Around The Coin

In this episode, Mike Townsend chats with Tom Tirman the CEO of PARSIQ, a high-speed data solutions powering the backends of dApps & protocols. Tom has extensive experience in business and finance, having worked in both traditional banking institutions and fintech companies as well as being an entrepreneur. Tom holds a law degree from TalTech University. As a co-founder of blockchain companies PARSIQ and IQ Labs, he focuses his business on bringing disruptive next-gen technologies to the masses.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Brooker Belcourt, CEO of Covey, an investment community open to all, powered by the smartest analysts in the world. Brooker is a former Hedge Fund analyst at Citadel, Coatue, and a Tiger Cub. He is also an avid investor, building a place to track his ideas, share them and learn from others.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Alan Vey who is the Founder of Aventus Network. Alan is a Forbes 30 under 30 winner (2021) for his work as the founder & Chairman of the Aventus Network. Prior to Aventus, Alan worked at Deloitte in the Entrepreneurial Business Department, as well as macro hedge fund Brevan Howard. He completed his Master’s Degree in Artificial Intelligence at Imperial College London in 2016. His Master’s thesis focused on blockchain technology, looking for a use case around event ticketing and he conceived a business plan for what became Aventus, for which he successfully raised over $20m in 2017. Alan is continually looking at solving real-world problems using his knowledge of Maths, Economics, and Computer Science.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Sean the CEO and Founder of Revix. He comes from an entrepreneurial and investment banking background. He founded 3 businesses and successfully exited 2 prior to starting Revix including Sataya, a proprietary trading firm, Blocktree Capital, a digital asset advisory firm, and Application Portal, a multi-purpose online university application system. Sean led the technology investment team at Draper Gain a London-based family office, was a lead investment associate at Knife Capital one of South Africa’s leading VCs and managed a >$100m fixed income and technology portfolio at Sabvest, a JSE listed specialist investment group. Sean is a CFA Charterholder and graduated Magna Cum Laude when completing his Bachelor of Business Science (Honours) in Finance at the University of Cape TownLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Scott Lawin, CEO of Candy Digital. As CEO, Scott oversees all aspects of Candy Digital, the next-generation technology company. Launched in 2021, Candy Digital designs and develops officially licensed, premium digital collectibles that connect people to their passions. Candy Digital is an official digital collectible partner of Major League Baseball, Getty Images, the Race Team Alliance, and the WWE. Candy operates digital collectible ecosystems where fans and collectors are able to purchase, trade, and share authentic digital collectibles to deepen their love of the sports, media and culture.Prior to Candy, Scott founded Parametric, LP, a private investment and advisory firm focused on early-stage opportunities in blockchain, fintech, art and real estate. From 2010-2017, he was Chief Operating Officer of Moore Capital Management, a $15 billion global alternative investment management company. Lawin has also served as Chief Operating Officer of the Liquid Markets business at Fortress Investment Group following a 12-year career at Goldman, Sachs & Co.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Saeed Aldarmaki, Founder and CEO of Sheesha Finance. Saeed is the Special Advisor of CasperLabs and Co-Founder of Alphabit Digital Currency Fund. He was nominated as Investor of the Year by AIBC summit UAE in May 2021. He is one of the board members of entities such as DEX, RealEx, MENA Fintech Association, BeMobi, Jahani & Associates, LEAD Ventures, Royale Finance, Artha, TeraBlock, and Kenzi Wealth, to name a few. Saeed is a fixed-income specialist working for the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority for Traditional Finance.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with John Tait who is the Global Managing Director of the Payments Market Business at Transaction Network Services (TNS), a worldwide provider of payments solutions to global companies in the most mission-critical industries. In his role, John is responsible for identifying and driving growth across the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific regions and is focused on meeting the unique requirements of its customers.  His executive experience includes business development, operations, customer service, strategy, distribution, and sales leadership. He has been responsible for the creation of Australia’s first non-bank-owned merchant acquiring the business and the establishment of a joint venture across 11 markets in Asia for merchant acquisition. He also played a critical role in leading the establishment and introduction of the Cashless Debit Card trial with the Commonwealth Government of Australia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Dawn Newton, COO and Co-Founder of Netki. An operation professional with 30 years of experience managing technical teams and growing innovative companies, Dawn Newton has successfully positioned herself as one of the premier operations executives at the forefront of emerging technical industries. From the early days of the internet to the booming blockchain industry, Dawn’s work has had a formative effect on today’s leading tech companies.Today, Dawn is the COO of Netki, the first and largest KYC/AML technology provider purpose-built for blockchain. Dawn’s work at Netki is driven by her desire to increase global access to crypto assets in a sustainable, secure, and equitable manner. At Netki, Dawn has contributed to the development of OnboardID, which facilitates identity verification and onboarding for custodial wallets, and TransactID, which is the only fully compliant blockchain native solution to Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Travel Rule regulations.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Nimit Sawhney, the Co-Founder and CEO of Voatz, Inc, an elections platform that uses remote identity proofing, biometrics, and blockchain technology to enable end-to-end verifiable and accessible remote voting via smartphones and tablets. Voatz has run more than 90 elections serving 2+ million voters in partnership with major political parties at the state level, as well as with state/county governments, towns, cities, universities, and professional organizations including the first ever mobile app-based voting project in the US with the State of West Virginia in 2018. Nimit is a winner of multiple coding/security hackathon competitions including the SXSW ‘Hack to the Future’ Hackathon in 2014 and the Vantiv Challenge at the Money2020 Hackathon in 2016. Nimit’s background is in mobile security and software development, previously serving as Director of R&D at Oberthur Technologies (now IDEMIA), and prior to that, as Director of R&D at MoreMagic Solutions. Nimit holds a graduate degree from Carnegie Mellon University in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Business Management and is an alumnus of the Harvard Business School’s YALP (Young American Leaders Program) Class of 2019. In his spare time, Nimit actively participates in the development of security tools to help detect and prevent human trafficking.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Morgan McKenney, the CEO of Provenance Blockchain Foundation, the leading public open-source blockchain for financial services, leveraged by over 50 financial institutions and operating at scale today with billions of dollars of digital financial assets transacted across lending, payments and marketplaces.Prior to Provenance, McKenney spent nearly twenty years at Citi in a range of senior executive operating roles globally, most recently as Chief Operating Officer for Global Consumer Banking. With a career leading large payments businesses in the institutional business globally in Asia, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, McKenney partnered with banks, corporates, and governments to help them operate their business and enable real-time commerce. McKenney also successfully implemented two blockchain projects with NASDAQ and with Alibaba and Ant Financial, and managed Citi's innovation lab in Singapore.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices