Jurie Pieterse, Head of Marketing Communications for ING DIRECT, oversees all advertising, direct response and interactive marketing for the bank. Mr. Pieterse’s marketing efforts has been a key driver in the successful growth of the bank over the past 6 years and the resulting strong association of the iconic orange color and orange ball the brand is so well known for.

Prior to joining ING DIRECT, Mr. Pieterse was the Vice President of Internet Strategy at FCBi and previously held creative and strategic roles at DDB, BBDO and Leo Burnett in South Africa. Notably he was also the founder of a relationship marketing consultancy that won numerous awards and Mr. Pieterse was elected the South African Direct Marketing Association’s “Young Direct Marketer of the Year.”

Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Prosper

Chris Larsen is CEO and Co-Founder of Prosper, America’s largest people-to-people lending marketplace. 

For over a decade Chris Larsen has focused on using the Internet to make consumer lending more efficient, fair, honest, open, and trustworthy.  Prior to Prosper, Mr. Larsen co-founded and served as Chairman and CEO of E-LOAN.  Under Mr. Larsen’s leadership, E-LOAN closed over $27 billion in consumer loans, and was consistently ranked as one of the nation’s most trusted consumer brands.  E-LOAN earned consumers’ trust by taking radically pro-consumer actions such as being the first company to provide consumers with access to their credit scores, and playing a critical role in the passage of the strongest consumer financial privacy protection law in the nation.  Mr. Larsen led E-LOAN through a successful IPO in 1999, and oversaw the company’s acquisition by Popular, Inc. in 2005.

Mr. Larsen holds an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University and a B.S. degree from San Francisco State University, where he was named the 2004 Alumnus of the Year.

Tom is the Chief Growth Officer for TradeKing, a top-ranked nationally licensed online broker deal.  Prior to joining TradeKing, Tom was a co-founder, Partner and Managing Director of Baird Venture Partners, LLC, a venture capital firm based in Chicago, IL. Prior to Baird Venture Partners, Tom served as a Vice President in Robert W. Baird & Co.’s Investment Banking Group. Tom was also a Senior Product Manager and Senior Analyst at Morningstar, Inc. and an Associate in Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s Investment Banking Division. Tom earned an MBA with distinction from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and MA with high honors from Michigan State University and a BA, cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame.

Gabriel currently leads the marketing, product development and strategy functions at Zecco, and has increased new account volumes by a factor of eight since joining Zecco.  Previously, as Vice President of Marketing at E*TRADE, he led the online advertising, website marketing, consumer research, decision science and call center marketing teams.  Notable accomplishments at E*TRADE included leading a complete redesign of the etrade.com public site while helping drive dramatic growth in online brokerage accounts.  Gabriel also has retail financial services experience from JPMorgan Chase.  Gabriel obtained a BS and MS in nuclear engineering from the University of Florida and MIT, respectively.