Podcasts about fintech

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Georgiana ‘Gia’ Laudi, a strategic advisor, keynote speaker, and co-founder of Forget The Funnel, a consultancy focused on helping B2B SaaS companies drive predictable, recurring revenue through a truly customer-led approach. In this episode, Gia and I will explore why so many companies get stuck throwing “spaghetti at the wall,” instead of researching who their best customers really are. We’ll look at the common pitfalls teams face when relying solely on funnel-based thinking—plus the steps any organization can take to cultivate a thriving, customer-centric culture. Gia will also share highlights from the remarkable work she’s done with various SaaS brands, as well as tips you can put into practice right away. KEY TAKEAWAYS Two years after drafting up a customer experience map for our company, through the lens of the customer, we grew revenue by 900%. We’d aligned the team and the company, and it facilitated more streamlined conversation, more alignment, more understanding cross-departmentally making things much easier. It gave us a tool and a shared language for operationalising around customer experience. A big reason for forgetting the funnel and leveraging a more customer-led approach is through the lens of recurring revenue businesses. Even if you don’t have a recurring revenue business model most businesses agree that customer retention, expanding existing accounts vs finding new customers contains a lot of value. This serves all kinds of businesses very well. Customer research is often equated with long, drawn-out projects that are very costly and leave you with more questions than answers. There’s a lot of resistance when we use the term ‘customer research’, we tend to use the term ‘customer insights’. We use targeted, streamlined and intentional research via ‘jobs to be done’ which reveal meaningful patterns from as little as 10-12 people which can identify what leads people to seek your business out. Not all customers are created equally, you shouldn’t try to serve every customer, narrow your focus on who really, really cares about the problem that you solve, has a high willingness to pay, deeply understands the value in what you provide and would sing your praises from the mountain tops. BEST MOMENTS ‘If you orient your operations around the customer experience it becomes easy to make all kinds of decisions.’ ‘Existing customers are worth more and are less costly to us as a business vs finding new customers.’ ‘Your relationship with your customer does not end with the purchase, it begins with the purchase.’ ‘Early stage companies should focus on one customer and do a really good job, later stage companies shouldn’t conflate all customers into a homogenous group but think of segmentation in a meaningful way so you can still provide high-converting and resonating experiences even for multiple segments.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Georgiana (“Gia”) Laudi is a strategic advisor, keynote speaker, and co-founder of Forget The Funnel, a consultancy specializing in customer-led growth for B2B SaaS companies. With over 20 years of experience in marketing and product strategy, she’s helped high-growth businesses such as Unbounce, Calendly, and Sprout Social deepen customer insights, align teams around customer value, and drive predictable, recurring revenue. As co-author of the book “Forget The Funnel,” Gia advocates a practical, step-by-step approach to uncovering why the best customers buy—and how to ensure more of them succeed post-purchase. Based in Montreal, Gia is passionate about turning real customer needs into clear messaging, frictionless onboarding, and expansion strategies that empower businesses to scale sustainably. She joins Scouting for Growth to share her journey, discuss common growth pitfalls, and offer actionable tactics any organization can use to become truly customer-led. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

The venture capital landscape is evolving fast, and founders who don't adapt will be left behind. Roy Luo, General Partner at ICONIQ Growth, shares insights on the shifting dynamics of startup funding and what it takes to scale in 2025. With investments in companies like Figma, Canva and Ramp, Roy breaks down key trends in fintech, AI-driven business models and the future of venture capital.Specifically, Roy discusses: (06:46) TCV provided key lessons in investing, founder relations and tech disruption.(11:25) How AI is transforming startups and the VC landscape.(17:00) How to evaluate product-market fit beyond just revenue metrics.(24:45) The importance of strong investor-founder alignment in building long-term partnerships.(37:44) Buyer pain points and trends guide investment decisions.(41:03) Lessons from high-growth investments like Ramp and FloQwcast.(53:04) The characteristics of successful startups and the importance of founder-market fit.(57:06) How identity and anti-fraud solutions are shaping the next wave of fintech.Resources Mentioned:Roy Luohttps://www.linkedin.com/in/roybluo/ICONIQ Growth | LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/iconiq-capital-llc/ICONIQ Growth | Websitehttps://www.iconiqcapital.com/growthThis episode is brought to you by:Leverage community-led growth to skyrocket your business. “From Grassroots to Greatness” by author Lloyed Lobo will help you master 13 game-changing rules from some of the most iconic brands in the world — like Apple, Atlassian, CrossFit, Harley-Davidson, HubSpot, Red Bull and many more — to attract superfans of your own that will propel you to new heights. Grab your copy today at FromGrassrootsToGreatness.com.Each year the US and Canadian governments provide more than $20 billion in R&D tax credits and innovation incentives to fund businesses. But the application process is cumbersome, prone to costly audits, and receiving the money can take as long as 16 months. Boast automates this process, enabling companies to get more money faster without the paperwork and audit risk. We don't get paid until you do! Find out if you qualify today at https://Boast.AI.Launch Academy is one of the top global tech hubs for international entrepreneurs and a designated organization for Canada's Startup Visa. Since 2012, Launch has worked with more than 6,000 entrepreneurs from over 100 countries, of which 300 have grown their startups to seed and Series A stage and raised over $2 billion in funding. To learn more about Launch's programs or the Canadian Startup Visa, visit https://LaunchAcademy.ca.Content Allies helps B2B companies build revenue-generating podcasts. We recommend them to any B2B company that is looking to launch or streamline its podcast production. Learn more at https://contentallies.com.#VentureCapital #StartupFunding #Fintech #Product #Marketing #Innovation #StartUp #GenerativeAI #AI

