Georgia Fintech Academy

A new episode of the Georgia Fintech Academy podcast is here! Join Laura Gibson-Lamothe (Executive Director of the Georgia Fintech Academy) and Morgan Blackmon (GSU graduating senior) as we discuss with Jennifer Frasier (Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer at FIS) the approach FIS is taking for Inclusion and Diversity both internally and externally, as demonstrated by the partnership with Greenwood's Ryan Wilson (Chief of Community and CEO of The Gathering Spot), whose mission is to continue to build a community focused on advancing the economic empowerment of minority and underserved communities.  Listen wherever you listen to podcasts! 

Welcome as we kick off Season 4 of the podcast with an intro to the new Executive Director of the Georgia Fintech Academy, Laura Gibson-Lamothe. 

Kevin Lee is a serial fintech and technology entrepreneur in Atlanta and the CEO of Kobiton. He has led fintech companies including CRE Secure, TransCentra, Vanco Payment and more. He discusses Kobiton's business and the challenges fintech's face in developing applications for mobile devices. 

Ade Sturley is a Vice President in the FIS Global Impact Ventures team. Nick Lommen is a star baseball player at Georgia State University and deeply interested in fintech. Listen to this great conversation on the present and future of Bank as a Service. 

Rachel Hansen is the Chief Information Officer for the Payment Services division of U.S. Bank. In this discussion with Seyi Fasan, a recent graduate of the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University the two reveal the importance of the Cloud to today's payment technology environment.

Rob Hanlon is the CEO at CyberBanque International, the creator of Cybermoney. This platform empowers merchants to offer exciting consumer payments experiences. Kumar Shivam just earned his Master's in Data Analytics with a focus on Big Data. This conversation explores the future of payment's opportunities for merchants. 

David Berglund is the Global Head of Artificial Intelligence at FIS Global. He joins Vijay Ahuja, a recent undergraduate from Indiana University to discuss that state of AI in financial services, ethics in AI, and the Metaverse.

Rohin Tagra (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohin-tagra-54a6b6/) founded Azimuth GRC 3 years ago to address compliance challenges in the mortgage industry. Morgan Blackmon is a rising senior at the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State. She is engaged with the Georgia Fintech Academy curriculum and will intern with Wells Fargo this summer. 

Zoe Newman is the U.S. Managing Director of UK based fintech CapitalOnTap. She joins Anna Gelderman who is a graduating senior at the University of Georgia. This discussion explains the CapitalOnTap business model and approach to the USA market for small business credit cards. 

Somesh Chablani, Global Head, Go-to-Market, FIS Global Capital Markets joins Jonathan Laurent, a senior at Georgia State University Honors College to define the Go-To-Market approach of a major global fintech player. They dive into sales, marketing, product strategy, and client support. 

Akita Somani, SVP, BNPL/POS at U.S. Bank - Elavon joins Divij Sharma, a fintech focused senior at University of Georgia Terry College of Business. This conversation explores global trends in payments along with an overview of the Elavon business in Europe.

Oliver Burns is Head of Global Strategic Partnerships for FIS Global. In this podcast he joins Astrid Cuella-Benitez, a top student in the Georgia Fintech Academy program to discuss the role of strategic partnerships in creating enterprise value. 

Greg Cunningham, Chief Diversity Officer of U.S. Bank joins Georgia State University senior Bri'Asia Acklin to discuss the U.S. Bank Access Commitment initiative, key partnerships, and starting a career in fintech

Danny McDowell is the Senior Director of Global Transformation Delivery at FIS Global. He joins senior Charles Gibson of the University of Georgia Terry College of Business for a discussion on how large change is managed on complex projects throughout the world. This conversation centers on methods, scope management, and stakeholder communication.

Steve Ledford is a career payments strategist and the SVP of Products and Strategy at The Clearing House. Steve joins Lilly Sharples, a senior at the University of Georgia to discuss the important topic of Real Time Payments or RTP.

Jamie Walker is the CEO of U.S. Bank's Elavon division. He shares his story of being with Elavon for 20 plus years along with key trends that Elavon is leveraging to further grow its payments business including digital transformation. Miracle Golden joins the conversation as a recent graduate of the University of West Georgia and someone who intends to join the fintech industry full-time.

