Kate Hao

Kate Hao is the CEO of New York City-based Happy Mango, which she founded in 2013 to bring greater transparency to credit reporting. Kate was previously the treasurer of the broker-dealer subsidiary of Morgan Stanley, where she worked for over 12 years across various functions. While working as a bond trader during the 2008 crisis, she recognized the limitations of existing consumer credit reporting systems, which provided information about a problem only after the problem had occurred. Her training in fundamental financial analysis enabled her to develop a forward-looking consumer credit assessment algorithm that lay the foundation of the Happy Mango Score computation. Her executive experience in managing large teams and complex projects ultimately led to her decision to bring her idea forward and form Happy Mango. She earned her MBA from Harvard Business School and her Bachelor of Arts in Accounting from Albion College. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Financial Risk Manager (FRM).