Credit Karma’s Natasha Madan on AI, Financial Literacy & Personalized Finance

We are live here at CES in Las Vegas, and today we are thrilled to welcome Natasha Maidan, the head of marketing at Intuit Credit Karma. Natasha is a growth-focused marketing leader with deep experience spanning Amazon, Meta, Nestlé, and other high-growth startups. Today she leads end-to-end marketing for Credit Karma, driving financial progress for more than 150 million members through data, AI, and deeply consumer-led strategy. Natasha, thanks so much for joining today.

Yes. Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

Absolutely. So when you come to CES every year, obviously it's such a busy time. It's not exactly the most convenient time to be away from the office for a week. Why is it valuable to you and why do you take the time to come here to Las Vegas?

I think it's a great time to look at what's happening around us. You know, we get so focused into what we are doing and what we are building, but to like really widen your perspective in terms of what's happening in the world, even learning from our agency partners, vendors has been just so great.

Absolutely. And from your seat in terms of overseeing the Credit Karma brand, what are some of the evolutions and innovations you're seeing here at CES that are most interesting to you?

I mean, I think everybody's talking about AI. Yeah. And, you know, the way everyone's embracing AI, I think is a big thing. What we have to really look forward to is how do we differentiate ourselves as we move forward, you know, as—

As every software company has to do, right?

As every software company. You know, we saw when social media came in, media was democratized, right? Yeah. It was so easy to buy media. There was no divide between a larger company or a smaller company.

Sure.

And now with AI, we are seeing creative getting democratized. You know, we can build creative, we can, uh, we let people product. So what are companies like ours or brand like ours gonna do in the future and differentiate ourselves, I think is the question for us too.

Yeah. And of course the biggest moat, I believe at least in the world of AI is data.

Yes.

And with that, Credit Karma sits on top of one of the richest consumer financial data sets in the world.

Yes.

Right, so that I imagine is something you're probably thinking about leaning into. Would just love to hear what your thoughts are around that.

Yeah, 100%. We have 140 million members, so the scale is huge, right? And we have 40 million monthly active users that come to our platform. We have a lot of daily users, 7 to 8 million daily users. So I think what's in front of us is how do we leverage the insights that we get from data and how we can actually make their lives much easier.

Yeah.

You know, we are in the thick of taxi For example, now we help our members tell us what's going on in their lives. Like if you bought a house, for example, there's a deduction, you know, or they got like a new tax document they can upload and we can actually fill their taxes. And if it's a do-it-yourself tax, you could do it in 30 minutes or less. Yeah, that's where we are leveraging AI to say it's creating those done-for-you experiences when they file their taxes. They get their refund, we can tell them how best to use that money. Yeah, putting in a high-yield savings account or paying off their debt, or if they want to get more, get a car, how would they be able to do that? So there's a lot of that work that's happening, and now we have the ability to understand and ask them what they want and actually get it done for them.

Yeah, I mean, I think there's such a big opportunity as I think about financial data as a consumer, right? The world's more complex than ever before. So for example, you might be paying for the same Netflix subscription in two different places, or you may have just incurred a medical cost that your health insurance provider provides, or you might have a Chase Sapphire credit card and you just paid for a hotel but they reimburse you $300. Like, there are so many nooks and crannies of every consumer and the complexity. And I think what Credit Karma can do with all this data is make it simple and unpack insights that ultimately make consumers better, you know, purveyors of their financial situation.

2000%. Yeah, we are able to like— but there are over 80,000 data points that we have.

80,000.

Yes. And our models are built to personalize information for them, understand what their intent is. If they're coming to check a credit score, we better give them the credit score and also tell them how they can build their credit.

Right.

If they're coming to get a credit card, we tell them what are their best credit card options and give them advice and actually get them to help get the credit card. So we understand what they're aware of and provide them with those personalized solutions. I think as we look forward, we would love to understand how do we connect the dots in between what their financial journey is. We are very good about giving them the next best action, moving them along their journey, but really understanding what their long-term goals are and being able to help them drive towards that would be the next frontier. Yes.

Interesting. We're seeing the same sort of thing happen in the personal health space where you have this notion of quantified self, right? Where it's like you have your Apple Watch and you have your, um, Eight Sleep mattress and your— and you can— and your Oura Ring, right? And you're tracking all these things and that data can unlock insights about your health. I was recently speaking at a retirement, um, industry conference and I was saying the two actually might collide because if, if quantified self helps you understand how long you're going to live, yes, and then financial planning is obviously something that's going to support that lifespan, the two, it all might come together as like a personal data-driven dashboard of you as an individual and the decisions you need to make.

You know, I always say this, finances and health are the two most personal things. Yeah. So many emotions attached to it and they, those outcomes on the financial side and the health side determine how you live.

And when people talk about privacy, those are the privacy areas, right? That's what people care about. They care about their health data and their, yeah, so I think And you being able to have access to that data to be able to make the right decisions in your life, I think is such a big unlock.

Yes.

Yeah. So when you think about, I guess, driving the brand forward, because Credit Karma used to just be you checked your credit score and then it became more of a platform and of course it got acquired by Intuit. That's right. I believe. And now it's— it's obviously has its tentacles many different places. Where are the areas that you're really leaning into for the brand here in 2026?

Yeah, great question. You know, we were— we started out as a credit score provider and we were very trusted for that. Like we were really— we were saying unblocking the financial system, which was a big black box. So making sure our members understand what credit— what is a credit score, what does it do for you and how it can unlock your financial trajectory. But that has become commoditized now.

Right.

Yeah. So the challenge for us right now is to actually look at a member's entire financial journey and be able to provide them with the messaging, with the products, and the right targeting in terms of what they can do. So right from financial advice, which is not just about building credit, it is really about building a financial health profile for you, and then being able to give you the tools to be able to do those things. We ask members how much they want to engage with it. So for example, there are few who would be like, I want to set it and forget it, you automate everything for me. There are others who are like, no, I'm going to get into it. This is like health, right? I'm going to manage this for my own self, and we just need guidance from you. So, understanding what they want and what we can give them along the journey is like what we are trying to do. We are really— I mean, like, my goal here is from a marketing standpoint, push the original mission, which is very much championing financial progress. And that means different things to different people. So, we are really expanding the brand from a narrow credit score focus to more of a helping them drive financial progress.

Of course, Intuit used to own and oversee a product called Mint. That's right. Which I used all the time. And then Mint got kind of discontinued. And then now Credit Karma is kind of slowly taking its place. So is the future to be that individual's kind of personal financial dashboard that does all these things?

That's exactly what it is. Right. We really wanna make sure folks can maximize their money outcomes. And there are many ways to being able to do that— consolidating debt, saving on taxes, saving money for the bigger goals, and making the right investments. So it's really from credit building to wealth building. That's what we are building our platforms for.

It's interesting because, you know, a lot— there's a lot of discussion right now in terms of like, what's the future of work? What jobs really matter? When I think about the financial services space, you think about an accountant, that just does somebody's taxes. I personally believe that AI is going to be able to do all of our taxes for us moving forward, as long as you have the data from platform like Credit Karma, and you might not need an accountant. So that's great for a consumer, maybe not so great for an accountant, but an accountant needs to figure out how can they uplevel and be an advisor. But the question I have in my mind is, are we going to need wealth managers moving forward if, if all my information is in Credit Karma? Right, and you have 140 million other members' information and you actually have historical data, you could know, here's how you should look at investing, here's how you should look at spending as a percentage of your income or your mortgage payment. And really, that data-driven framework, if somebody follows it, they will have— they will lead a path towards financial wellness. So just interesting like that. If you become the platform and you have the data, it really opens up a huge opportunity for the brand.

And I also think that you'll always need both. Yeah. You know, you will, you, we will need the data to get educated. Yeah. Do a lot of things for you, but the need for an expert will always be there. We are seeing in taxes too. Yeah. We do, we always say it's HI, human intelligence. Yeah. And AI, artificial intelligence. You need an expert to say, hey, these should be your strategies moving forward for next year.

Keep in mind for these. Yeah.

Yeah. I think you'll need both. I do not think we'll be at a place where we can completely eliminate experts.

Right. Right. I mean, I said all depends upon the differentiated value because already if you look at the returns generated by the wealth management community minus their fees, it doesn't even outperform the S&P 500. So even before an age of AI, you have to question it. So I guess my point is it's a perfect opportunity, and a lot of people can't afford wealth managers, let's be real. So I think putting that aside for a second, this does create the opportunity for somebody to have sort of a financial consultant in a box.

This is, uh, you know, and now we, we talk about that. We want to a financial assistant in your pocket. Yeah. Be able to do it over your phone. I think it does open up a lot of opportunity for small businesses who do not have access to a lot of money. They had to pay a lot of money. It's the same thing with a lot of other folks. Globally too. Gen Z, millennials, like they're coming and learning and they're going to social media to learn. They're coming to our platforms to learn. So for sure it has democratized that information access.

Yeah. I have two kids in college right now and like I help them get their, you know, get their first credit card set up and help them. And a lot of kids who are going into college and exiting, they don't teach financial literacy in school like they should. And it's so important.

It should be mandatory.

Yeah. And they don't even know what their credit score means. So I know that you have a product called CreditSpark. Yes. That helps turn everyday payments into credit building opportunities. Talk to me about financial literacy, the new consumer, and some of the opportunities you think exist there.

It's huge right now, Matt. We, uh, there is so much information that is available on the internet. And, uh, you know, we call it a fintok. People go to TikTok to get a lot of financial advice. It's not personalized. And so when they come to our platform, we have an opportunity to understand what their goals are, understand their financial picture, even when they don't have it, help them build it step by step, and do it in a way where it's durable. You know, we don't go back and say, hey, you increase your credit score in 3 days. Like, that's, that's not durable. How do you actually save money? What are your best financial habits that you want to be able to build. Can you pay your rent and get credit for that and build credit through your rent? So there's many aspects of building credit that we actually educate and help make it happen for our members. And that's what CreditSpark does.

And of course, over time, you're going to be able to continue doing it, do that in a personalized way as well.

Yeah, 100% personalized.

So obviously, as somebody who had the marketing for Credit Karma growth is obviously, you know, a big mandate heading into any marketing head's list of priorities entering the year. What does growth look like for Credit Karma, whether it's driving more business from existing users or preventing churn or acquiring new users? How do you stack rank that and what are some of the strategies you're going to deploy in the year ahead?

Yeah, no, great question. We have 140 million members. We want to make sure that we are serving them well. Yeah, you know, it's very easy to go out and get more members, which we are going to do. I think from a growth standpoint, our acquisition is going to be be focused on Gen Z. So younger consumers— Credit Karma was built on the premise that we were educating younger consumers how to use credit. We built it on millennials, how to use the credit score and, you know, get their first credit card, their car, or whatever. But we kind of lost our way a little bit with the younger consumers now, the 18 to 24. So we are going, we are going specifically to acquire those in social channels being where they are. But the rest, 140 million members that already come to our platform, we have huge opportunity for them to try our other products. Yeah, we grown beyond credit scores. You know, we have now CreditSpark. We talk about that. We can— they can pay taxes with us. We have a Credit Karma Money account, basically subscription monitoring tool. Yeah, all of that. So there's an ability to be able to do that, which I think it behooves us as marketers to create those engagement funnels to actually make sure that there is— they are attaching to 2 or 3 different products when they come to even check a score. Can we actually have them look at a credit card when they come to buy a credit card or take a credit card from our platform? Can we have them look at our Credit Karma Money account and see if that would be some place that they would bank for us? So we are working through a lot of creating a lot of those growth loops for existing members and those funnels.

Right. And when you talk about Gen Z, of course, they're known as the iPhone generation, the first generation to grow up with the iPhone in the household. And that's their de facto way of consuming content. And when they're looking at their phone to consume content, they're consuming content not from traditional media sources, but from other people. Which is where the creator economy comes in. So, curious to hear how you're looking at, you know, storytelling, content creation, and creators in driving growth and going after this Gen Z audience.

Exactly. I, you know, the more AI gets adopted and prevalent, and you'll see that at CES, we were talking about this this morning, is that targeting is going to be learned. It is a big— it's going to become more and more of a science, right? Yeah. Creative Content creation will become more and more of a science. AI is going to be able to generate a lot of that. Couldn't agree more. Right? So what, who are people going to believe? They're going to believe people they trust.

And brands.

And brands they trust, right? So for us, our strategy now is really to invest in micro-influencers and creators because when it comes from them and their communities that they are leading and there's trust within those communities, well, who they're going to listen to is going to be less important in terms of what is being said, is going to be more important of who is going to say it.

Medium over message. Yes. Right.

So that I think is a big focus for us, especially as we connect with Gen Z.

And how do you drive that type of execution at scale? Because it's, it's one thing to do. I mean, when you think about the scale of your business, to be able to create a network of micro-influencers at scale, I would assume executionally isn't the easiest thing to do.

It's not the easiest thing. It's for us to be able to give them the tools actually to be able to do that so they can scale. Right. And they can scale their message and Amplify, and we are able to do that. And it's going to be a part of our media mix. Of course, be the only thing.

Of course. And when you think about just storytelling in general and we talk about financial literacy, do you find that just adding value to consumers and creating content that helps them financially is the best way that you can just capture their attention and drive any type of—

Yes.

—business impact?

I do think as long as we are adding value and solving a problem that is important to them, they will listen. Yeah, you know, and it's important to understand that, for them to understand that we get them. You know, the big part of the brand work we did is what we understood was finance is so personal, just like health is, and it is so deeply rooted in how they grew up. What were the finances? What was the financial situation at home? What are their aspirations, right? There are folks who may have had an easier life. There are folks who may have not had an easier life. How we talk to them, and how we engage with them, how we make them feel seen and heard is really important. And it's a very thin rope that we have to walk on. If we say, "Oh, we got this done for you, don't worry about it," they're like, "You don't even understand my situation." Or we say, "This is really, really hard." They're like, "Oh, I'm very stressed about this. You're making me even more stressed by telling me what so much work that I need to do." So we just have to understand where they are in their journey and how do we communicate with them. And that's a big part of storytelling is understanding their fears, their aspiration, where they feel guilt, where do they feel shame, and what is our role over there. It's super complex to be able to do that. And, you know, we don't claim that we've figured it out or we understand it.

Yeah, right. Shifting gears, we wrap up here. I'd love to hear a little bit more about you and your career journey. You know, as I mentioned at the jump, you spent time at Amazon and Meta and Nestlé. When you look back at your career journey, what are some of the things that you think you focus on that in the rearview mirror ended up being fortuitous, sort of right things to focus on, just in terms of personal and professional development?

Yeah, great question. I think the through line for me has been if you're— I was always focused on building the right skill set and maniacally focused on what I don't have. I don't think it's the right thing to do all the time. It's like I need to build. So when this was pre-social media, when that came in, we were like, we need to be at the forefront of experimenting into it. We were at Nestlé Ours was the first brand with Butterfinger and Nerds, the Wonka candy, that we participated in a Facebook campaign. That was the first time we did it. We didn't know whether this would work or not work. That— so being able to like be adaptable to change, see what's coming new, and being able to participate has, I think, been the, the, the through line for me. I've also really focused on you may not get the best job or the job that you want all the time, but the job that's given to you, you need to ace it. You can get to the next job. Right. And I think what helped me was really getting closer to the consumer at Nestlé, because that's the holy grail for like really understanding CPG marketing, right? As you, as you know, is understand the feelings, the aspirations, the fears of our members and really deeply empathizing with them. That, when you come into the tech world, is such an addition, you know, where you are actually using models and science. EQ versus IQ, right? It's EQ versus IQ. And when you bring the two together, you create breakthrough creative. Right. And that works. And, you know, that saves money, time, and everything.

In terms of some of the takeaways you might have from companies like Amazon and Meta where you worked, like, what is it about those cultures or the way that they vet their new employees or train their existing employees that makes them so successful?

I think at Amazon, I will say customer obsession is actually at the heart of everything. You may be at any other— you may work in any function. It doesn't have— it doesn't, you know, in many companies it sits with marketing and you're the voice of the consumer. Everyone's focused on customer obsession at Amazon, which I really loved. And everyone's trying to solve a customer problem through just different lenses, right? And we don't settle. We actually bring in folks we think are going to be able to do that, and folks who are actually challenging the status quo has been a big thing. And I think the tech companies that have been successful— it is— have been— the tech companies that have been successful have brought in people who are more amenable to change. Yeah. And have been able to adopt. They sit there and say, well, there is a problem here. I'm going to go tackle it. I'm going to run an experiment. And it's easy to be able to do that, whereas in CPG, it's just hard. You try to change something, you have to get distribution, get on shelves.

There's a physicality to it.

There's a physicality to it. And it gives you a month before you get any kind of data back, you know?

So— That's why understanding the consumer is so important. Because once you bring something to the shelf, it better be right. It better be right.

And you're spending all of your capital in like predicting what that future can be. And you do it by understanding the customer deeply. Here, if you come into tech, you can just experiment and see if something's working or not. But imagine when you bring the two together. Yeah, you just become that much smarter.

Yeah, I love that. That's a great framework. So to wrap up here, we always ask our guests if there's a saying or mantra that helps kind of encapsulate their professional journey to date. Just wonder what comes to mind for you.

I think for me, I always say, if I don't drive, I will be driven. So I need to drive.

So what does that look like for you? Being proactive.

Yeah, that's huge. Taking initiative, right? Taking initiative, looking around the corners, making sure you have an amazing team that can tackle the here and now so you have the ability to look across and look around the corners and you're more prepared for what is to come next.

Either you're trying to change— And after that, you want them to take initiative too, right?

Exactly. And I think if we do all that job well, we are already ahead of the curve. So, we are not reacting. You have to play offense. You cannot— you do.

I think a lot of younger people in the professional world just wait for permission because they don't want to disrupt the status quo. But I think especially in a world like now, and you see this evidently at a place like CES, the world is changing so fast, and you— by the time you get your permission, it's going to be too late. And you actually— and you just have to dive in. I think for younger people, the biggest risk is not taking one.

Correct. 2,000%. I think, uh, there will be no room for reactive, right?

There has to be waiting to be told what to do, waiting to be told.

You have to jump in. And companies like ours, I am looking for folks on my team to tell me what we are missing, right? What's missing and how can we build products that are different? How can we build messages that are different? And if I don't hear that, like, then we are not pushing ourselves. That's right. And if we are afraid of failing, we are not pushing ourselves enough. So That's like, that is a given, I think, now.

I love that. Well, you heard it here, everybody. Drive or be driven. And it's clear that Natasha here is doing the driving, um, of the Credit Karma brand. I just want to thank you for taking the time today during your big busy CES week to, uh, chat with us today.

Thank you. It was amazing chatting.

Absolutely. It's been a great discussion, and there'll be more here. We are live here in Las Vegas at CES. On behalf of Suzy Adweek Team, thanks again to Natasha Maidan, the head of marketing Intuit Credit Karma for joining us today. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review the Speed of Culture podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Till next time, see you soon, everyone. Take care. Bye-bye.