Varo names Jon Alferness chief product officer

Jon joins the company at a pivotal time as Varo continues to expand its digital banking offerings with a focus on enabling wealth creation for underserved communities that have been left behind by the traditional banking industry.

Alferness brings over 20 years of experience in building, scaling and optimizing consumer products. Most recently as VP of Rideshare at Lyft, where he led the engineering, product, and revenue teams of the company’s core consumer and enterprise ride sharing businesses. Prior to Lyft, Jon served as SVP, Ads and Commerce at Pinterest, leading the company’s revenue operation after spending twelve years at Google, where he held a number of leadership roles on the ads and commerce teams.

“We are thrilled to have Jon join Varo,” said Colin Walsh, Varo Bank’s founder and Chief Executive Officer. “To win in an increasingly competitive environment, Jon and his team will focus on an integrated product strategy that delivers significantly greater core product value and engagement with our customers. They will leverage Varo’s unique assets to drive product innovation and rapidly accelerate customer growth and profitability.”

“Throughout my career, I’ve worked closely to focus development teams on the critical needs of users in order to build long-term, high-growth, sustainable businesses,” said Alferness. “I’m thrilled to join Varo, and with our very capable development teams, to unlock the power and opportunity of banking for all.”

Varo Bank recently raised $510 million in a Series E round taking its valuation to $2.5 billion. The bank has also doubled its customer accounts to four million and tripled revenue since being awarded its charter.