Bank On It

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio These interviews took place during Boston fintech week, in this episode John talks with Ron Shevlin, Christina Qi from Domeyard, Jennifer Lum from Forge.AI and Mario Hernandez from Impesa. Ron has the pulse of banking and fintech partnerships and he feels that bank/fintech partnerships are not the answer to question about fintech.  Instead he feels fintech assimilation is. He feels based on research that people don't want financial health, they want financial performance. Christina is a brilliant entrepreneur and is currently on the Forbes 30 under 30 list.  John and Christina talk about the lack of speed in AI and the importance of Quant engineering.   Jennifer is on her 5th startup and it's called Forge.AI, The use case of AI that she finds super valuable is the ability to turn unstructured data into structured information and she's betting on that use and trend.   Mario is a banking leader turned fintech entrepreneur.  He discussed how becoming a black belt in Karate influenced his company culture which is skewed younger and how he's going from suit to red sneakers.     Tune in and Listen.  In this episode: Ron Shevlin LinkedIn - Twitter Christina QI, from Domeyard LinkedIn - Twitter Jennifer Lum, Forge.AI LinkedIn - Twitter Mario Hernandez, from Impesa LinkedIn - Twitter   Subscribe now to hear Tuesday's interview with Anders Brownworth, Greg Woolf, Jean Donnelly, Devon Sherman, Monda Webb, Meredith Moss and Chris Lustrino   About the host: John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It" podcast recorded onsite from the CG offices and a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector. He's in the center of the fintech ecosystem keeping current with the ever - innovating industry. Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter or Medium

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs, through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode John talks with Fawce, Co Founder & CEO of Quantopian.  This is one of a few interviews that we recorded on site during Boston fintech week.  Fawce talked on how he went from working in his shed to raising $48,000,000 in venture funding.  It all started with a question that he asked himself constantly and couldn't not answer which was, what if firms could break the 150 Quant limit which seems to be a long lasting self imposed ceiling, instead, what if they could have 10,000?  The implications could change everything. This guiding question if answered could empower firms to get thousands of the smartest people in the world to focus on a particular firms biggest challenges.   Fawce added, if you find a massive inefficiency in a particular model you start asking the right questions, as an example in his scenario; "how do you get the smartest engineers to join your community"? Asking the right questions focuses creates clarity of purpose, something Fawce is full of.  Fawce is a great example of trying to answer the 'right' questions at the 'right' time and having the clarity of purpose to systematically collapse the inefficiency in a model. His views on building a company in this manner and the story behind it all is interesting. Tune in and Listen.   Fawce LinkedIn - Twitter Quantopian LinkedIn - Twitter   Subscribe now to hear Thursday's interview with Ron Shevlin, Christina Qi, Jennifer Lum and Mario Hernandez during Boston Fintech Week.  .   About the host: John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It" podcast recorded onsite from the CG offices and a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector. He's in the center of the fintech ecosystem keeping current with the ever - innovating industry. Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter or Medium

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode John talks with Mike Massaro, CEO of Flywire.  This is one of a few interviews that we recorded on site during Boston fintech week.  In this episode Mike shared a story that is basically every business leader's worst nightmare.  After burning through $6,000,000 and having the company close to bottoming out, Mike was extremely close to relaying that information to one of his most important stakeholders; his wife. Luckily (luck being defined as dedication and focus) and against all odds he was able to raise an A round that kept the company afloat and on track to the giant it is today.  Mike admitted that it was mis-allocation of funds that was the result of chasing too many opportunities and not focusing fully on the missions/goals that would make a difference. Most investors would not fund this company given the state it was in at that time, but Spark Capital and F-Prime believed in Flywire and did. There's a fascinating story behind it all and was discussed during this episode. Tune in and Listen.   Mike Massaro LinkedIn - Twitter Flywire LinkedIn - Twitter   Subscribe now to hear Tuesday's interview with Fawce from Quantopian during Boston Fintech Week.  .   About the host: John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It" podcast recorded onsite from the CG offices and a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector. He's in the center of the fintech ecosystem keeping current with the ever - innovating industry. Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter or Medium    

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode, John talks with Mazy Dar from Openfin, Openfin is an operating system for financial desktops.  12 of the top 15 global banks in the world use Openfin today It took 3 years after founding Openfin before they got their first major bank customers. Mazy shared an amazing story on how Openfin started to really come together when he talked with Matt Harris from Bain Capital about the challenge that Mazy and Chuck  faced in order to get the top global banks on the platform.  The advice was spot on, but its Mazy and Chuck's response to Matt's point to what makes Openfin great.  Matt came back in 2014 and joined their A round. Mazy added that it was clearly the best advice he's gotten.  With Mazy and Chuck's vision to become the operating system for Wall Street and Matt's advice is what Openfin needed to become the core of that ecosystem as it is today.   Mazy Dar LinkedIn - Twitter Openfin LinkedIn - Twitter   Subscribe now to hear Thursday's interview with Mike Massaro from Flywire during Boston Fintech Week.  .   About the host: John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It" podcast recorded onsite from the CG offices and a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector. He's in the center of the fintech ecosystem keeping current with the ever - innovating industry. Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter or Medium

