Searching for Mana with Lloyd Wahed

Episode 5 is a juicy one as I was joined in conversation with Sasha Yanshin, Founder and MD at Strategy Desk.Sasha has helped industry leading businesses build and grow successful products by developing astute commercial strategies, combined with digital innovation. Companies like MasterCard, Tesco, Barclays, HSBC, RBS, and Bank of America. Now he's helping banks innovate and grow by creating transformative products for their customers.We have a fantastic conversation where we discuss his journey to doing 'marketing on steroids', his vision for the future, as well as his frank and insightful analysis of what's happening in the FinTech space right now. You don't want to miss this.

I'm really excited to share the next podcast with you all, as I was joined by David Keene, Chief Marketing Officer at Funding Options.David had been a key figure in businesses like Google, Oracle, Salesforce, and SAP before joining Funding Options. We have a really open and insightful conversation around David's journey (some of the challenges and successes of his career); how his new(ish) role in a growing series A FinTech is evolving; and what he expects to see happening in the FinTech sector's near future.Enjoy listening and as always, please give it a rating once you've finished up.

Fresh off the press - Dora Ziambra comes on to Searching for Mana to announce her promotion to Chief Operating Officer at Azimo!For anyone considering the merits of taking an MBA, this episode is for you. With a background in Co-Founding and trading high-frequency algorithmic equity/index products, Dora took the long view in 2013 to attend INSEAD MBA course. This is where Dora met the future to be founders of Azimo, Michael Kent and Ricky Knox and the rest is History....Azimo founded 2012$66M funding to date and now operating in profit is an online international money transfer company that challenges the old fashioned, expensive ways of moving your money around the world. They are all about lower costs, excellent exchange rates and a brilliant service.Azimo is created with the explicit mission of cutting the costs of sending money home. Its international money transfer platform allows to send money either to a bank account or to over 270,000 cash pick-up points around the world and is accessible via mobile devices.

The Head of Banks at Flux, Roisin Levine, comes on to discuss her journey since she graduated in History at the University of Bristol several years ago.Since then, Roisin has been awarded:- 'Rising Star' in the Women in Fintech Powerlist 2018 by Innovate Finance.- Nominated for 2019's Transformation of the Year award by Women in Credit.Flux are aiming to kill the paper receipt and automatically send them to customer's phones! They're through series A and have partnerships with the likes of Barclays, Starling & Monzo. Flux and Roisin are at such an interesting phase in their journeys, it's great to catch the story at this point, where a new global standard in receipt management could be around the corner, not to mention how great for the environment this will be!

What a great way to kick-off the podcast!For our first episode I'm joined by Valentina Kristensen, Director of Growth & Communications at Oaknorth.Valentina was one of those lucky few who found themselves at university amidst the global financial crisis in 2007/2008, trying to figure out what path she could take after graduating. After witnessing the effect of the financial downturn she decided that she wanted to bring the trust back into banking - she has been a resounding success in the pursuit of that goal. From being a modest start-up when she joined Oaknorth, they are now a business of over 600 staff globally and are set for continued stellar success!I'm delighted to have shared the mic with Valentina, who shared some great insight into her career, the success of Oaknorth and how she sees the sector evolving.