It started with a mission to become the industry's fastest submission-to-fund lender. This meant solving one of the industry's "unsolvable" problems: automating the subjective "gut underwrites" where underwriters rely on experience to make judgment calls.
Minyang Jiang (MJ), Chief Strategy Officer, and Brad Garon, VP of Product, knew that pioneering these new GenAI technologies introduced a steep learning curve that required everyone in the company to row in the same direction.
“Getting our first model out there was a huge uphill battle. We had to convince everybody within the organization that we had put the proper controls in place to prevent things like hallucinations, and really, that first win set up the foundation for our success. From there, the desire within the organization to continue to roll out models of this nature grew exponentially.”
- Brad Garon | VP of Product | Credibly
To kick-start the first innovation team, MJ and Brad took inspiration from Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Program, famously known as Skunk Works. Lockheed Martin assembled small, elite teams of engineers and designers, empowering them to tackle the nation's most complex and often classified aerospace challenges. These teams operated with a philosophy of autonomy and minimal bureaucracy, which resulted in several breakthroughs in aerospace engineering.
Similarly, MJ and Brad assembled a cross-functional team of handpicked, high-potential leaders and gave them the freedom to experiment, take risks, and operate without the usual constraints. The team’s focus was to innovate new technologies to overcome hurdles that even external vendors couldn't solve.
MJ and Brad are now working to empower employees at every level to use emerging tech to push the boundaries of their work. From conducting company AI trainings to developing cross-departmental teams of AI champions, they are equipping future leaders to tackle the “unsolvable” across functions.
“It’s not just about people being able to do their jobs more efficiently, but challenging ourselves to think bigger. It’s not “do things better”, but “do better things.”
- MJ Jiang | Chief Strategy Officer | Credibly
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