Wharton FinTech Podcast

Miguel Armaza is joined by Maelis Carraro, Director of Catalyst Fund and the Impact Ventures Practice at BFA Global. The Catalyst Fund is an inclusive fintech accelerator supporting early-stage inclusive startups with flexible capital, bespoke venture building support, and connections to investors and corporate innovators. Maelis Carraro is the Director of Catalyst Fund and the Impact Ventures Practice at BFA Global. She spent her career working alongside fintech startups, investors, banks and donors to pioneer tech and data-enabled solutions for underserved communities in emerging markets. She runs global accelerator-Catalyst Fund, supported by JP Morgan Chase & Co and the UK Department for International Development, and helped over 30 early-stage fintech startups create innovative and affordable solutions for underserved populations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Previously, Maelis worked at the International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group), advising financial institutions on digital innovation and responsible financial inclusion strategies across fragile and emerging markets, as well as the OECD and the Grameen Bank, where she researched micro financing schemes for climate adaptation in South Asia, and impact fund- Global Partnerships, where she designed impact investing strategies to support tech-enabled businesses across Africa. Maelis also co-founded RemitMas, an inclusive fintech startup focused on remittances for savings for Latino immigrants in the US. Maelis is a Fulbright Scholar and holds a dual MBA and Master in International Affairs from Columbia Business School and the School of International and Public Affairs. She received her B.A Cum Laude from University College London in Political Science and Development Economics. About BFA Global BFA is a global consulting firm striving to build inclusive economies for a sustainable and equitable world. Together with partners and clients, BFA works at the frontier of applied research and innovation using finance, data, technology and behavioral science to build solutions for underserved populations. About Catalyst Fund Catalyst Fund is BFA’s flagship inclusive fintech accelerator, supported by The UK Department for International Development (DFID), JPMorgan Chase & Co and previously the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Catalyst Fund accelerates early-stage inclusive fintech startups with flexible capital, bespoke venture building support and connections to investors and corporate innovators. It also accelerates the ecosystem by fostering networks of fintech investors, corporates and talent organizations, to spur more fintech innovation for the world’s 3 billion underserved.

In today's episode of the Wharton FinTech Podcast, Anchit Gupta sits down with Cathrine Andersen, Co-Founder and CEO of Roger.ai. Founded in 2017, Roger's accounting and finance automation technology help organizations automate time-consuming and expensive manual tasks like bookkeeping and expense management. Before Roger, Cathrine also founded Assemblage, which offered developers a solution to add real-time collaboration apps such as shared whiteboarding to their products. Assemblage was acquired by Cisco in 2014, where Cathrine then worked for 3 years in Innovation and Emerging Product Development. Cathrine holds a bachelor's degree from Copenhagen Business School and a Masters from University of Copenhagen. Cathrine was named to inc. magazine's Top 100 Female Founders in 2019.

In our latest podcast, Peter Jankovsky (WG'20) is joined by Mike Vaughan. Mike is currently an Executive in Residence at Oak HC/FT, a leading venture capital firm investing in early to growth-stage companies in healthcare and fintech with ~$2 B in AUM. Prior to this role, Mike was the COO of Venmo, scaling the business from the ground floor to 40 M active users, a $300 M revenue run rate, and $100 B in payments in 2019. In this episode, Mike shares: - His background and why he jumped into entrepreneurship after graduating from Wharton - Lessons learned from the early days of Venmo - The key decisions that enabled Venmo to scale over time - Mike's focus at Oak HC/FT and his view on where the next wave of innovation will be in FinTech - Advice for those starting their careers in FinTech Over more than two decades, Mike has developed successful businesses across multiple industries, including three exits totaling >$1 B in market value. He currently serves as an independent board member and active advisor to several early and growth-stage enterprise and consumer tech companies. Mike graduated with an economics degree from Wharton.

Miguel Armaza is joined by David Vélez, Founder and CEO of Nubank, the largest independent digital bank in the world. Nubank has over 25 million clients and has raised $1.2 billion from some of the most prestigious venture capital funds in the globe, including Sequoia, Ribbit Capital, DST, Kaszek Ventures, and QED. David grew up in a family of Colombian entrepreneurs. The concept of being your own boss was engrained in him daily and he always thought he would launch a company at an early age. However, after graduating from Stanford University, he found himself lost at the thought of starting a venture. He didn't know where to even begin. So, he took a more traditional route and joined Morgan Stanley, which later led him to General Atlantic, to focus on growth equity. Armed with 5 years of investing experience, he went back to Stanford in 2010 to pursue an MBA. His goal was to leverage the MBA experience to find a business idea. However, shortly after starting school, he was approached by non-other than Sequoia Capital to lead their Latin American group. He took the chance, but after almost 3 years with Sequoia, it became evident that the startup ecosystem of the region was not robust enough for them, and the Latin American strategy was scrapped. David saw this as an opportunity and decided it was time to start something. Inspiration His painful experience of opening a bank account in Brazil, which he describes as “almost going to jail”, convinced him there was a better way of doing banking in the country. Not only was customer service terrible, but banks were charging astronomically high interest rates to creditworthy customers. This is where Nubank was born. During his years at GA, David had the chance to work alongside Nigel Morris, Co-Founder of Capital One. David credits Capital One as a big inspiration for Nubank, as a data-driven company with a culture focused on recruiting the best analytical talent. Another source of inspiration was Tinkoff, a Russian neobank with a similar focus and excellent customer experience. Additionally, learning from technology companies like Amazon and Netflix convinced David that Nubank should be a technology company that happens to operate in financial services, and not a bank that uses technology. In his own words, “This makes all the difference”. Culture If there’s something that stands out when talking to David, it’s his dogged determination on building a customer-centric company culture that also takes care of its employees. In fact, back in 2013 when launching Nubank, he created two company presentations. One for investors and another one about company culture that he used to recruit his co-founders and first employees. He is clearly proud that the latter hasn't changed much in the last seven years and he continues to deliver this presentation to every single new employee at the company. Interestingly, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Nubank culture has overperformed and employee engagement has never been better. Be it through the creation of a 20 million reais (≈US$3.8 million) fund for customer assistance or by providing over 1,000 remote service stations for their employees to work from home, the pandemic has allowed them to prove to clients and employees that they live and breathe these company values. Post-COVID World David argues that the current crisis doesn’t necessarily create any new trends, but instead accelerates several tendencies and behaviors that were already taking place. From digitalization to more flexible remote working policies, these trends are only accelerating. However, more importantly, David is convinced the pandemic is forcing companies to rethink their values and embrace a much broader view of capitalism, through a model that requires companies to show integrity and take care of their customers, their people, their communities, and the environment. As evidenced by their recent actions, Nubank is certainly adopting this philosophy.

Miguel Armaza is joined by Melbourne O’Banion, CEO and Co-Founder of Bestow, a digital life insurance company leveraging technology to make protection accessible and affordable. Bestow has received over $68 million in equity financing from Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, NEA, Morpheus Ventures, Core Innovation Capital, Abstract Ventures, Sammons Financial, 8VC. Melbourne O’Banion is the CEO and Co-Founder of Bestow, a digital life insurance company leveraging technology to make protection accessible and affordable. Through data-driven technology applications and innovative products, Bestow is changing the way life insurance is perceived and purchased. He is an entrepreneur and investor with expertise in fintech and direct-to-consumer businesses. Among his startups, he was a founding member of Presidio Title, a leading title insurance agency in Texas. He is also co-founder of Beauty Bioscience, a skincare line sold via TV shopping channels and luxury retailers. Melbourne is a member of the National Advisory Council for the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University and is on the board of the SMU Tate Lecture Series. He is a graduate of BYU and studied Finance and Ancient Near Eastern Studies. Bestow is an insurance technology company that builds products and software that make life insurance accessible to millions of families. In addition to its direct-to-consumer arm, Bestow provides industry-first APIs enabling partners to offer bespoke life insurance coverage to their customers with ease. Bestow is reshaping the life industry as the insurance company of the future. The company is headquartered in Texas with offices in Dallas and Austin. Learn more at www.bestow.com In this episode, Melbourne shares: - His background as a serial entrepreneur and what drove him to life insurance. - Why he and his co-founder decided to avoid third party software solutions and, instead, built an insurance product along with its integrated software from scratch. And why this decision has made a huge positive difference. - Reasoning behind Bestow’s entry market strategy. - Finding product-market fit and how they decided what customer segment to focus on - Bestow’s key partnerships, ranging from traditional life insurance companies to Fintechs like Acorns, Chime, Stash, Moneylion, and more. - The importance of hiring a great team, establishing company principles early on, and leading and hiring by those principles. - Famous Texas Hospitality. The advantages of launching a startup in Texas and why he thinks there isn’t a better place in the US to start a company. - How the COVID-19 crisis has awakened a lot of people to a sense of their own mortality and what this has meant for the life insurance business. - The state of InsurTech and why he thinks new entrants in the insurance space will have to do something radically new and different to differentiate themselves. - Valuable advice for entrepreneurs and aspiring founders.

