Brad Stroh

Co-Founder and Co-CEO

Brad Stroh believes a financial services company can lead with heart and still build something that lasts. That conviction has shaped Achieve from day one. Brad co-founded the company in 2002 with Andrew Housser, and the two have served as Co-CEOs ever since, spending more than 20 years building tools and services that help everyday people get on, and stay on, the path to a better financial future.

Today, Achieve is a leader in digital personal finance, offering debt relief, personal loans, home equity loans, and financial tools designed around real people and real situations. Brad helps guide that mission, pairing data and analytics with the empathetic human touch that defines the company. He has played a central role in shaping Achieve’s strategy and culture as the business has grown from a two-person startup into a national financial services company.

An accomplished entrepreneur, investor, author and educator, Brad has built his career around the belief that strong businesses do not have to choose between purpose and performance. His approach to leadership emphasizes candor, transparency and hiring people who share the company’s values. Beyond Achieve, he draws on his experience to teach and write about entrepreneurship, leadership and building companies designed to create lasting value.

Building Achieve

Brad and Andrew met at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where they shared a commitment to becoming entrepreneurs. They saw a need most financial services companies were not focused on helping consumers manage debt or recover from financial setbacks. That gap became the founding idea behind Freedom Financial Network in 2002. Brad co-founded Bills.com in 2005, and in 2022 the Freedom Financial Network was rebranded as Achieve.

Since 2002, the company has helped more than 2 million consumers resolve over $20 billion in debt and has facilitated more than $15 billion in personal and home equity lines of credit (HELOCs). Achieve has grown from a two-person startup to a national company with 2,800 teammates across the country.

Brad has described Achieve as a business of “hearts and dollars,” highlighting the idea that caring deeply for customers drives both the mission and the results. He points to brutal honesty, transparency, and hiring people who share the company’s values as the operating principles that keep that balance intact. That philosophy reflects his belief that Achieve should succeed only when it does right by the people it serves and that purpose and performance can reinforce one another.

Experience before Achieve

Before founding Achieve, Brad invested in financial services and growth companies at TA Associates, CIVC Partners, and Doll Capital Management. He also worked with two startups: Trigo Technologies, later sold to IBM, and Luminous Networks, a gigabit ethernet startup. His early career gave him experience across private equity, venture capital and startup operations, shaping his understanding of what it takes to evaluate opportunities, build strong teams and grow a business sustainably. That mix of investing and operating experience informs how he leads Achieve today, from setting long-term strategy and evaluating new opportunities to cultivating a culture built around candor, accountability and care.

Education

Brad earned a Bachelor of Arts in literature and economics from Amherst College, where he captained the men’s varsity lacrosse team. He went on to earn an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.

Recognition

• Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 (Northern California), a joint award with co-founder Andrew Housser

• Named to the Silicon Valley “40 Under 40” list by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal

• Under Brad’s leadership, Freedom Financial Network and Achieve have been recognized on the Inc. 500 list, Entrepreneur Magazine’s Hot 100, and Best Places to Work in Silicon Valley and Phoenix

• Achieve was named to the Phoenix Business Journal’s Best Places to Work list for the 15th time in 2025, including five previous No. 1 rankings

• Achieve was recognized in Built In’s 2025 Best Places to Work Awards for San Francisco and Dallas, marking the company’s seventh consecutive year on Built In’s lists

• Achieve was named to Az Business magazine’s AZ Big 100 list for 2026, recognizing organizations expected to play a meaningful role in Arizona’s economy

• Achieve was named one of Arizona’s Most Admired Companies in 2025 for the fifth consecutive year, recognizing its performance in customer opinion, innovation, leadership excellence, social responsibility and workplace culture

• Achieve was named the No. 1 finance company for women to work for by InHerSight in 2026, and earned recognition across seven additional workplace categories

• Achieve was named among Az Business magazine’s 10 Best Places for Women to Work in Arizona for 2026

• Achieve was named among BestCompaniesAZ’s Top 3 Best Workplaces for LGBTQ+ Employees in 2026

• Achieve earned a sixth consecutive top-three ranking from LendingTree for personal loan customer satisfaction in the second quarter of 2026

Boards and community

Brad serves as an investor, board member, and adviser to a range of companies and organizations. His roles have included Advisory Board Member at Apartment List and board positions at ECC Inc. and Goldline International, along with adviser or board roles at Ujogo, BioIQ, Position2, SharesPost, Stream Dynamics, Realty Nation, Vertical Brands, Group Card, Home-Account, and Vitality Health (sold to CarePayment Technologies). He also serves on the USA Lacrosse Foundation Board and the Amherst College President’s Council.

Brad regularly speaks and guest lectures on entrepreneurship and leadership, including at Stanford and Northwestern, drawing on his experience building Achieve from a two-person startup into a national financial services company. He is also the author of the novel “The Dharma King” and the forthcoming business playbook “From Spark to Scale.” Through his advising, board service, speaking and writing, Brad shares lessons on leadership, company culture, business strategy and sustainable growth.

In his words

Brad sees technology and partnership as ways to widen access, not replace the human side of finance. On Achieve’s December 2025 partnership with Pagaya, he said: