At the Duke FinTech Seminar: Dan Wallace Continues His Path of Bringing the Cutting Edge of Tech to Consumers

There are three important things that contribute to someone’s success: “having a good mentor, having a life-long learning attitude and stepping outside of your comfort zone” – said Dan Wallace, Chief Executive Officer of Haven, the Duke FinTech Seminar’s guest speaker on October 27^th. Wallace talked about his career and how the desire to live a life with purpose brought him where he is today, as the CEO of Haven, a few years after he retired. He advised students not to confuse luck with the combination of having the right skills for the right place and at the right time – which is a fortunate context that we all can help create with a growth mindset.

Wallace continued his talk with a presentation about Haven, a mortgage servicing company, from an innovative fintech idea to the market. He talked about Haven in the context of home ownership in the US, “part of the American dream”. “The largest financial relationship that homeowners have is with their servicer,” he said. As a mortgage servicer, Haven is collecting and remitting payments to owners, evaluating incomes, assets, or credit, and is handling property taxes. “We don’t do a great job educating our country in financial literacy,” Wallace said. He added that -to fill this need – Haven is helping borrowers to meet their financial goals, resulting in greater lifetime customer relationships, and better consumer financial decisions. Prior to Haven, Dan led Lending at Figure Technologies. Prior to Figure, Dan spent 30 years in the lending and securitization industries, first as a Managing Director at Lehman Brothers, followed by Managing Partner and co-founder of Capital Crossing followed by several other executive roles.