Miguel Armaza is joined by Brad Paterson, CEO of SplitIt (ASX: SPT), a global payment platform that enables shoppers to pay installments via their credit cards, by splitting credit card purchases into interest and fee-free monthly payments. Splitit is a global payment platform that enables shoppers to pay installments via their credit cards, by splitting credit card purchases into interest and fee-free monthly payments. Splitit’s consumer solutions enable merchants to offer their customers an easy way to pay for purchases in monthly installments with instant approval, decreasing cart abandonment rates and increasing revenue. Splitit Business Payments allows manufacturers and suppliers to provide buyers with an interest-free, installment credit solution for purchasing goods and services utilizing their existing credit cards. Serving many of Internet Retailer’s top 500 merchants, Splitit’s global footprint extends to 27 countries around the world. Headquartered in New York, Splitit has an R&D center in Israel and offices in London and Australia. Brad Paterson has accumulated a wealth of knowledge over nearly two decades working with some of the world’s most successful payment companies, including Intuit, PayPal, and Visa. As Intuit’s VP of Marketing, Brad led the go-to-market team responsible for the US QuickBooks Online revenue and customer outcomes. His responsibilities included the strategy, sales, marketing, and general business operations for the QuickBooks Online portfolio. Prior to this role, Brad served as Intuit’s VP of Asia-Pacific and Global Operations, driving business growth in critical international markets. He also served as PayPal’s Head of Merchant Services, Asia-Pacific and Visa’s Director of Consumer and Emerging Products for Australia and New Zealand, among other roles at the two companies. In this interview, Brad shares: - His background and experiences from his days as an executive at PayPal, Intuit, and Visa. - What drove him to Splitit and why he sees a lot of parallels between them and the early days of Paypal. - The benefits of Splitit’s, business model and why they are experiencing incredibly fast growth during the COVID-19 crisis. - Going public on the Australian Securities Exchange. The benefits and challenges of running a publicly listed company. - Insightful advice for fintech professionals.

In our latest episode of the Wharton Fintech podcast, Miguel Armaza is joined by Laura Spiekerman, She’s the Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer at Alloy, an operating system for identity in financial services, including KYC, AML and fraud. Laura Spiekerman is a cofounder and CRO at Alloy. Alloy's API enables financial services companies to better manage their digital onboarding and identity requirements, increasing conversion and reducing fraud for banks and fintechs alike. Alloy works with both fintech companies and banks, including Marqeta, Petal, Brex, Radius Bank and others. Alloy was recognized on the recent Forbes' Cloud 100 Rising Stars list and as one to the global Venture Radar Top 10 RegTech Startups. Prior to Alloy, Laura led Business Development & Partnerships at an ACH payments startup and was on the Research & Investment team at Imprint Capital Advisors (acquired by Goldman Sachs). Laura is a proud Barnard College alumna and lives in Oakland, California. Alloy is an operating system for identity in financial services, including KYC, AML and fraud. The Alloy API allows its clients to customize which data sources they access and the rules applied, to validate an identity in real time so that 98% of users will be automatically decisioned upon onboarding, increasing conversion, lowering fraud, and reducing manual reviews. Alloy has been working with both fintech companies and banks since it launched in 2016, and has a client base of ~80, including institutions like Radius Bank, KeyBank, Brex, Marqeta and others. In this interview, Laura shares: - Her background and how she got started in the industry as employee #1 at Kopo Kopo, a Kenyan fintech company. - What inspired Laura and her co-founders to build Alloy and how they crafted a successful strategy to secure their first customers. - The strategic reasons why Alloy's products are attractive for fintech startups, community banks, and large banks alike. - Company Culture. Why it's important to hire people that are different from each other and why Alloy emphasizes celebrating differences and being bold. - Her experience as a female fintech leader and why men should take on more responsibility to recruit and cultivate women in the industry. - COVID-19's impact on Alloy and its clients- as fraud and cybersecurity attacks have increased in the last few months, Alloy has taken steps to help their customers combat these attacks. - Lessons for founders! Why learning how to sell is the most important skill to learn for entrepreneurs.

