Christina Riechers rose from product manager of deposits at Square, the business technology platform under the Block umbrella, to a founding member and head of Square Banking, a suite of financial products for business owners, where she reported to Jack Dorsey, who heads the organization.
Although Riechers recently left her post at Square after nearly a decade, her ideas have made an impact across the company and beyond in the entrepreneurial world. During her tenure she introduced Instant Transfers, then called Instant Deposit, in 2015, which let sellers immediately send their sales to an external bank account for a fee. A lesson she gleaned from developing this feature — that many small-business owners do not have the cash buffer to wait a day — led to her efforts to introduce Square’s first debit card in 2019. Spending time studying Square customers inspired other products as well, including business savings account Square Savings. In 2023 specifically, Riechers led a team that launched several products, including a Square credit card, a cash flow management tool for larger sellers, and early deposit access for sellers to consolidate and use off-platform revenue. She expanded banking into new markets, including Japan.
As head of Square Banking, one of Riechers’ goals was to serve businesses that typically have a harder time accessing capital and services from traditional institutions. An internal analysis in 2022 found that roughly 56% of sellers who took out a Square loan were women-owned businesses and nearly a third of Square loan beneficiaries identified as people of color.
Riechers, who will be taking some time off before embarking on her next role, also serves on the board of directors and chairs the governance committee of Evidence Action, a charity she co-founded before she joined Square. Evidence Action’s mission is to find cost-effective interventions that reduce the burden of poverty.
