Searching for Mana with Lloyd Wahed

This week, Lloyd chats with Dr Karen Elliott, a Senior Lecturer in Enterprise/Innovation at Newcastle University. Karen was voted one of Innovate Finance’s #Standout 35 Women in FinTech, and in 2018, she and her colleagues earned a £1.2-million grant to help Atom Bank elevate its FinTech services. In this interview, Lloyd and Karen discuss the future of work, why a strong sense of purpose is the best incentive in the FinTech space, and the unexpected challenges facing emotionally intelligent bots. Plus: how can we stop the next Wirecard before it happens, breaking down the divide between academia and business, and so much more.If you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave us a review! And don’t forget to follow Mana Search on Twitter and LinkedIn.To learn more about the study Lloyd discusses at 21:45, click here: https://hbr.org/2011/05/the-power-of-small-winsShow Notes:[02:10] Karen walks us through her experience and credentials.[13:40] Explaining the theory of trust.[23:40] Why working collectively makes leaders better.[31:25] AI’s blackbox issue: if complex machine learning systems can’t be explained, how do we get consumers to trust them?[35:45] Why consumers don’t always want emotionally intelligent bots.[53:32] Karen tells us why we don’t see more collaboration between academia and business.[01:05:16] Which courses can help students get ahead in FinTech?

[03:45]: Charlie explains the importance of anti-money laundering efforts and why it’s ‘the hardest problem within FinTech’.[16:20] After raising $40 million for a company he founded in his room, what challenges does Charlie continue to face?[30:50] Charlie explains how his approach to company culture has changed over the course of the past year.[39:35] How Charlie went from picking fruit to earning £400,000 in his first term at university.[53:20] ‘Do I love it enough to actually work there full time?’ The questions Charlie asks when he considers investing in a company.

Freddy Kelly is the CEO and co-founder of Credit Kudos, a challenger credit bureau that uses financial behaviour to measure creditworthiness. Credit Kudos aggregates and interprets transaction data for use by lenders, brokers, and financial institutions: going beyond traditional scoring to provide a comprehensive view of a borrower’s creditworthiness. Freddy started his career in Silicon Valley, with a background in Software Engineering, studying Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. Since co-founding Credit Kudos, Freddy has been the driving force behind its core accomplishments; achieving full FCA authorisation as the first of its kind Credit Reference Agency, and most recently winning ‘Best New Innovation in Consumer Lending’ by FDATA Global 2018, and ‘Innovation of the Year’ at the Consumer Credit Awards 2018. Credit Kudos is the first challenger credit bureau which uses open banking to replace traditional, narrow methods of credit assessment and make credit fair, and accessible to all. Credit Kudos has become the chosen partner for credit intermediaries including ClearScore, CarFinance 247, and Mojo Mortgages, allowing customers to use their bank data to secure better offers across unsecured loans, car finance and mortgages.

4:10 how was iwoca in 2014 at Series A and the power of people behind creating products and innovations (guest Mimi Nguyen)7:21 iwoca in 2020 funding last year over 1 billion. Culture being a big part of iwoca9:45 Mission of SME lending and what is iwocaPay?22:45 How is technology supporting the underwriting process?   The balance between machines and humans in the decision process.24:50 How did COVID-19 affected iwoca and it’s clients?30:00 Fintech 2.032:32 Lara’s background and what brought her to fintech39:15 Lara’s mana - what has shaped her career48:27 What makes a good researcher?

Joe is Head of the UK Banks and Digital Channels business at BlackRock - The World's Largest Asset Manager. He is responsible for delivering BlackRock’s full suite of investment products, bespoke client solutions and propriety technology capabilities to some of the firm’s largest clients, including UK & Global Private Banks, UK Retail and Challenger Banks and Digital Channels (Robo Advisors & brokerage Platforms).

[00:05:00] Fiona talks us through her work overseeing one of the worlds largest strategic alliances between the Volkswagen Group and the Ford Motor Company[00:18:30] We learn more on Addleshaw Goddard and how the practice breaks down[00:27:45] Fiona and Lloyd talk about the opportunities still to be uncovered in the Middle Eastern Tech market[00:34:00] Lloyd begins to dig into Fiona’s biography - when did she first want to be a lawyer? Her experiences at Oxford and beyond![00:55:00] Covid and how regulation will take even more of an important role57m - What lessons does Fiona try to enstill on her children?

Christian is the co-founder of LendInvest, the marketplace platform for property finance, and one of the leading Fintech businesses in the UK. The business has raised well over £1 billion in debt and equity, from institutions such as Atomico, the European Investment Fund, Citibank, HSBC, and the National Australia Bank. Christian comes from a legal background having practised as a real estate lawyer in Australia at Allens Arthur Robinson, and then in the UK with Clifford Chance and Deutsche Bank. In 2008, Christian co-founded the business with Ian Thomas, initially seeing an opportunity in the short term mortgage market. Christian is a keen advocate for the Fintech sector, and sits on the Government’s Fintech Delivery Panel; he also founded and chairs the Digital Finance Forum. He is an active supporter and early investor in several startups, including Seedrs, Crowdcube and Onfido.

Christian Gabriel is the CEO & Co-Founder of Capdesk - a social shareholder platform that makes investments in private growth companies accessible to all. Despite widespread economic challenges across the world - Capdesk have bucked the trend and in April 2020 secured £3m in Series A funding Founded in 2015 by Christian, alongside Mikkel Boje & Martin Damhus, Capdesk provides a cap table management platform that enables private companies to keep a clear overview of ownership (in terms of cap tables, shareholder register, and equity reporting) and to manage employee option pools. The company currently serves approx. 1.000 European companies.

For episode 3 of our second season - Lloyd was delighted to be joined by Isabel Woodford - Fintech Journalist at Sifted.eu the leading (and FT backed) media site for Europe’s innovators and entrepreneurs. Isabel has been featured in The Guardian, Reuters, The New York Times, and prior to joining Sifted, as a reporter at US crypto news outlet, The Block. Please do continue to like/share/comment/subscribe! We are growing thanks to all of our wonderful listeners. Stay tuned for more fantastic future episodes on Searching for Mana with Lloyd Wahed

Breaking: Exclusively on Searching for Mana - Conrad reveals to us the details of his latest venture Conrad Ford is the founder of, SME finance broker, Funding Options - having founded the company in 2011 - Conrad and his team built the business into the leading SME marketplace winning multiple awards along the way and accumulating an exceptional leadership team. Conrad left for new projects in 2019 and has since been working as an advisor for Anne Boden and Starling Bank As mentioned by Conrad during the show: https://a16z.com/2019/10/01/google-maps-for-money/