In today's episode of the Wharton FinTech podcast, Miguel Armaza is joined by David Gurle, Founder and CEO of Symphony, a financial services communications company that's helping individuals, teams and organizations of all sizes improve productivity, while meeting security and compliance needs. David Gurle is an author, inventor and visionary. David's ideas have influenced the major trends in consumer and enterprise communications and most recently secure collaboration technologies over the past two decades. He founded and ran Microsoft's unified communications products (Skype for Business) and as Global head of collaboration services at Thomson Reuters, introduced the first consumer-to-business federated communications to the financial services industry. After the sale of Skype to Microsoft where he was the GM of Skype's Enterprise Business, David founded and sold Perzo before founding Symphony. David sits on the Monetary Authority of Singapore's International Technology Advisory Panel, is regularly featured on global broadcast (CNBC, BFM, Fox News) and print media (TechCrunch, Le Monde, Wall Street Journal) and is a sought-after keynote speaker on the future of the digital workplace, collaboration technologies, workplace diversity and all matters related to privacy and information security. In January 2020, he received the Légion d'Honneur, the highest French order of merit for military and civil service. Symphony transforms the way users communicate effectively and securely with a single workflow application. Forging a new path in the financial services industry, Symphony is designed to help individuals, teams and organizations of all sizes improve productivity, while meeting complex data security and regulatory compliance needs. Symphony was founded in October 2014 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, with offices in New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Stockholm, Sophia-Antipolis and London. In this episode, David shares: -The powerful influence of his international upbringing and how it influenced him to pursue a career in telecom at ETSI, France Telecom, Microsoft, and Skype. -How being an intrapreneur earned him the title of "great, but unmanageable" by his first supervisor. -The key role he played in Microsoft's surprising acquisition of Skype. -The thought process that helped him identify a problem in secure persistent communications and how he devised a winning strategy for Symphony. -Challenges and anecdotes of Symphony's early days. -The importance of building a no-trust, end-to-end encrypted system, and why that has made a big difference between Symphony and other similar solutions. -Why it's critical to give users control of their data and the reason he thinks Apple has taken the wrong approach. -Symphony's recent explosive growth of 300%-400% in light of COVID-19 and how they have quickly become one of the top mission critical applications for their customers. -His vision of a post-COVID world and the steps Symphony is taking to implement a flexible work policy. -Valuable entrepreneurial advice and achieving childhood dreams.

In this episode, Ryan Zauk sits down with Stuart Sopp, Founder and CEO of Current. Current is a leading U.S. based challenger bank enabling access to affordable and premium financial services to people traditionally overlooked by the banking industry. After explosive growth serving essential workers during COVID-19, Current raised additional funding from Foundation Capital and is expected to reach 2 million customers by the end of 2020. From 1999 - 2014, Stuart spent his career as a senior trader developing financial systems and trading at Morgan Stanley, Citi, and Deutsche Bank. He started Current after recognizing that the growing inequality gap could be addressed through innovation in technology to improve financial outcomes for everyone. In this episode, Stuart discusses: - Current’s crucial contribution to the pandemic's frontline workers - Why banks have historically overlooked Current’s customers - What’s wrong with the phrase ‘choosing your investors’ - His view on the extremely competitive FinTech space and Current’s key competitive advantage - How he switched an NYC team to fully remote in a pandemic - And much more...including a surprising quarantine hobby For more insights and analysis from FinTech leaders, follow us below: Medium: https://medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: https://twitter.com/whartonfintech Ryan's Twitter: https://twitter.com/RyanZauk LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/

On today’s episode of the Wharton FinTech Podcast, Ryan Zauk sits down with Ras Asan, Co-Founder of BREAUX Capital. BREAUX Capital is the first fintech built by and for Black Male Millennials. It is a cooperatively owned and operated financial technology company that provides a software platform and membership community to increase the financial wellness of Black millennials. They accomplish this through savings goals, dividends & revenue sharing, co-investing opportunities, education, community building, and much more. Ras and his team have been: - Named to INC Magazine’s 30 under 30 - Featured in The New York Times, Black Enterprise, The Associated Press, Time Magazine, BET, The Chicago Tribune, American Banker, CNN, Huffington Post, and more - Successfully pitched and secured investment from FUBU Founder and Shark Daymond John - And just announced a partnership with Lenovo In this episode, Ras discusses: - His background and motivations for starting BREAUX Capital - The obstacles his team faced along the way as young, black, first-time founders - How BREAUX Capital's financial and social sides work - Aspects of systemic inequality in the US that have destroyed black wealth creation including over-policing, redlining, and the GI Bill - And much, much more For more content from BREAUX Capital and their team, we encourage viewing Ras's Co-Founder, Derrius Quarles in his Ted Talk on YouTube, "Derrius Quarles: How banks are failing African-Americans," or their website, BREAUXCapital.com. For more insights and analysis from FinTech leaders, follow us below: Medium: https://medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: https://twitter.com/whartonfintech Ryan's Twitter: https://twitter.com/RyanZauk LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/