Tess Michaels

Tess Michaels is the Founder and CEO of Stride Funding, a venture-backed student financing company that offers employer sponsored loans and outcomes-based financing (e.g., Deferred Tuition Agreements and Income Share Agreements). Tess has spent her career growing and investing in mission-driven companies and founded Stride from a student-first perspective as an MBA at Harvard Business School. She is a serial entrepreneur that successfully exited her previous company (analytics company in the corporate social responsibility space) while completing her undergraduate degree at Wharton.Tess worked in investment banking at Goldman Sachs and in private equity at Vista Equity Partners, where she primarily worked with founding and executive teams across high-growth technology companies. Tess is also recognized as a member of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in education.