Joshua Benadiva hosts Bill Capuzzi, the CEO of Apex Fintech Solutions. They dive into the history and evolution of broker-dealers, the inefficiencies of the traditional brokerage industry, opportunities in wealth-tech, Apex's role in driving innovation, expanding globally, and advice for business school students interested in fintech and entrepreneurship.

Urvashi Barooah, Principal at Redpoint Ventures, shares her journey from Wharton to venture investing. She discusses her transition from consulting to venture capital, her investment philosophy, and advice for aspiring VCs. They explore the potential of vertical SaaS in various industries and the challenges of staying grounded in VC. They also discuss the qualities of an empathetic investor and supporting the fintech community.

“We build the monetisation engine for Google. We build the entire stack that moves money and we do it at Google scale. The reason we have to build it internally is (because) at our scale and with all our different business models and products that we support at Google there is not really one product out there that does it all. You have to piece together multiple different things and some of that is very unique to the way Google runs and its scale and reach… billions of users, hundreds of countries and territories. So that’s why we do what we do.” Sonal Goyal and Kareem Itani host Kan Liu, VP of Product for Payments Platform at Google, which provides fast, easy and trusted payment solutions to Google’s businesses and their end users. Kan has been at Google for almost two decades where he previously led Google Desktop and Chrome OS. In this episode, they discuss Kan’s career journey, everlasting product principles, balancing innovation with regulatory compliance, Google’s big bets in digital payments, advice for fintech and product enthusiasts, and much more!

Zoey Tang hosts Kevin Zhang, partner at Bain Capital Venture. At BCV, Kevin partners with inception-stage entrepreneurs at the intersection of business software and financial services, with particular emphasis on finserv enablement, productivity & automation, and data infrastructure. During our conversation, we delved into Kevin's professional trajectory, his initial attraction to fintech, and the transition from operations to investment. We then discussed his specific criteria when it comes to evaluating founders in the early stage, as well as the decision-making process he and his colleagues employ at Bain Capital Ventures. Lastly, our conversation concluded with Kevin's interests outside of work, including his revelation of a political figure with whom he would be eager to share a dinner table. About Kevin Zhang Kevin Zhang is a partner at Bain Capital Ventures, leading early-stage investments in financial technology and developer products. Previously, he has invested in companies including Argyle, Column Tax, Alloy Automation, Hightouch, and others. Prior to Bain Capital Ventures, Kevin was the first business hire and Head of Product at Fundera, a lending marketplace acquired by NerdWallet (NASDAQ: NRDS). Kevin built the initial content and acquisition marketing efforts, before leading roadmap, user research, and analytics as Head of Product. During Kevin’s tenure, Fundera grew from 5 to 65 employees, raised $20M+ of venture capital, and was ranked #69 fastest growing company on the Inc. 5000 in 2018. About Bain Capital Ventures Bain Capital Ventures is the venture capital arm that operates within the larger Bain Capital ecosystem. With a focus on investing in early to growth-stage startups, BCV has built a strong reputation for backing innovative and disruptive companies across various sectors.

Eric Satz, Founder and CEO of Alto, shares his career journey and discusses the benefits of alternative investments. They also explore the growth of Alto in a competitive market and its capabilities with crypto. Eric provides advice and insights from his experience as a founder, operator, and investor.

Gary Hoberman, CEO of Unqork, discusses the motivation behind founding Unqork and how their codeless platform empowers clients in financial services. They address skepticism, share success stories, and explore the future of software engineering in a codeless world.

Itzik Cohen, CEO and Co-Founder of PayZen, shares his journey from being a serial entrepreneur to founding PayZen, a patient financing platform for healthcare. They discuss the intersection of healthcare and fintech, PayZen's unique approach to payments in healthcare, and their vision of making healthcare accessible and affordable for everyone.

Matt Streisfeld, General Partner at Oak HC/FT, discusses the M&A environment for fintechs, opportunities in AI/ML, the outlook for digital assets, and his personal philosophy on FinTech investing.

"Every time we scale, I rethink the problem and how we are solving it…” Listen in as Josh Benadiva hosts Ariel Cohen, CEO and Co-Founder of Navan. This episode is a riveting exploration of Ariel's journey in tackling evolving challenges and driving continuous product innovation as his business scales. Ariel shares his unique approach to product development and organizational alignment. He discusses how he and his co-founder initially reimagined enterprise travel management software with a focus driving win-wins for companies and their employees. As the CEO and Co-Founder of Navan, Ariel is focused on the company’s growth. This is Ariel’s second company he founded with Co-founder and CTO Ilan Twig –– the most recent being StreamOnce, a business multimedia integration platform which was acquired by Jive Software. Prior to StreamOnce, Ariel led Product Management in a senior leadership role at Hewlett-Packard. Ariel earned an EMBA from Northwestern University –– Kellogg School of Management. Navan (formerly TripActions) was founded in 2015 and is the next generation of corporate travel and expense management software that allows users to easily book, view, and manage business travel and expenses. Navan has also recently launched a corporate credit card alongside its travel and expense management technology.

Kailee Costello hosts Harsh Sinha and Steve Naudé from Wise. Harsh is the Chief Technology Officer, and Steve is Head of Wise Platform. Wise has built a leading cross-border payments network and processes £9B in cross-border payments every month on behalf of over 16 million customers. Wise’s IPO on the London Stock Exchange took place in 2021. In this episode you will hear about: - Wise’s journey from money transfer service to leading cross-border payments network - How Wise have put an API around their cross-border payment infrastructure so that they can offer it to banks and non-banks via Wise Platform - How Wise is able to achieve such low transaction costs - Whether Wise will be able to push prices lower in the future - The friction that still exists in cross-border payments - The role that crypto solutions will play in the future. - How Wise deploys cross-functional teams that operate as a small startup within Wise and are fully equipped as a vertical unit to solve the problem for the customer - Challenges faced in building and growing Wise Platform - Growth opportunities for Wise Platform, and why Wise is expecting Platform to represent the majority of FX volume in the long-term About Wise Wise is a global technology company building the best way to move and manage money around the world. Wise processes £9bn in cross-border payments every month on behalf of over 16 million customers, saving them £1.5bn a year in bank fees. Wise’s IPO took place in July 2021. About Harsh Sinha and Steve Naudé Harsh Sinha is the Chief Technology Officer at Wise. Prior to Wise, Harsh was the director of product at PayPal. He led product strategy and development of PayPal's mobile apps and software. Previously, Harsh led various technology functions at eBay. Harsh is also an angel investor, an advisor to early stage start-ups and venture capital firms. Steve Naudé is Head of Wise Platform, Wise’s cross-border payments infrastructure offer for banks and non-banks alike. Wise Platform allows financial institutions and major enterprises to leverage the power of Wise’s technology and embed solutions that make sending, receiving, and managing money internationally easier than ever for their customers directly into their existing infrastructure. Today, Wise Platform is live with more than 60 banks and financial institutions across the world, including Monzo, Google Pay, Ramp and Bank Mandiri, one of Indonesia's largest banks. For more FinTech insights, follow us on WFT Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech WFT Instagram: instagram.com/whartonfintech Kailee’s Twitter: @KaileeCostello_ Kailee’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaileecostello/