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CRO of Affirm on How “Buy now, pay later” Makes Money

In this episode of Tank Talks, host Matt Cohen sits down with Wayne Pommen, Chief Revenue Officer at Affirm and founder of PayBright, Canada’s first e-commerce buy now, pay later platform. Wayne shares his unlikely journey from competitive rowing, including the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, to a PhD in international relations, Bain Consulting, and private equity at TorQuest, where a failed deal set him on the path to building a fintech unicorn.

Wayne Pommen

Wayne Pommen

Wayne Pommen background

  • Wayne Pommen is Chief Revenue Officer at Affirm, where he oversees the company’s revenue-generating teams and products.
  • He joined Affirm in January 2021 through its acquisition of PayBright, Canada’s leading buy now, pay later provider, which he founded and led as President and CEO starting in 2015, growing it from 5 to 250 employees with retail partners including Apple, Hudson’s Bay, Wayfair, Samsung, and Sephora.
  • Before PayBright, Wayne was a Principal at TorQuest Partners and a consultant at Bain & Company.
  • A former competitive rower for Canada’s national team, he holds a degree from Harvard and a PhD from Cambridge.

Episode Overview

  • In this episode of Tank Talks, host Matt Cohen sits down with Wayne Pommen, Chief Revenue Officer at Affirm and founder of PayBright, Canada’s first e-commerce buy now, pay later platform.
  • Wayne shares his unlikely journey from competitive rowing, including the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, to a PhD in international relations, Bain Consulting, and private equity at TorQuest, where a failed deal set him on the path to building a fintech unicorn.
  • Wayne pulls back the curtain on PayBright’s early days, from spinning out a tiny 5-person division called HealthSmart Financial Services to pivoting into e-commerce and landing Casper and Endy as launch partners.
  • He offers a practical breakdown of running a successful M&A process, sharing the dos and don’ts that led to Affirm’s acquisition of PayBright in 2020.
  • Now a senior executive at a public fintech giant, Wayne reflects on what he’s learned from working alongside Max Levchin, why Affirm refuses to charge late fees or deferred interest, and how AI is transforming everything from underwriting to go-to-market.
  • He also shares his views on agentic commerce, the Canadian consumer credit landscape, and why “don’t quit” is his favorite life lesson.

Key Topics

  1. From Cambridge to Bain to Private Equity

    The Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, a broken wrist, and a comeback story

    Why he chose Bain over academia and how consulting shaped his career

    Joining TorQuest and zeroing in on non-bank financial services

  2. Finding the Kernel: HealthSmart Financial Services

    The summer of 2013, losing a deal but falling in love with the point-of-sale lending model

    Why banks ignored this niche and how technology was changing the game

    Spinning out a tiny five-person division with no CEO

  3. The Pivot to E-Commerce

    Doubling the health business in 2016 and realizing it would take forever

    The epiphany: Canada had no point-of-sale financing for e-commerce

    Mapping out the user experience over Christmas 2016 and pre-selling Casper and Endy

  4. Building PayBright: Scrappy, Fast, and Capital Efficient

    Running a “double-headed monster,” healthcare and e-commerce side by side

    Advice for founders navigating platform shifts, from legacy platforms to AI-native products

    The economics of buy now, pay later, merchant fees, interest rates, and cost of risk

  5. The Affirm Acquisition

    Growing annual loan volume from $6 million to $220 million in five years

    The COVID boom and inbound interest from Klarna, RBC, TD, and Affirm

    Running a mini process, dos and don’ts for founders

  6. Staying On: Becoming CRO at Affirm

    Why he stayed past the earnout and has now been there for more than three years

    Lessons from Max Levchin and the “dog on a bone” approach to going deeper

    How to stay focused across multiple products and jurisdictions

  7. Agentic Commerce and the Future of Shopping

    What agentic commerce really means and what it doesn’t

    Why agents will read the fine print and guide consumers to better choices

    The partnerships with Google, Stripe, and Shopify

  8. Banning Deferred Interest and Late Fees

    Why deferred interest is “borderline abusive” and hard to defend

    Affirm’s no-late-fee, no-compounding, transaction-level underwriting model

    Aligning lender and consumer interests, the Max Levchin insight

  9. From Private to Public: Lessons in Discipline

    How being public forces discipline without over-dictating the quarter

    Advice for CROs on timing the public markets

    Why Stripe staying private proves there’s no one-size-fits-all path

  10. AI at Affirm: Supercharging Revenue and Underwriting

    The proliferation of AI tools internally and the excitement of experimentation

    How transformer-based models are improving underwriting

    The future of work, querying Slack for tribal knowledge in seconds