Welcome (again) Derek Higginbotham

Derek Higginbotham joined Klaros as a senior advisor in January 2025. After 9 months in that role, I’m thrilled that he’s now chosen to join Klaros as a partner. 

Derek Higginbotham

Derek’s distinguished himself as a banker who understands how to operate in tech and a fintech-er who understands good banking. At Klaros, Derek leverages this experience in bank-fintech matchmaking, building fintech-forward bank strategies, and regulatory enforcement resolution. We’re also enjoying taking advantage of Derek’s passion for topics beyond sponsor banking and embedded finance: leveraging him for AI initiatives, stablecoin strategies, and the launch of Klaros Talent, to name a few.

Derek’s experience as CEO of one of the top-performing sponsor banks in the U.S. makes him a valuable resource to Klaros clients as well as to the Klaros team. At First Electronic Bank in Salt Lake City, he led the bank through a period of explosive growth, scaling annual lending from $1 billion to $14 billion in just four years, a 1400% increase. Under his leadership, FEB  became one of the highest ROE banks in the industry, serving millions of customers and ranking in the top 2 percent of growth banks nationally. Its clients included industry leaders like Cash App, Afterpay, Cardless, Imprint, Fundbox, and other leading fintechs.

Perhaps most relevant to Klaros clients, Derek and his team achieved this growth while navigating the intense regulatory and industry volatility of the last five years.  Focusing on reverse-engineering product-level risks and proactively resolving failure points before they could surface, Derek’s FEB built a gold-standard fintech risk and compliance business while still delivering outstanding financial results.

Prior to FEB, Derek served as general counsel at an early-stage fintech platform, Applied Data Finance, advising the board of directors and management on legal matters related to capital markets and financing, strategic partnerships and new initiatives, corporate governance, licensing, contract negotiation, and other regulatory and operational topics. Earlier in his career, he held law firm and in-house legal roles in various transactional areas, including structured finance, M&A, and securities.

If you have a problem that Derek might be able to help with, you can find him at derek@klarosgroup.com. If there’s anything else Klaros might be able to help with, just drop a note to hello@klaros.com.