Senior Product Manager - Business Lending

In the days after the 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed most of San Francisco, the city's banks stayed shut, their vaults too hot to open for weeks. Amadeo Giannini, who ran the small Bank of Italy, did the opposite. He set up a makeshift desk on the wharf, a plank laid across two barrels, and began lending. Most of his customers were shopkeepers, fishermen, and tradespeople who had lost everything, including any papers proving who they were. So Giannini lent on a signature and a handshake, betting on the people in front of him.…