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David Chen Steps Down as Atome CEO, Joins GoTo as Head of Consumer Lending

David Chen, previously CEO of the Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) firm Atome, has stepped down to join Indonesia’s GoTo Financial as Head of Consumer Lending.

According to Atome, Chen had significantly contributed to the firm’s growth into a leading digital financial services and embedded financing platform in Southeast Asia with more than a decade of experience in the technology and financial industries.

Before his tenure at Atome, Chen founded and led Singapore consumer lifestyle app Nestia from 2014 to 2017. With a PhD from the University of Washington and a master’s degree from Fudan University, both in Computer Science, Chen has held several academic positions.

He served as a Chair Professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University and a Tenured Associate Professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Despite his transition to GoTo, Chen will maintain his position as Co-founder of the Advance Intelligence Group, the parent company of Atome, as well as Chairman at Atome Financial.

Established in 2016, Advance Intelligence Group has developed a suite of AI-powered, credit-enabled products and services. This suite includes the BNPL platform Atome, SaaS enterprise solutions provider ADVANCE.AI, and Ginee, an omnichannel ecommerce merchant services platform.

The group has garnered substantial investment, raising over US$700 million from notable backers such as Softbank Vision Fund 2, Warburg Pincus, Northstar Group, Standard Chartered Bank, and Singapore-based EDBI.

In May last year, Trasy Lou Walsh, Atome’s regional general manager, had also stepped down to become a co-founder and CEO at Fluid, a B2B payments company.

Featured image credit: Edited from Freepik