
Zuman People Ops Employee mobile app
Led the design of an employee app for Zuman's clients' employees.
Zuman is a people ops outsourcing company, supporting mid-sized companies with their people ops functions. Their mission is to supply high-end level of service. The apps needed to honor that.

I led a team of UX and visual designers to deliver the design for this iOS/Android app from scratch. The product had to handle several interactions involving high data density. We created some really innovative solutions to handle these.