Comment on This executive left a great job at PayPal to run a gift card startup she thinks could help end poverty

Raise PayPal executive Kathleen Pierce-Gilmore left the company in October to join Raise, a gift card marketplace startup, as chief operating officer and president. Pierce-Gilmore, who grew up poor, thinks Raise can disrupt the credit industry in ways that PayPal and traditional finance companies can't. The COO and president was one of three executives hired around the time that Raise got $60 million in funding — including an investment from PayPal. Gift cards may not be the most obvious place to disrupt the banking industry, but Kathleen Pierce-Gilmore doesn't see it that way. After two years as the vice president and general manager of PayPal's US credit division, and over a decade spent between American Express and Capital One, Pierce-Gilmore decided to leave corporate America to join Raise, a Chicago-based startup that runs an online gift card marketplace. And it's all because she thinks Raise can have a serious impact on how low-income families manage their finances. Raise"I grew up incredibly poor and below the poverty line.