Taycor Financial added Pallavi Kharbanda, Ph.D., as head of data science and Justin Wheeler as head of product and business development. They will report to Michael Hong, CEO of Taycor, and will be part of Taycor’s executive leadership team.

Kharbanda joined Taycor after being a freelance data scientist and university professor. Kharbanda has advanced degrees in statistics and mathematics and has been published in international journals for her research. Kharbanda has a doctorate in applied mathematics and was a professor of statistics, predictive modeling, data processing and machine learning for more than a decade.

“Data science is critical to competing at the highest levels,” Robert Butler, chief technology officer for Taycor, said. “We are so pleased to have someone with Dr. Kharbanda’s knowledge and experience on the Taycor technology team.”

Wheeler joined Taycor after spending the last three years at Currency Capital, where he served as chief product officer and oversaw technology, innovation and supported business development efforts. Prior to Currency, Wheeler was VP of product innovation at Survey Sampling International and VP of product innovation and business development at Instantly. Wheeler started his career at Overture Services, which was acquired by Yahoo Search Marketing.

“Justin is visionary and an ambassador of breakthrough technology — a true innovator,” Hong said. “His serial successes and experience in the equipment finance space makes him an obvious choice to lead product and business development initiatives at Taycor. We are thrilled to welcome Justin to Taycor’s executive team.

“We welcome both Pallavi and Justin as well as all our newest team members in sales and operations with great enthusiasm and know that they’ll all play a crucial role in Taycor’s continued growth.”