Leadership

Committed to our Mission.
Committed to you.

Behind every smart financial decision is a team of people who genuinely care about getting it right. At Leap, we’re a team who came together with a shared belief: that powerful financial tools should be accessible to everyone, not just the few.

We bring decades of experience across banking, fintech, and product development — but what drives us isn’t our résumés. It’s the conviction that the proper combination of financial solutions, accessibility, and informed decisions leads to better lives. We believe that we have a responsibility to do this with focus, transparency, and heart.

Ashley Bete

Founder, CEO and CIO

Ashley Bete

Ashley is a 20-year veteran of the financial technology industry. He began his career in Credit Suisse’s Technology Group, and has held technology leadership roles in financial firms such as Cantor Fitzgerald and Nasdaq OMX. Ashley has spent most of his career harnessing the power of technology to improve business processes that impact the lives of everyday working people.

In founding Leap, Ashley set out to level the playing field for all homeowners, especially those in underserved communities. Leap’s intent is to help people of color achieve financial wellness and close America’s wealth gap.

Munashe Shumba

Chief Technology Officer

Munashe Shumba

Munashe (Mun-osh-shay) Shumba is Leap’s Chief Technology Officer. He believes technology is competitive when it improves our lives, starting with the lives of historically marginalized people and underserved communities. At Leap, one of his core responsibilities is ensuring that the data used is fair, equitable and puts users first.

Munashe attended Brown University, where he studied computer engineering. He worked in software engineering and technical consulting roles at Goldman Sachs and Google for seven years before embarking on a journey in Artificial Intelligence as a Scholar at OpenAI. At Leap, Munashe is focused on cybersecurity for user data and maintaining Leap’s best-in-class services.

Max Dukarevich

Head of Product & Strategy

Max Dukarevich

Max leads Product and Partnerships at Leap, where he architects the company’s HEI offerings and its approach to consumer pricing, transparency, and engagement. He came to home equity investment the way Leap’s customers do: as a homeowner frustrated by opaque and suboptimal options. Max turned that frustration into a rigorous model of industry-wide pricing and client-facing practices which informs Leap’s product design.

A licensed Realtor and Mortgage Loan Originator, Max is also owner-builder of several creative Southern California ADU projects. His earlier career spans neuroscience and biomedical research, founding a boutique educational services company, and serving as a core member of an educational SaaS — a background that shaped his conviction that complex financial products should be legible and empowering to the people they serve.

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