has anyone successfully ranked newer TLD Extensions

The tld is not going to make any difference when it comes to ranking in the search engines.

When it comes to branding, I would always rather have a .com

I don't think Google gives any extra weight to the new TLDs. I also don't think Google treats them in any kind of "bad" way.

Simple test. If you created, for example, BigJimsExpertDogTraining.guru, within a few days no doubt that site would rank well for a search of "big jims expert dog training". Now of course that's about as low competition as you can get as far as keywords go, but the point is Google will not ignore it and will rank it.

For SEO purposes I've created a few directory websites to send backlinks to client sites. I used the new .directory extension for each. Why not? They are directories, so what better way to spell that out then to use a .directory extension? As an aside, I had multiple clients to rank, so it was worth my little time and effort to do this (I wouldn't recommend buying a domain and setting up a directory in order to generate a single backlink to one client). These directories all rank high when typing in an EMD keyword. Nothing amazing about that, but shows that Google isn't ignoring these TLDs. And, one of the directories actually ranks on the first page for a related search term that doesn't include the domain name. Admittedly it's a fairly low competition keyword, and I sent a few backlinks to the new domain, but I think that does further establish that the new TLDs will rank.

I don't think they rank better or worse than the older, more established TLDs like .com, .net, .org. So for SEO purposes I don't think there's any good reason to choose a new TLD for a domain. But for a money site, I don't think there's an issue. Sure, everyone knows and entere .com as the default for a site, so that's probably still the preferred way to go. But if a TLD is a perfect match for what a money site exists for, I don't think there's an issue with using it. If something like .guru perfectly defines what your website is to be all about, then I don't think it's wrong or bad to go with it.

I have not ranked any yet, but I think:

For SEO maybe the new extensions have a little advantage when the semantic is relevant to the query

And for branding, the .com seems to be the prefered by most although the new ones are acceptable and give a great oportunity to get a name when the .com is taken

I personally would use some of the new ones