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Back in 2008, when auction giant eBay acquired Bill Me Later (BML), a Maryland-based payment credit company, Brian Whalen and his BML colleagues breathed a sigh of relief.

\u201cWe had just enough liquidity and options to give us the runway to sell to eBay and PayPal, so\u2014from a learning perspective\u2014it was really about asking the questions \u2018How do you keep those options open?\u2019 and \u2018How do you keep your liquidity choices available to you so that you can capture the moment?\u2019\u201d says Whalen.

Having served in a number business development roles at BML, he recalls as if it were yesterday the sudden wallop that the credit crisis delivered: \u201cIt hit us like a sledgehammer, so we made the decision to tighten credit and sacrifice some growth for the quality of our assets.\u201d

In addition to preserving cash, BML would raise $100 million from Amazon and T. Rowe Price, while having discussions with a string of potential suitors. Ultimately, in October 2008, eBay acquired the firm for $820 million in cash and approximately $125 million in stock.

\u201cPeople will joke and say, \u2018It\u2019s better to be lucky than good,\u2019 but to a certain extent, we made our own luck by being prepared,\u201d explains Whalen, who relocated to California following the acquisition of BML to serve in a number of business development and finance roles at PayPal headquarters, including CFO of PayPal\u2019s global credit group. Eventually, he stepped back onto a more entrepreneurial FinTech path that has led him to the CFO office at Branch, a start-up specializing in what are widely labeled as \u201cfinancial wellness\u201d offerings for companies and their employees.\xa0\u2013Jack Sweeney