MPOWER Financing appoints Indian-Origin Executive Anand Cavale as Chief Growth Officer

Banking and Fintech Veteran to build on MPOWER’s continued exponential growth

Bengaluru, August 8, 2023 — MPOWER Financing (“MPOWER”), a mission-driven fintech firm and leading provider of non-cosigned loans to promising students from India and around the world, today announced that Bangalorean Anand Cavale has joined as Chief Growth Officer. Anand is an alum of Bangalore University and holds an MBA from St. John’s University in the United States.

Cavale’s hiring comes on the heels of another year of exponential growth in loan volume for the company, and as MPOWER expands its suite of products and services for students from around the world pursuing higher education in the United States and Canada. Anand will be reporting to MPOWER’s CEO, Manu Smadja, and will be based in the U.S.

“Anand led several business lines across the world over a nearly 30-year career at Citigroup, and then led student lending at SoFi. He is exactly the leader MPOWER needs to manage the exponential growth we continue to see in our international student loan business, while building the foundation for MPOWER to add more financial products and ultimately become a Neobank for global citizens in the long run,” said Manu Smadja, CEO and Co-founder of MPOWER. “His deep experience leveraging emerging technologies at leading banking and fintech organizations will be invaluable as we continue our rapid growth, develop new financial products, and achieve our mission of making socioeconomic mobility accessible to millions of international students in North America.”

MPOWER students come from over 160 countries, with Indians comprising the largest share of MPOWER’s student population. This year, MPOWER has seen record growth in Indian students looking to study overseas, especially from Tier 3 cities and in cutting-edge fields including artificial intelligence and data analytics.

“As an international student myself from India, I know what a critical difference a great education can make,” said Cavale. “And as a General Manager of consumer franchises and having the opportunity to build new businesses, I am confident in the evolution of MPOWER towards being a Neobank and a multi-product, diversified business that serves this unique segment. I’m excited to put my experience to work to support MPOWER’s next phase of growth as we continue to create a pathway to success for international students in the U.S. and Canada.”

Cavale has more than 30 years of leadership experience across fintech, lending, payments, and banking in the U.S and Asia-Pacific. Prior to MPOWER, he was Business Head & General Manager at SoFi, where he served on the Executive Team and oversaw SoFi’s Student Loan and Personal Loans business. He spent the bulk of his career at Citibank, where he held several leadership positions, including Business and Country Head of credit card payments at Citibank Singapore; Managing Director and Country Head of cards and consumer lending at Citibank Malaysia; Senior Vice President of international cards; and Managing Director and Business Head of Citibank’s $6.5 billion U.S. consumer lending businesses.

MPOWER Financing is co-headquartered in Washington, D.C. and Bengaluru. MPOWER Financing’s leadership is fostering a workplace that promotes innovation, collaboration, professional development, productivity, and inclusion among its workforce. The company attracts top talent in technology and analytics to its state-of-the-art office in Bengaluru through competitive pay, performance bonuses, valuable stock options, and top-notch employee benefits ranging from generous paternity and maternity leave packages to professional development budgets. The firm opened a new office in Bengaluru in February.

Cavale’s hiring comes on the heels of a $150 million revolving asset-backed warehouse facility with Goldman Sachs as MPOWER taps the capital markets again to meet growing demand.