Michael Linford is the Chief Financial Officer of Affirm, a San Francisco-based fintech that operates as a financial lender of installment loans for consumers to use at the point of sale to finance a purchase. Founded in 2012, Affirm has since exploded in growth, notably partnering with giant e-commerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and Amazon, among others. As of February 2023, the growing fintech boasts a market cap of $3.84 billion.
Linford, who has been with Affirm since August 2018, has made many meaningful contributions to the company's ongoing success. As CFO, the executive has been instrumental in guiding the fintech through multiple successful fundraising rounds, including its successful initial public offering in January 2021, where – despite the many challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic – Linford's leadership helped raise $1.2 billion. Later that same year, he led the successful completion of a $1.7 billion convertible debt offering, which helps ensure continued investments in Affirm’s growth horizon for years to come.
In fact, in his role overseeing Affirm’s capital markets activities, Linford has seen his company successfully complete eight asset-backed securitization transactions since July 2020. His company was even named Esoteric ABS Issuer of the Year in 2021.
Today, in his CFO role, Linford continues his leadership in a wide range of areas: finance, accounting, capital markets, corporate development, and the strategic partnerships departments.
Linford began his career nearly 20 years ago in management consulting as a business analyst at McKinsey & Company. There, he focused on consumer and retail clients.
Since then, he has held multiple leadership roles within investment, IT, and software companies. Prior to joining Affirm, Linford was the CFO for Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Software, where he led commercial work for all company separations and served as the Vice President of M&A Integration. Before HP, the executive spent seven years at the global investment firm KKR & CO, working his way up to the rank of Principal. During this time, he offered strategic and tactical support to a wide portfolio of companies as a member of the operations group. In addition, he also held executive leadership roles at companies Micro Focus and Academy Sports + Outdoors.
Linford holds a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.