Welcome to Episode 146 of The Liquidity Event!  This week AJ and Shane talk FinTech corporate espionage and then focus on the proposed GOP tax plan. To wrap things up, they address a listener's concern about preparing for a "coming economic storm," offering insights on why fear-based financial decisions are rarely the best approach.  Key Takeaways: 00:00 - Intro & What's Shane doing in AJ's house? 01:52 - Spies Are Everywhere: The Cutthroat FinTech Industry 04:54 - Remote Work & Cybersecurity: The New Frontier of Corporate Risk 06:07 - Non-Competes: Enforceable or Not? 06:33 - Decoding the New House GOP Tax Plan (Draft Details!) 06:53 - AJ's Favorite: 529 Plan Expansions for Certifications! 08:14 - Shane's Take: Standard Deductions, AMT, and the SALT Cap Saga Continues 12:23 - No Tax on Tips? Or Overtime? The Complications! 15:14 - Radical Tax Idea Corner: Capital Gains & Lifetime Exclusions 18:58 - Estate Tax Exclusion: Permanent and Higher? 19:48 - Listener Question: Preparing for the "Coming Economic Storm" 21:26 - AJ's Hot Take: Don't Make Decisions Based on Fear! 25:01 - Outro

Au programme :Microsoft accélère l'intégration de l'IA agentique à WindowsGrok met en lumière l'importance des "system prompts"Entretiens d'embauche par IA: du vrai au fauxLe reste de l'actualitéInfos :Animé par Patrick Beja (Bluesky, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok)Co-animé par Damien Licata Caruso (Bluesky).Co-animé par Titouan Gourlin (Bluesky)Produit par Patrick Beja (LinkedIn) et Fanny Cohen Moreau (LinkedIn).Musique libre de droit par Musicincloud.Le Rendez-vous Tech épisode 619 - Les entretiens d'embauche par IA, what could go wrong? - Microsoft Build, Grok sur GitHub, Samsung Galaxy Edge, Computex, Audible par IA, Tesla sur l'Étoile---Liens :

Recapping this month's Finovate Spring event, Glen connects with Steven Ramirez (Beyond the Arc) and Elias Kruger (Long Range AI) to compare notes on the standouts and key takeaways- such as agentic AI- from San Diego. Also- Coinbase packs a year's news into a single week, and Nevada looks to enter the payments fray.   Links related to this episode:   Finovate Spring demo videos: https://finovate.com//videos/?filtertype=&showtypes=FinovateSpring&videostartyear=2025&showletters=A-Z    Beyond the Arc: https://beyondthearc.com/blog/category/fintech    Long Range AI Consulting: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekruger1/    Our 2023 interview with Crissi Cole of Penny Finance: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7tFFHhmaXPlPO2TbjobAEw    Glen's blog on Coinbase's wild week: https://www.big-fintech.com/a-tale-of-two-coinbases/   Payments Dive's coverage of Nevada's proposed legislation to create “Payments Banks”: https://www.paymentsdive.com/news/nevada-bill-would-charter-new-payment-banks-retailers-swipe-fees/748041/        Join us for our next CU Town Hall- Wednesday May 21 at 3pm ET/Noon PT- for a live and lively interactive conversation tackling the major issues facing credit unions today. This session will feature a crowdsourcing of takeaways from spring's credit union/ fintech conference season. The Town Hall is free to attend, but advance registration is required:  https://www.cutownhall.com/   Join us on Bluesky!   @bigfintech.bsky.social @154advisors.bsky.social (Glen) @jbfintech.bsky.social (John) And connect on LinkedIn for insights like the Friday Fintech Five: https://www.linkedin.com/company/best-innovation-group/  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbfintech/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/glensarvady/ Thank you to our friends at William Mills Agency for providing this week's featured image. *Image source: William Mills Agency

