Square bulks up financing leadership with Yahoo exec

As it prepares for a planned IPO, Square, the payments processing company led and co-founded by tech heavyweight Jack Dorsey is adding key executives to its Square Capital business financing operation.

The appointment follows the recent return of Dorsey to the helm of Twitter, which he also co-founded.



Square has hired Jackie Reses, who most recently served as chief development officer of Yahoo, to lead Square Capital. At Yahoo, she focused on revenue and product partnerships, strategic acquisitions, and operational and people transformation. She also served on the board of directors of Alibaba Group, which Yahoo holds a minority stake in.

“Square Capital reaches businesses that traditional financial institutions often neglect, and I’m very excited to expand that opportunity to others,” said Reses. “I believe in Square’s mission, and I’m thrilled to be joining the Square family and working with the team to support the company’s continued commitment to sellers of all sizes.“



Prior to Yahoo, Reses led the U.S. media group at private equity firm Apax Partners, and also spent seven years at Goldman Sachs in mergers and acquisitions and the principal investment area.



Square is planning to launch an IPO as the company generates massive revenues but is failing to turn a profit. In the IPO filing, Square said that during the first half of 2015, it had revenue of $560.6 million and a loss of $77.6 million. Square also revealed it has been losing money on a long-term payment processing deal with Starbucks.



Presumably by shoring up its financing business, which has advanced more than $225 million to Square sellers since 2004, the company is signaling it is serious about maximizing all sources of profitability.



Square also recently hired two additional senior professionals to join the Square Capital team. Henry Domenici leads Square Capital’s financing and joined from Morgan Stanley where he ran the consumer asset-backed securities business in the global capital markets division since 2009. Prior to that he spent 12 years at Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital in various senior financing roles.



Ted Kosev leads product management and operations for Square Capital. He joined from Amazon, where he launched and grew Amazon Lending from program design to international expansion. Kosey also served as head of seller marketing and acquisition for Amazon's B2B marketplace.