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode, John talks with James Waldinger, Founder and CEO of Artivest.  James was able to raise a $2,000,000 seed round with a Power Point back in 2012, now Artivest currently has about 100 employees.  Before that he was an analyst on Peter Thiel's initial Facebook investment team and from the research Peter decided to invest $500,000, after the Facebook IPO he sold about 17,000,000 shares grossing $638,000,000.  James was part of that team which put that deal together and he discusses this during the interview in this episode.   James Waldinger LinkedIn - Twitter Artivest LinkedIn - Twitter   Subscribe now to hear Tuesday's interview with Mazy Dar from Openfin.   About the host: John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It" podcast recorded onsite from the CG offices and a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector. He's in the center of the fintech ecosystem keeping current with the ever - innovating industry. Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter or Medium

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode, John talks with Dhruv Bansal, Co-Founder and CSO of Unchained Capital.  Unchained Capital is a crypto secured loan provider. During the episode Dhruv said "You can't control volatility but you can trade it back and forth with their borrowers"  which is what makes the whole system work. During the interview Dhruv shared an amazing period of time during Unchained Capital's life.  Bitcoin had a 70% draw-down from December 2017 until March 2018 and Unchained Capital had to margin call 90% of their loans but not a single borrower defaulted.  He went on to explain why and it was very interesting.   Dhruv Bansal LinkedIn - Twitter Unchained Capital LinkedIn - Twitter   Subscribe now to hear Thursdays interview with James Waldinger from Artivest.   About the host: John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It" podcast recorded onsite from the CG offices and a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector. He's in the center of the fintech ecosystem keeping current with the ever - innovating industry. Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter or Medium

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio In this episode, John talks with Will Rhind, founder and CEO of GraniteShares.  They discuss in detail the nuances of organically growing a fintech from nothing to gaining capital from some amazing investors like, Bain Capital, Clocktower Technology Ventures and LG Capital to name a few.   They also discussed things like crypto etfs and how and when they'll come about.   William Rhind LinkedIn - Twitter GraniteShares LinkedIn - Twitter   Subscribe now to hear Tuesdays interview with Dhruv Bansal from Unchained Capital.   About the host: John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It" podcast recorded onsite from the CG offices and a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector. He's in the center of the fintech ecosystem keeping current with the ever - innovating industry. Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter or Medium

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them, their creations and the most important topics in fintech. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio. In today's episode, John and his fellow co host, Joy Schwartz from Lendit chat with three women fintech leaders such as Jennifer Barrett from Acorns, Casey Taylor from Digital Currency Group and Andrea Gellert  from Ondeck.   The mission of this episode is to help get the word out and to encourage more women to take on leadership roles at fintechs and help the industry cultivate an environment that supports it.     The average percentage of women in the C-Suite at fintech companies is 19%.  Just last month Lendit released the "'State of the Women in Fintech' survey Which reinforced the need for this particular episode. There were practical actions shared during the interview that everyone could implement fairly quickly.  It doesn't take much to do something. Start by sharing this episode. Subscribe now to hear Thursday's interview with Will Rhind from GraniteShares.   About the host: John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It" podcast recorded onsite from the CG offices and a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector. He's in the center of the fintech ecosystem keeping current with the ever - innovating industry. Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter or on Medium

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs through conversation uncovers the amazing stories behind them and their creations. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio. In this episode John chats with Eric Wilson from Better Mortgage. During the interview they discuss the technical feats Better Mortgage had to overcome in order to build a client centric digital mortgage platform and the story behind it all.  Better Mortgage has some amazing investors, Goldman Sachs, Pine Brook Partners, Kleiner Perkins and Moderne Ventures to name a few. Eric Wilson LinkedIn Better Mortgage LinkedIn - Twitter Subscribe now to hear next weeks episode on Women in fintech with Joy Schwartz from Lendit, Jennifer Barrett from Acorns, Andrea Gellert from Ondeck and Casey Taylor from Digital Currency Group.   About the host: John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It" podcast recorded onsite from the CG offices and a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector. He's in the center of the fintech ecosystem keeping current with the ever - innovating industry. Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter or on Medium

Every week the show host John Siracusa talks with amazing fintech leaders and entrepreneurs through conversation, through which uncovers the amazing stories behind them and their creations. You can Subscribe to this podcast and stay up to date on all the stories here on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and iHeartRadio. In this episode John chats with Aaron Schumm from Vestwell. Aaron shares some amazing stories throughout his entrepreneurial career like stressful times of being totally out of cash, to more positive like talking with over 80 VCs of which only 3 said no to funding his company.  He's been through a lot, yet stayed positive throughout it all. John and Aaron discuss it and laugh a bit. Tune in and learn about the organic progression on why/how Aaron built his recent company, Vestwell.  Vestwell has some amazing VC backers, F-Prime Capital Partners, FinTech Collective, Commerce Ventures and Primary Venture Partners to name a few. Aaron Schumm LinkedIn - Twitter Vestwell LinkedIn - Twitter John is the host of the 2x weekly "Bank On It" podcast recorded onsite from the CG offices and a highly sought after fintech, VC and financial services industry enthusiast and connector. He's in the center of the fintech ecosystem keeping current with the ever - innovating industry. Follow John on LinkedIn, Twitter or on Medium