Douglas Clark Merrill (born 1970) is an American technologist and fintech entrepreneur. He grew up in

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

and graduated from the University of Tulsa, majoring in social and political organization. Merrill attended

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, where he received master's and doctoral degrees in cognitive science. He was the CEO of ZestFinance until October 2019.

Career

Merrill is the CEO and founder of Zest AI (formerly Zest Finance), a Los Angeles-based financial services technology company that uses

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

and data science to help companies make more accurate credit decisions. The company announced a $19 million round of Series A funding in July 2011, and a $28 million round of Series B funding in January 2012. The company was one of Forbes’ Names You Need to Know in 2011 and a member of the Forbes Fintech 50 in 2015 and 2016. Previously, Merrill was CIO at Google from 2003-2008, and served as president of

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...

Music's digital unit from 2008-2009. In March 2010, Merrill published the book, ''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''. Merrill is also a former researcher with the RAND Corporation and is listed among the organization's participants. Merrill has contributed to business publications including ''

Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is a monthly American business magazine published in print and online that focuses on technology, business, and design. It publishes six print issues per year. History ''Fast Company'' was launched in November 1995 by Alan Web ...

'' and ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'', where he writes on innovation and culture, and how the two coincide. He also speaks regularly on innovation, reforming the U.S.

financial system A financial system is a system that allows the exchange of funds between financial market participants such as lenders, investors, and borrowers. Financial systems operate at national and global levels. Financial institutions consist of complex, ...

, and how credit providers can harness technological advances to change the way creditworthiness and risk are determined. His academic publications include articles in ''

The Journal of the Learning Sciences The ''Journal of the Learning Sciences'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on education and learning as theoretical and design sciences. It is one of two official publications of the International Society of the Learning Scien ...

'', ''Cognition and Instruction'', ''Reliable Distributed Systems'', and a paper in the book series ''

Lecture Notes in Computer Science ''Lecture Notes in Computer Science'' is a series of computer science books published by Springer Science+Business Media since 1973. Overview The series contains proceedings, post-proceedings, monographs, and Festschrifts. In addition, tutorial ...

''. He currently sits on the board of

The Filter The Filter's TV personalisation products increase viewing, loyalty and revenue. Their data science underpins the business decisions of the world’s most forward thinking broadcasters. Founded in 2004, it has ties to musician Peter Gabriel an ...

, a company developing recommendation filters for search engines.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Merrill, Douglas 1970 births Princeton University alumni Living people Google employees Financial technology University of Tulsa alumni