Alex McLeod is the founder and CEO of Parlay, an AI-native fintech building the Loan Intelligence System (LIS) — the intake, eligibility, and product-matching layer that sits upstream of the loan origination systems banks already run. Parlay turns the front end of SMB and SBA lending into structured, decision-ready data and reaches lenders through partnerships with teams like Mastercard.
An immigrant and a military spouse, Alex works from a conviction that predates the company: the infrastructure of capital decides who gets a shot. She founded the Refugee Upskilling Program after the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal, and served on the founding teams of social-impact ventures in Port-au-Prince and Buffalo that built tech career pathways for displaced people. Earlier, she was product manager for Deloitte’s first blockchain SaaS product, built for disaster recovery. Alex has spoken at Defense Acquisition University’s TEDx on blockchain as a defense capability. She holds an MBA from the University at Buffalo and an MPhil and BA from Trinity College, Cambridge.
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