Michael Linford
Chief Operating Officer
2024 – Present
2 years (current)
Key Decisions & Impact
As CFO, his defining decision was steering Affirm's capital-markets funding strategy -- diversifying beyond warehouse credit facilities into forward-flow loan sales to institutional buyers -- to fund loan growth without straining Affirm's own balance sheet during a period of rising interest rates.
Legacy
Linford is listed in Affirm investor materials as chief operating officer, focusing on operating discipline, merchant execution, product scaling, and the company model that connects consumers, merchants, and funding partners. Linford holds a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Texas at Austin and began his career as a business analyst at McKinsey & Company before spending seven years at KKR and later serving as vice president of M&A integration and then CFO of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Software. He joined Affirm as CFO in 2018 and was promoted to chief operating officer in an August 2024 leadership reshuffle, taking on finance, capital markets, bank strategy, risk, and communications oversight.