Running an agency can feel like shouting into the void—hours spent on content, pitch decks, and proposals that never land. It's frustrating when you know you're good at what you do but can't seem to cut through the noise. A lot of the time, it's not about effort—it's about missing the mark on what really speaks to the people you want to work with. Without that connection, growth stays slow no matter how hard you push. Bill Rice is a FinTech marketing expert with 20+ years in sales strategy and a background as a U.S. Air Force officer. He now runs Bill Rice Strategy, helping startups grow through smart lead generation. Today, he breaks down how FinTech companies can connect with customers by focusing on relatable content, using AI to assist (not replace) creativity, and building personal brands that earn trust. His approach is clear: be human, be strategic, and stay authentic. Stay tuned! Resources: My Executive Brief Bill Rice Strategy YouTube Channel Bill Rice Strategy Group The B2B Growth System: Your 90-Day Marketing Plan for Predictable Revenue Connect with Bill Rice on LinkedIn

We've all heard about NFTs, AI, crytpo, and all those buzzwords... but do we really know what financial technology is, and how prevalent it is in our daily lives?  Producer Faith spoke to Dr. Chanelle Duley from the University of Auckland about financial technology– or the “fintech” frontier.

En Empresas con Identidad conocemos a Héctor Mata, CEO y cofundador Shaker. Plataforma tecnológica que permite a las empresas crear y gestionar equipos híbridos de talento freelance en cuestión de minutos gracias a la inteligencia artificial. Y en Digital Business hablamos de financiación alternativa Fintech con Diego Azorín, CEO de Lea Bank; ⁠Patricia López, Direstor de Marketing de Sego Finance; Carlos García Casas, Secretario General de la Asociación Española de Factoring y con ⁠Salvador Molina, presidente de ECOFIN y MADFinTech.

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Blockchain architecture is constantly being forced to adapt to new technologies, as well as to meet new demands from users and builders. While the idea of apps building their own chains was first explored by Cosmos, it lacked the support and tooling to see it succeed. Later on, rollups also took the centerstage of Ethereum's scaling roadmap, but due to their general purpose design, it led to a cannibalistic ecosystem. Initia learned from these 2 models and combined the best of both worlds: it built a full-stack framework for a seamless DevEx from the get-go and, more importantly, it designed its tokenomics in order to ensure maximum incentive alignment for its appchains. While the former decision removed the need for each separate chain to reinvent the wheel and risk ending up ‘a jack of all trades, master of none', the latter ensured that appchains would not extract value away from the L1.Topics covered in this episode:Ezaan's backgroundFrom building on Terra to InitiaHow Initia is rewriting the appchain thesisInitia's enshrined liquidity & vested interest program (VIP)Metrics & Initia's bet on crypto innovationSolving liquidity fragmentationDelphi's involvement in InitiaFuture roadmapEpisode links:Ezaan Mangalji on XJose Maria Macedo on XAnil Lulla on XInitia on XDelphi Digital on XDelphi report on InitiaSponsors:Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.ioChorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.oneThis episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain.

Discover more inspirational stories at Rocket Pod: https://rocketpod.uk- - -Ever wondered what it takes to build a successful FinTech marketplace from the ground up, navigate funding rounds, and expand internationally? James and Zander sit down with the inspiring Karen Barrett, founder of UNBIASED, for an incredible deep-dive into her entrepreneurial journey.Karen shares the raw and real story behind Unbiased.co.uk – from her early entrepreneurial sparks (including a pony ride business!) and career in traditional finance, to the personal "aha!" moment that led to creating a platform connecting millions with financial advisors.This is a must-listen for aspiring entrepreneurs, business leaders, anyone in the FinTech space, and those curious about what it really takes to build a resilient and impactful company.

In this episode of the Wharton Fintech Podcast, host Sabrina Fathi speaks with Catherine Porter, Chief Business Officer at Prove, a leading platform in digital identity verification and authentication. Catherine shares her journey from Silicon Valley to spearheading innovation in identity security. They explore how AI is reshaping fraud prevention, the future of portable identity, and how Prove is helping companies build trust in an increasingly digital world.

Darryl Hicks, founder and CEO of FlexPay, takes us behind the scenes of a problem costing subscription businesses millions each month – failed payments and the resulting involuntary customer churn. From his early days cleaning toilets in his parents' commercial cleaning business to consulting for major telecom companies in the Twin Towers, Darryl shares his unique journey to founding a company that's now processing billions of transactions using sophisticated AI. What began as a solution he built for his own subscription businesses has evolved into a mission to fundamentally transform how payments work.FlexPay stands apart through deep partnerships with financial institutions, sharing crucial data that has traditionally been siloed between merchants and issuers. This approach allows their machine learning models to continuously improve. For subscription businesses experiencing millions in monthly failed payments, even small improvements in recovery rates translate to substantial revenue.The conversation reveals how payment system opacity creates unnecessary friction for legitimate commerce. When issuing banks make decisions without transparency – whether declining transactions due to suspected fraud or based on undisclosed policies against certain merchant categories – both businesses and consumers suffer. While excited about innovations like stable coins, Darryl remains pragmatic about the future of payments: "I would not bet against Visa and Mastercard." Rather than trying to replace traditional rails, he's focused on reducing friction within existing systems through better data sharing and transparency. For entrepreneurs, he emphasizes the importance of building strong advisory boards and following your natural passions.

