Robinhood’s COO, Gretchen Howard – Democratizing Finance, Navigating a Crisis, & Embracing Change

Miguel Armaza is joined by the very interesting Gretchen Howard, Chief Operating Officer at Robinhood, one of the most defining fintech companies of 2021, best known for aiming to democratize investing for everyone and popularizing commission-free trades. Founded in 2013 by Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhat, Robinhood has grown to one of my most recognizable household fintech brands over the last few months with more than 13 million clients. However, the company’s journey has not always been easy and without criticism. In this great episode, Gretchen and I explore: - Career trajectory, and what drove her to leave a senior role at CapitalG (Google) and join Robinhood in 2019 - What inspires her about the company and some of their exciting plans for the future - Gretchen’s first-hand account navigating the GameStop debacle in late January 2021 and, more importantly, some of the lessons learned from this experience and why Gretchen, Vlad, and the Robinhood team are now advocating for real-time trade settlement to improve the market. - As well as a number of other interesting topics Gretchen Howard Gretchen Howard is the Chief Operating Officer of Robinhood, a fast-growing brokerage giving millions of people access to our financial system. Before joining Robinhood, Gretchen was a Partner with CapitalG, Alphabet’s Growth Equity fund. While at Google, Gretchen was the co-site lead of the Google San Francisco office and a Managing Director in Sales & Business Operations, where she helped incubate, launch and scale Google's advertising offerings for SMB and large advertisers. Prior to joining Google in 2006, Gretchen was VP of Market Development and Field Sales for Fidelity Investments. She started her career working in consulting, helping companies implement new technology strategies. Gretchen holds a B.A. from Williams College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. She spends her free time serving as a Trustee of Williams College, serving on the board of the YMCA of Northern California, and spending time outside with her family. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Miguel's Twitter: twitter.com/MiguelArmaza Miguel's Substack: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp