Gabriel Dalporto

Chief Executive Officer Guitar Center

Last Reviewed: September 29, 2026

Executive Summary

Gabriel “Gabe” Dalporto is Chief Executive Officer of Guitar Center, the Westlake Village, California retailer that describes itself as the world’s largest omnichannel musical instrument retailer. He took the role in October 2023 after five years as a director, appointed by an ownership group of funds managed by Ares, Carlyle and Brigade. Trained as a nuclear engineer, he built his career in consumer financial services and online businesses: a long run of senior roles at LendingTree, where he was in turn Chief Marketing Officer, President of Mortgage and Chief Financial Officer, then three years as CEO of the online education company Udacity. He remains a director of LendingTree.

Career Highlights

• Named Chief Executive Officer of Guitar Center Holdings, Inc. on October 31, 2023, succeeding Ron Japinga; a member of its board since December 2018.
• Chief Executive Officer of Udacity from August 2019 to October 2022.
• At LendingTree, Chief Marketing Officer (2011-2015), President of Mortgage (2013-2015), Chief Financial Officer (2015-2017) and Executive Advisor to the CEO (2017-2018).
• Director of LendingTree and chair of its Finance Committee.
• Founder and CEO of the online investing startup Atomic Financial (2010-2011), after marketing and strategy leadership at the online broker Zecco Holdings.
• Holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in nuclear engineering from the University of Florida and MIT.

Professional Journey

Dalporto studied nuclear engineering, taking a bachelor’s degree at the University of Florida and a master’s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before moving into financial services. He was a vice president at JPMorgan Chase from 2003 to 2004 and at E*Trade Financial from 2004 to 2006, then spent three years as Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer of Zecco Holdings, an online brokerage. In 2010 he founded Atomic Financial, a startup online investing platform, and ran it as chief executive until April 2011.

That month he joined LendingTree as Chief Marketing Officer. Over the following six years he held several of its top jobs: he added the presidency of the mortgage business in 2013, became Chief Financial Officer in 2015 and moved to an advisory role to the CEO in 2017. Guitar Center’s later account of the period credits him with helping drive LendingTree’s transition from a microcap, mortgage-focused marketplace to a multi-billion-dollar, diversified financial services marketplace. He joined LendingTree’s board in 2017 and still serves on it, chairing the Finance Committee.

From August 2019 to October 2022 he was Chief Executive Officer of Udacity, the online provider of technology skills programs. In December 2018 he had also joined the board of Guitar Center, and in October 2023 its owners appointed him chief executive. They said they wanted his experience in digital transformation, customer acquisition and customer experience. At the same time Ken Hicks became chairman and Tim Martin returned as Chief Financial Officer.

Dalporto has been open that the job is personal. When he was appointed, he said that as a boy from a family of musicians he had visited Guitar Center stores with his father. In a 2024 interview he set out his plans: stock more premium instruments, make high-end guitars easier to reach in store, train staff to sell in a more consultative way, and catch up on digital, where he said the company had been “kind of in the dark ages”.

Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

M.S., Nuclear Engineering

University of Florida

B.S., Nuclear Engineering