ABOUT THIS EPISODE
The last time Imprint's Chief Risk Officer and Chief Revenue Officer disagreed, it was the risk officer pushing to approve more customers — and the revenue officer asking whether this was the right environment to do it.
That's the first two-guest episode of The LeanScale Podcast. Lalitha Rao (Chief Risk Officer, ex-Capital One, Stripe, Square) and Tyler Dibble (Chief Revenue Officer, ex-SoFi, Chime, OnePay) share the same partners and the same profitability target at Imprint, the payments and loyalty platform behind co-brand cards for Booking.com, H-E-B, Crate & Barrel, Rakuten and — as of the morning we recorded — Kroger.
We get into how risk becomes a growth lever when partner data sharpens underwriting, why the risk leader sits in the sales room, what "no handoffs" looks like across a seven-year partnership, and how AI changed the day-to-day of both teams — including the rule that "Claude got it wrong" is never an acceptable answer.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
Why Imprint's Chief Risk Officer is paid to find ways to say yes, not to minimize losses
How a shared profitability target removes the need for a tiebreaker between risk and revenue
How partner data (membership tenure, spend trajectory) gives underwriting signal the credit bureau can't
Why the Chief Risk Officer joins sales conversations with enterprise partners
How owning the tech stack enables SKU-level rewards — and turns into inbound demand
What "no handoffs" looks like from signed logo to a live, growing card program
Why you own every word of a document with your name on it, no matter which tool wrote it
CHAPTERS
00:00 — Cold open + intro: two CROs, one company
02:13 — The last disagreement: risk pushed to expand, revenue asked to wait
05:52 — One profitability target — why no tiebreaker is needed
09:30 — Partner data as underwriting signal (Rakuten, Booking.com)
11:08 — GTM that starts with the partner's business metrics
13:31 — Why the Chief Risk Officer is in the sales room
16:54 — Sales-led for logos, marketing-led for cardholders
19:59 — Owning the stack: SKU-level rewards at H-E-B
24:54 — No handoffs: one team from signature to scale
28:35 — AI on the risk team: build the platform first
33:06 — AI in GTM: a rebuilt martech stack and faster cycle times
36:41 — "Claude got it wrong" is not an answer
40:21 — What's next for Imprint — and the Kroger launch
ABOUT THE GUEST
Lalitha Rao is Chief Risk Officer at Imprint. She spent several years at Capital One, led small business risk at Stripe through the pandemic surge, and ran credit policy at Square Financial Services before joining Imprint. Tyler Dibble is Imprint's Chief Revenue Officer. He came up through consumer fintech lending — running the student loan refinance P&L at SoFi, product at Chime, and lending at OnePay. Imprint is a payments and loyalty platform powering co-branded financial products for brands including Booking.com, H-E-B, Crate & Barrel, Rakuten and Kroger.
ABOUT THE LEANSCALE PODCAST
The LeanScale Podcast is the show for GTM operators building the next generation of revenue infrastructure. Hosted by Anthony Enrico, co-founder of LeanScale.
Subscribe for weekly conversations with CROs, RevOps leaders and GTM founders.
Learn more about LeanScale → https://www.leanscale.team
KEYWORDS / TAGS
Chief Risk Officer, Chief Revenue Officer, CRO, Risk as a growth function, Revenue and risk alignment, Co-branded credit cards, Credit card issuing, Fintech, Payments, Loyalty, Underwriting, Credit risk, Alternative data, Imprint, Kroger, Booking.com, H-E-B, Rakuten, Capital One, Stripe, SoFi, Chime, Enterprise partnerships, Partner-led growth, Enterprise sales, No handoffs, RevOps, GTM, Martech, AI, AI Agents, AI governance, Claude, Enterprise SaaS, LeanScale, LeanScale Podcast
HASHTAGS
#RevOps #GTM #AI #LeanScale #LeanScalePodcast #Fintech #Payments #CreditCards #CoBrand #Loyalty #CreditRisk #ChiefRevenueOfficer #ChiefRiskOfficer #EnterpriseSales #AIAgents
