Tearsheet Podcast: Exploring Financial Services Together

Today, we're joined by Camila Vieira, a Partner at QED Investors focused on Latin America. Camila brings a wealth of experience to our conversation, having established herself as one of the region's most influential fintech investors. Camila joined QED in 2022 as the company's first employee based in São Paulo, Brazil, where she focuses on early stage investments. As an investor and operator with experience working across different regions, she brings a well-rounded perspective to the table, connecting founders and startups to valuable resources while leveraging QED's deep fintech expertise. Prior to joining QED, Camila built her career at the intersection of technology and financial services. She started at Moody's, a credit rating agency, before joining Goldman Sachs to focus on corporate credit and economic risk. Later, as part of Goldman's investment banking division, she helped fintech, software, and e-commerce companies raise capital and navigate the transition from private to public markets. She went on to join the global strategy and corporate development teams at Ceridian, a global software company servicing more than 160 countries. More recently, Camila spent time at Hotmart, a Brazilian tech unicorn whose platform facilitates sales of digital products, enabling creators to build, monetize, manage, and grow globally. There, she led strategy and operations, ESG, and investor relations. Today, we'll explore the dynamic Brazilian fintech ecosystem, discuss cross-border investment opportunities, and uncover lessons that US investors and financial professionals can apply when looking to diversify their portfolios into these high-growth regions. Before we jump in, I just want to tell you about a new initiative we’re running at Tearsheet.  4dFI is an exclusive group of out-of-the-box builders and investors knitting together a community to invest in the next wave of fintech startups. We’re bringing together current and former banking executives interested in investing in and learning about emerging market fintech startups. 4dFI’s network will be able to both help new companies reach maturity faster, while startups can provide new ways of thinking to our community members. At 4dFI Capital Partners, I'm joined by Russell Weiss, experienced product and startup builder and Josh Liggett, who has led fintech and blockchain diligence, investments, and strategic partnerships at OurCrowd. If you are interested in learning how emerging market fintechs are changing the financial services landscape around the globe and would like to play a part in crafting this new future, signup on https://tearsheet.co/4dFI.

The payments landscape is experiencing regulatory upheaval, forcing financial institutions to rethink their approach to money movement modernization. With ISO message format changes, Swift updates, and evolving fraud requirements hitting simultaneously, banks are facing a complex web of compliance demands that require immediate attention. "The regulatory agenda for money movement is probably one of the most aggressive we have," said Elaine Duff, SVP and Head of Money Movement at FIS. "It's across the globe. We're seeing the ISO message intended to help firms standardize their messaging, become more efficient, and make their operations much more standardized." Yet the scale of change extends far beyond simple messaging updates. The oncoming change affects fraud tools, digital channels, reporting formats, and entire operational workflows. For many institutions, the traditional rip-and-replace approach to modernization has become both financially and operationally untenable. Nick Dovaras, Global Account Manager at AWS, emphasized the broader pressures driving urgency: "There's customer expectations as well. Customers are expecting 24/7, instant, and customer-friendly mobile applications that are connected to online systems.” Dive into this episode to hear about how financial institutions are navigating regulatory pressures through modular modernization strategies. FIS’ Duff and AWS’ Dovaras break down the critical role embedded fraud protection is playing in real-time payments, and why cloud-based solutions are enabling banks to modernize their money movement capabilities without the risks of traditional rip-and-replace approaches.

Today on the Tearsheet Podcast, we're diving into a story that captures the evolution of modern finance — where professional athletes aren't just endorsing products, but building the infrastructure that empowers the next generation of wealth creators. I'm joined by Sheldon Day, Co-Founder and President of The Player's Company, a collective of over 500 professional athletes and accredited investors who are rewriting the playbook on financial empowerment. As a NFL defensive tackle with the Washington Commanders and eight-year veteran, Sheldon understands firsthand the financial realities that athletes face both during and after their careers. The Players Company isn't just another investment club — it's a platform democratizing access to wealth-building tools once reserved for the ultra-wealthy, while providing financial education many athletes never received. Since 2019, TPC has facilitated investments in startups like ZenWTR, Teamworks, and Public.com, proving athletes can be sophisticated capital allocators when given the right resources. We'll explore how Sheldon went from reading defensive formations to reading investment prospectuses, and how The Players Company is scaling to empower athletes across all sports to build generational wealth.

From streamlining complex onboarding flows to surfacing the right information at the right time, design thinking encourages product design teams to bring empathy and intentionality into every layer of product development, creating experiences that are intuitive, responsive, and centered around real human needs. Temenos is leading the charge to bring that mindset back to banking innovation, with Erik Johnson, Head of Product Design, at the helm. For Johnson, creativity and collaboration go hand in hand with functionality. On this episode of the Tearsheet podcast, Johnson talks about structuring his design team in a “centralized, hybrid” model, solving design challenges with data and empathy, and how Temenos’ Innovation Hub in Orlando is structured to be a “we space” for exploring and co-creating new banking products.

More than half of Americans report that they will run out of money when they stop earning a paycheck and millions haven't saved enough to maintain their standard of living in retirement, There is an urgent need to re-imagine the role record keepers play in financial wellness, and it starts by leveraging technology to close the gap between capabilities and customer expectations. “When I look at things like automatic enrollment and automatic increase, that's where it starts,“ explains Will Hicks, Head of FIS Global Retirement Products and Services. “Then it bleeds into the technology phase in terms of how you deliver that. How do you actually let participants know how that impacts their financial future?“. The sector is in transition, where traditional retirement record keeping is expanding into comprehensive financial wellness platforms. Scott Parker, Partner at Deloitte Consulting and leader of their wealth retirement practice, notes that the industry is “at the cusp of taking it to the next level and getting outside of what we've always done in the past, which is more and more communication.“ The change is driven by both technological capabilities and changing expectations which center around integrated solutions: “Our clients are asking us to bring those solutions together, because they want a clear picture of not just their retirement, but what are they doing in the banking space?“ said Sherry Baker, SVP and Head of Global Wealth Products and Services at FIS. Listen to the podcast to discover how retirement industry leaders are breaking down traditional silos to deliver integrated financial wellness solutions that go far beyond the 401(k). Learn the role that modernization, data, personalization, and cybersecurity play in pushing record keepers forward. It's a conversation on record keeping organizations can meet regulatory requirements while meeting the daily engagement expectations of younger participants.

As fintech companies transition from scrappy startups to scaled operations, traditional leadership models often hit their limits. The demands of managing complex partnerships, navigating regulatory requirements, and driving sustainable growth require a different kind of executive structure than the founder-led approach that got many companies off the ground. Today, I'm joined by Prashant Fuloria, CEO of Fundbox, and Anchit Singh, the company's Chief Business Officer, to explore how they've developed a collaborative leadership model that's helped drive Fundbox's evolution in the embedded finance space. We'll dig into the CEO-CBO dynamic, how they divide responsibilities, and what other growing fintechs can learn about building leadership structures that scale.

Americans give nearly half a trillion dollars to charity each year—over 2% of GDP. Yet despite this massive scale, charitable giving remains stuck in the past, dominated by donor-advised funds marketed exclusively to the wealthy and clunky processes that make generosity harder than it should be. Today I'm joined by Adam Nash, co-founder and CEO of Daffy, a modern platform that's democratizing charitable giving through technology. Adam brings decades of experience building consumer fintech products as the former CEO of Wealthfront and in leadership roles at LinkedIn, Dropbox, and eBay. During the pandemic, he recognized that while fintech had revolutionized how we save and invest, charitable giving had been largely untouched by innovation. We'll explore why Adam left Wealthfront to tackle charitable giving, how Daffy's membership-based model differs from traditional approaches, and why he believes donor-advised funds will soon be as common as 401ks. Adam will share insights on tax-advantaged giving as more people hold appreciated assets like stock and crypto, how Daffy is incorporating AI, and why they've opened their APIs to partners like Betterment and Robinhood.

As the banking landscape accelerates toward digital transformation, some financial institutions are questioning how fast and far to leap. Others have long made the jump. As Canada’s first cloud-native bank, EQ Bank is already ahead of the curve. Its early adoption of a cloud-native core banking platform through a partnership with Temenos is now powering its next phase: real-time data and AI-driven innovation. Behind it all is a long-standing relationship between EQ and Temenos that encourages mutual collaboration and support. In today’s episode, Temenos’ Chief Revenue Officer Will Moroney and EQ Bank’s Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Geoff Vona discuss the benefits of cloud-native banking, improving customer experiences through real-time data, developing new capabilities powered by AI and how technology partners and banks can offer each other deeper value.

Today, traditional insurance faces mounting pressures from new technologies and market entrants, and digital transformation has become an imperative rather than an option. Kamiel Bouw, Global Head of Insurance for Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions, joins the show today. He brings extensive experience navigating this evolving landscape, where efficiency, data-driven approaches, and customer-centricity have become paramount. With traditional insurers working to adopt new technologies within legacy infrastructure, Buow describes how Citi has positioned itself to strategically support these organizations capture opportunities while enhancing customer experience. Throughout the interview, Buow explores several transformative themes reshaping the insurance industry. He uses real life case studies to emphasize the tremendous opportunity in digitizing payment processes — both for premium collections and claims payments — highlighting how instant payments can create superior customer experiences while providing operational benefits. Buow also discusses how Treasury functions must evolve beyond their traditional role as financial settlement centers to become innovation leaders, engaging across enterprise-wide initiatives and providing expertise in risk management and end-to-end payment flows. Listen to the podcast to gain unique insights into emerging technologies like digital assets and tokenization and their growing role in insurance, and how organizations can start with small, focused use cases to drive learning and foster broader adoption of this new tech.

Banking executives face a familiar dilemma: decades-old core systems technically constrain innovation while replacement costs can reach hundreds of millions of dollars and take years to implement. Meanwhile, fintechs launch new products in weeks while traditional banks remain trapped in months-long approval cycles. The challenge extends beyond technology. "Most banks duct-tape capabilities onto what they already have, and eventually they break," explains Ritesh Rihani, Vice President of Enterprise Banking at Galileo. "You've seen the number of outages we've had in the industry recently. That's all happening because they put duct tape upon duct tape." The pressure to modernize comes from multiple directions. Customer expectations have evolved toward integrated experiences and ease of use and operational risks multiply as the pool of COBOL programmers shrinks through retirement. Regulatory compliance becomes increasingly difficult with manual processes and fragmented systems. This podcast explores five critical dimensions of core modernization: balancing costs with competitive necessity, understanding operational and regulatory risks, implementing incremental transformation strategies, enabling product innovation, and unlocking the future potential of modern banking architecture.