Wealthsimple has announced that Marina Harris will join as the new Chief People Officer to help manage and scale the Toronto-based FinTech’s workplace culture.
“I’ve been impressed with the culture at Wealthsimple and I’m looking forward to helping it flourish and scale.”
– Marina Harris
Harris is a tech human resources executive, who was most recently at Netflix, where she managed a team of human resources business partners that worked across the company’s product development operations. Prior to Netflix, Harris served as an HR Director at the Global Innovation Centre of Samsung, and was a senior manager and HR business partner at Cisco. Harris has a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto, a Master’s from the University of San Francisco, and a Strategic Program Management Certification from Stanford University.
“Wealthsimple’s mission to help everyone achieve financial freedom is one I’m passionate about, and I’m excited to be joining a company that has the opportunity to make a positive impact on people’s lives,” said Harris. “From the start, I’ve been impressed with the culture at Wealthsimple and I’m looking forward to helping it flourish and scale.”
Wealthsimple, founded in 2014, looks to make good investment advice more accessible to the younger investors. It has formed partnerships with incumbents H&R Block and TurboTax, as well as Canadian FinTech startups like Willful and Borrowell. Wealthsimple products include an investment platform that allows users to invest in a portfolio of low-fee funds, a savings account, and a trading product that lets users buy and sell stocks and exchange-traded funds on major Canadian and US exchanges.
Last month, Wealthsimple closed a $100 million investment round, marking the first time in four years the company brought in an independent investor. At the time of the announcement, Wealthsimple’s Katchen told BetaKit that the company owned 70 percent of the ‘digital advice’ space in Canada, at the time, adding that his goal is to eventually take the company public.
Image courtesy Marina Harris via LinkedIn