Hassan Thalji, SVP, Freedie Mac is the Chief Financial Officer of Freddie Mac's capital markets activities. He joins Naomi Chen, a junior at the Terry College of Business, UGA. This discussion explores the important function of Freddie Mac in the mortgage market and the role of technology in managing the finance function.

The third season begins with a bang as Darin Carter, Program Manager of Coinbase Giving joins Nick Carden, Senior Counsel at Coinbase and Keshav Laul a senior at the University of Georgia. This discussion dives into the growth of digital assets and where things are heading in the next year. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, Non Fungible Tokens, Web3.

Matt Maxey is the head of innovation at the large southern regional bank Synovus. He joins Yesha Shah, a senior at Valdosta State University to discuss innovation in banking.

Atlanta is now the 3rd largest office location for Microsoft. Tony Evans, Americas Business Lead for Microsoft Financial Services joins Andy Su, an information security undergrad from University of North Georgia to talk about Microsoft and its support for financial services globally.

Learn the ins-and-outs of Buy Now Pay Later with the US Head of Risk from OpenPay, a leading global BNPL player inventing BNPL 2.0. He is joined by graduate student Tony Erwin from Georgia State's Robinson College of Business. 

Understanding fintech regulation is critical to success in the fintech industry. David Katz of Adams & Reese joins Sagar Badve, a student at Georgia State University's Robinson College of Business to discuss regulators and oversight of 3rd party service providers.

Don Ault is the Vice President of Prepaid Product Management at COMDATA, a Fleetcor company. Don talks with recent University of North Georgia graduate Ansley Israel about the FinTwist product and its successful use as an employee benefit. 

OB Rawls has significantly shaped the merchant acquiring industry throughout his career. He joins Alisa Wilson, a recent graduate of Valdosta State to discuss past developments in merchant acquiring and where the industry is heading.

Heidi Johnson is Director, Behavioral Health at the world-renowned Financial Health Network. She led an important piece of research recently released that focuses on Designing Digital Financial Advisory Tools for Low/Moderate Income Older Adults. Patrick Schippers joins the conversation as a senior at the Georgia State Robinson College of Business. 

Jonathan Pinder and Minas Yohannes both graduated from the Georgia Fintech Academy over 1 year ago. These alumni return to share their wisdom with current students regarding how they found their jobs at Blackrock and Salesforce and discuss their experience in their first year as professionals.

Matt Collicoat is VP of Strategy for B2B Payments at FIS Global. He joins recent University of North Georgia fintech grad Ansley Israel to compare the development of payments in the rest of world against development in the USA. 

Jagruti Solanki is CFO of the 11 year old cryptocurrency payment processor BitPay. She joins Tariq Waseem from Georgia State University for a discussion about the exploding cryptocurrency payment opportunity. 

Steve Logue leads strategic partnerships for Google Pay. He joins Faeez Juneja, a senior at the University of Georgia to discuss Google Pay and the payments landscape globally.

Steve Latham, CEO, Banyan Hills Technologies joins Cam Holmes, a student at the Georgia Tech School of Industrial Design. This discussion focuses on the important role of the Internet of Things in the fintech industry. Banyan Hills Technologies is a software company focused on remote monitoring and management of critical assets for enterprise IT teams. Steve Latham is a veteran technology executive with a history of building successful teams and products. He founded Banyan Hills Technologies in 2013 and the company has appeared on the Inc 5000 list of fastest growing private companies in the United States for three years in a row.

Featurespace is the inventor of Adaptive Behavioral Analytics and Automated Deep Behavioral Networks technology for fraud and financial crime management. In this episode, David Excell the founder of Featurespace joins cybersecurity student Andy Su from the University of North Georgia. Their conversation explores the financial services industry problems Featurespace helps to solve.

ParkMobile is a national success story and headquartered in Atlanta, GA. In this discussion John Brown, the Chief Operating Officer of ParkMobile joins Daniel Hadgu from Georgia State University to discuss the ParkMobile journey towards powering smart mobility for every driver, everywhere. 

The range of digital payment solutions coming to market and in development is exploding. Bob Howe from Opus Solutions is in the middle of executing these solutions. He joins Anna Gelderman from the University of Georgia Terry College of Business to discuss. 

James Stevens is a Partner at Troutman Pepper with a focus on corporate and financial services law. He is joined by Thomas Long a recent graduate of the University of Georgia and now a leader at TripActions in Silicon Valley. The discussion explores the ins/outs of bank and fintech partnerships.

