Douglas Merrill is the founder and CEO of ZestFinance, a Los Angeles-based financial technology company that uses machine learning and data science to help companies make more accurate credit decisions. ZestFinance enables lenders to analyze vast amounts of non-traditional credit data to increase approval rates and reduce risk, particularly for thin-file and no-file borrowers like millennials. Zest’s platform also provides the ability to explain data modeling results to measure business impact and comply with regulatory requirements.

As the former CIO and VP of Engineering at Google, Douglas led an organization of 1,500, oversaw all aspects of internal engineering and technology, and drove multiple strategic efforts, including Google’s IPO auction in 2004. He also served as COO of New Music at EMI Group, as SVP of Infrastructure and HR Strategy at Charles Schwab, and as an Information Scientist at the RAND Corporation.

He holds a PhD in cognitive science from Princeton, and is the author of “Getting Organized in the Google Era: How to Get Stuff Out of Your Head, Find It When You Need It, and Get It Done Right.”