Suggestions
Derrick Fung
CEO of Drop
Derrick Fung is the CEO and Co-founder of Drop, a mobile rewards app that allows users to earn points on everyday spending across various debit and credit cards. Under his leadership, Drop has gained significant traction, amassing over 3 million members and ranking in the top three apps in both Canada and the U.S..13
Background and Education
Born on October 19, 1987, in North York, Ontario, Canada, Derrick Fung attended York Mills Collegiate and later graduated from the University of Toronto Scarborough with a Bachelor of Business Administration. During his university years, he interned at notable firms such as Microsoft and Merrill Lynch, where he worked on the trading floor.34 He was recognized for his leadership potential with the Gordon Cressy Award in 2010.
Career Path
Before founding Drop in 2016, Derrick Fung was an accomplished foreign exchange trader at various investment banks, including Merrill Lynch and BNP Paribas. He also co-founded Tunezy, a music company that was acquired by SFX Entertainment in 2013. At SFX, he became one of the youngest Vice Presidents at age 26, focusing on global business development.134
Achievements
Fung has received accolades such as being named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in Music in 2014. He has also been involved in various entrepreneurial ventures and has contributed to discussions on leadership through platforms like LinkedIn.23
Current Focus
At Drop, Derrick Fung aims to enhance user experience by making the rewards platform more personalized. However, he has faced criticism regarding the app's fulfillment of rewards commitments to users.13
Highlights
Drop is on a mission to inspire people to live their best life through financial empowerment. We started by launching our consumer-facing app back in 2018. Two years ago, we saw an opportunity to accelerate our company's mission by partnering with large financial institutions who could help promote the loyalty/rewards offers we've sourced from our merchant partners.
Today, we're excited to officially announce that Drop now reaches over 100 million consumers in America. We're grateful for our partners American Express, Mastercard, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, who have joined us on our journey to make the lives of these consumers more rewarding, every single day. Kudos to the entire Drop team for helping make this a reality 🙏
Whether you're a high growth fintech app or a large financial player, we are always on the look out to add new complimentary partners to the Drop Offers Network. Please reach out directly if you are interested in joining us on our ambitious mission! 🚀
Wow, what a very interesting holiday shopping season this year has been. It was great to be back on Bloomberg to speak to what we are seeing in our Drop data:
🔥 Black Friday weekend continues to be THE weekend that consumers anticipate for getting good deals. Even though tons of retailers started discounting as early as October, our data shows that people still planned and budgeted to do most of their shopping over this past weekend.
🔥 Walmart has been absolutely crushing it. Leading up to this weekend, their year-over-year sales continued to rise, while Amazon spend was down almost 30%. Their focus on "Everyday low prices" is really resonating with today's consumer that's heavily focused on discounts and deals. Our data on their e-commerce business shows that their investment is really starting to pay off 🚀.
🔥 Spending on tech & electronics is down 20% versus 2021 and travel is continuing to rebound. It is exciting to see that travel is almost back to 2019 levels (!), which should continue to bold well for the hospitality industry as well as local small business. Lots of family gatherings expected for the holidays 🎄!
🤔 All in all, a very strong holiday shopping season. A record breaking Black Friday and Cyber Monday. With interest rates increasing, the question will be whether this spending will sustain into 2023 as consumers increasingly tap into credit and buy-now-pay-later spend. There's one thing that is certain - deals, discounts and savings will continue to be very top of mind for the North American consumer.
Happy holidays everyone ❄️!
