Hanson Hodges · Product, Technology and Operations Executive
Transforming and operating bank and fintech businesses.
Payments, banking and lending, from zero to revenue. Two decades leading operations, product and engineering organizations from forty people to over two thousand, and the last few years transforming and running a company on an agentic operating model.
By theme, not by employer
Results
Payments businesses from zero
- Launched an embedded payments business inside a top-20 bank: $10M in income in the first nine months, 22,100 businesses served in year one.
- Stood up the industry's first PayFac-as-a-Service: 0 to 500 merchants within three months of go-live, 102 partners in four.
- Modernized a global processor serving more than a million merchant locations, with an API-first path for PayFacs, ISOs and sponsor banks.
Lending
- Reset a lender's product portfolio around build, buy or partner: $25M in incremental funded loans in the first two months.
- Tripled a lending fintech's assets under management from $50M to $150M while the team grew from 40 to 110.
- Expanded the product line with different terms, underwriting, adjustable schedules and fund-to-card, lifting affordability and conversion.
Operating model
- Cut lead time from 90 days to 5 for 85% of all work, with multiple releases a day and zero production incidents in the last year.
- Built and scaled an agentic operating model with enforced process, failing tests first and model independence. The write-up is on the AI page.
- Guided 43 product and engineering teams across four business units through the shift from output to value delivered; lead time for large new products from 18 months to under three.
Product delivery
- Took a wholesale vehicle marketplace from concept to cash in five months: 4,000 users within two months and $1B transacted in the first nine.
- Built the product and PMO functions from scratch at a start-up through its growth to mid-size, including the strategy presented to the board.
- Planned and led SOX, PCI and OCC audits for acquiring and issuing processor services.
Four of these are written up as case studies on the track record page.
How I work
I'm usually brought in when an institution needs a business that doesn't exist yet: a payments line with its own P&L, a product portfolio that has to be reset, an engineering organization that has to ship ten times faster without the cost base following. I own the number, I'm on the early sales calls, and I can continue to innovate and improve the business after the initial transformation.
The last two years I've run product and engineering on AI agents, with a human holding the three decisions that matter most. It's the most interesting thing I've built, and something I am proud to share: the agentic operating model.
Beyond the day job
- Founder, LPG — payments infrastructure (PayFac-as-a-Service and orchestration) for sponsor banks and software platforms. lpgpay.com
- Founder, Lean Product Group — the practice behind this site. How we work with companies.
- Co-Founder and COO, Piceus, Inc. — agentic infrastructure and research company.
- Advisory Board, University of Georgia MIS and Board of Advisors, Token X.
- Guest lecturer on product management, AI and agentic AI at the University of Georgia.
Recent writing
- AI Operating ModelsWhat the agentic operating model produced: 90 days to 5, multiple releases a day, zero incidentsNumbers from a fintech of more than a hundred people running on this model. Lead time from 90 days to five for 85% of work, multiple releases a day with zero production incidents in the last year, revenue doubled and customers tripled at 45 to 50 percent unit margin while the team grew from 40 to 110. Here is what the numbers mean and what they don't.
- AI Operating ModelsThe tools will change. The process only hardens.Claude Code runs the pipeline, Cursor and Codex sit in the editor, and a weekly multi-model vetting and scoring process decides which model each agent uses for each job regardless of vendor. None of that is the model. The operating model is the thing that gets stronger every time the tools underneath it change.
- AI Operating ModelsGreenfield and brownfield: same gates, different first questionThe operating model runs in two configurations. Greenfield starts from an empty repository and writes the standards as it writes the code. Brownfield starts inside a product already in production, where the agents must learn the codebase, its rules and its failure history before they may propose anything. The phases and gates are identical; what changes is what has to be known before the first one opens.
For event and board use
Short bio
Hanson Hodges is a product, technology and operations executive in financial services, the founder of LPG and Lean Product Group, and co-founder and COO of Piceus, Inc., an agentic infrastructure and research company. He transforms and operates bank and fintech businesses, then runs them safely on agentic AI: an embedded payments business taken to $10M in nine months and a lending platform tripled in assets on an agentic operating model. He sits on the University of Georgia MIS advisory board and the Token X board of advisors, and guest lectures on product management, AI and agentic AI at the University of Georgia.
Working on a payments program, a lending platform, or an agentic operating model?
If the problem is one I've solved before, I'll say so; if it isn't, I'll say that too.
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