Glen Sarvardy takes the reins to moderate this preview discussion of Fintech South 2021 which occurs June 22-24th. Discount code FTS21Save25 to receive $25 off the list price. Kristin Slink is co-chair of the conference this year and joins Qazi Haq a recent Fintech Academy alumnus.

Anita Ward, the Chief Development and Diversity Officer of Salary Finance is a national leader in improving #financialinclusion for all Americans. She joins Lilly Sharples, a junior at the The University of Georgia and a fintech engaged computer science major and leader in the Terry FinTech Society. This discussion unpacks the 3rd annual Salary Finance study, "Inside the Wallets of Working Americans." 

This episode features Chief Seer, Adwait Joshi the founder of fintech company Dataseers. Adwait talked with Ansley Israel of the University of North Georgia about the growth of Dataseers and the company's ability to help clients prevent fraud in new innovative ways.

John Avery leads strategic planning for FIS Global's Capital Markets division. He joins Tariq Waseem, a senior at Georgia State University who has also created the student organization BlockchainGSU. This discussion dives into exciting marketplace developments at the intersection of capital markets and cryptocurrency. 

This episode features Julia Carreon, a former Wells Fargo executive and expert on Gen Z and the impacts of this demographic on financial services today and tomorrow. She is joined by Georgia State alum and fintech entrepreneur Daniel Hadgu.

In this episode there is a perfect pairing of a global data analytics executive from FIS Global with a student working on her masters degree in big data information systems. John Wittenbrook is the Global Data Analytics leader at FIS Global and Vinitha Ramani is our graduate student from the Georgia Fintech Academy.

The Chief Operating Officer of white hot fintech/healthtech company Medxoom joins Nikhil Malani of Georgia Tech to explore the ins-and-outs of starting a fintech company and the Medxoom value proposition that helps company employees better manage their healthcare expenditure.

Suneel Tummala leads LEAN IT efforts for FIS Global. Dennis Williams is student at Georgia State focused on creative media while also starting a financial literacy fintech company. This discussion explores LEAN and how this approach helps FIS creating better customer and employee experiences.

John McNair, President of the Community Bankers Association of Georgia joins Anindya Majumdar of the Robinson College of Business, Georgia State. This conversation explores the important role of community banks in the financial services industry and the role community banks play in fintech innovation.

Sudheer Chava is the Alton Costley Chair - Professor of Finance and Executive Director of the Financial Services Innovation Lab at Georgia Tech. In this discussion we explore recent research underway by Prof. Chava related to marketplace lending and broadly explore efforts underway at the Financial Services Innovation Lab.

Kristin Slink leads the fintech vertical of the Georgia Tech Advanced Technology Development Center incubator. In this role she helps nurture over 24 fintech early-stage companies. In this episode we learn about Kristin's career in fintech as a founder of Loan Hero and the fintech companies in the ATDC.

Amy Corn, Academic Program Director of FintechU from Georgia Tech Professional Education is joined by Daniel Hadgu, a recent graduate from Georgia State's Robinson College of Business. In this discussion Amy and Daniel discuss the professional education offerings in development at Georgia Tech.

David Berglund, Global Head of Artificial Intelligence, FIS Global joins graduate student Patricia Whitley of Kennesaw State University to discuss artificial intelligence, the ethics of AI, and current plus future opportunities in financial services.

Scott Marean is the Chief Technology Officer for the Risk, Lending, and Credit capabilities for FIS Global. He joins John Butler, a recent graduate of the University of North Georgia's Mike Cottrell College of Business. They take on the important topic of capital markets and explain its key components.

The founder of a revolutionary new fintech company called Defynance joins Cameron Vanderwiele of Georgia State to talk about this alternative to student loans. Defynance Income Share Agreements are discussed and how this structure creates greater opportunities.

Jennifer Frasier is the Global Head of Inclusion and Diversity at FIS Global. Alisa Wilson is a junior studying finance at Valdosta State and a member of the Georgia Fintech Academy student advisory council. This episode explores the topic of inclusion and diversity and its importance.

Dave Pritchett leads critical product development efforts related to partner experience with merchant onboarding at FIS Global. Dave's deep experience in merchant acquiring allows him to share meaningful perspectives on merchant acquisition and revolutionary approaches to merchant onboarding. Fang Zhou of Georgia Tech joins the conversation as a student interested in Fintech.