with @cdixon @SamBroner @rhhackettStablecoins are quietly transforming how money moves — faster, cheaper, and more globally than ever before. In this episode, we take a deep look at why stablecoins have emerged as one of the most promising applications in crypto today — and how they could reshape global payments.I'm joined by Chris Dixon, founder and managing partner of a16z crypto and author of the New York Times-bestselling book Read Write Own, and Sam Broner, a deal partner at a16z crypto who focuses on stablecoins. Together, we unpack the technical and regulatory foundations of stablecoins, explore the cracks in the current payments system, and look ahead to what becomes possible once digital dollars go mainstream. We also dig into the current state of regulation — and why the future of money might end up looking a lot more like email or the web than a bank.Check out the show notes for links and resources that we reference throughout this episode. Also be sure to listen to the episode we dropped just before this one where we analyze all the recent stablecoin news.Timestamps:(0:00) Introduction(1:45) Payments, Finance, and the Internet(4:03) The Promise and Potential of Stablecoins(9:02) Global Financial System and Its Shortcomings(11:29) The WhatsApp Analogy(15:38) The Read Write Own Thesis(19:15) The Power of Blockchains(21:06) Venmo's Business Model(23:17) Stripe's Opportunity(25:11) Backwards Compatibility (Like Skype)(28:13) The Role of Stablecoin Regulation(34:36) Political Realities (vs. Big Banks)(38:11) The Business Implications of Stablecoins(40:31) The Stablecoin Investment Paradox(47:07) Why Blockchains?(51:11) Tech Marketing: Words vs. Products(54:28) What Happens Next(57:26) Global Demand for Stablecoins(59:37) Learning from the Past(1:05:06) ConclusionLinks to related resources:A guide to stablecoins: What, why, and how by a16z crypto editorial (a16z crypto, April 2025)Stablecoins: Payments without intermediaries by Chris Dixon (a16z crypto, April 2025)The month fintechs embraced stablecoins by Sam Broner (a16z crypto, May 2025)What Stripe's acquisition of Bridge means for fintech and stablecoins by James da Costa and Sam Broner (a16z crypto, April 2025)How stablecoins will eat payments, and what happens next by Sam Broner (a16z crypto, December 2024)A useful framework for understanding stablecoins: Banking history by Sam Broner (a16z crypto, November 2024)Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet by Chris Dixon (Random House, January 2024)A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class by Joe Nocera (Simon & Schuster, October 1994)All about airdrops [podcast] by Eddy Lazzarin, Daren Matsuoka, Andrew Hall, and Robert Hackett (a16z crypto, April 2025)As a reminder, none of the content should be taken as investment, business, legal, or tax advice; please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.

with @rhhackett @smc90 @DarenMatsuoka @SamBronerWelcome to web3 with a16z, a show about the next generation of the internet. I'm Robert Hackett.There has been a flurry of stablecoin news lately, so we're doing a special bonus episode to cover everything that's been going on. Sonal and I are joined by a16z crypto's Data Science lead Daren Matsuoka who shares the actual data behind the stablecoin trend. Then we have Sam Broner — who is a Deal Partner here and our frequent author on stablecoins — to analyze the news, and help highlight the signal versus the noise.Here's a selection of the news:USDC issuer Circle filed to go public on the New York Stock ExchangeCoinbase released an agentic payments standard with support for stablecoin paymentsVisa and Mastercard enhanced stablecoin supportStripe announced stablecoin financial account balances, a programmable stablecoin (via Bridge), a stablecoin-backed card, and moreMeta is reportedly in talks to introduce stablecoins as a means for payoutsAnd much moreWe also have one of our regular episodes covering the broader stablecoins trend and big picture, dropping separately in the feed, also with Sam and a16z crypto Founder Chris Dixon, so be sure to check that out next.Timestamps:(0:00) Introduction(1:30) Stablecoin Data Overview(3:55) Stablecoin Adoption and Infrastructure(4:24) Market Share of Issuers and Blockchains(6:10) Stablecoin Growth vs. Crypto Market Cycles(7:45) Stablecoin News and Developments(9:44) Fintech Embraces Stablecoins(12:44) Legacy Payment Systems vs. Stablecoins(17:04) The Future of Stablecoins and Open Networks(22:11) ConclusionLinks to related resources:Everything stablecoins: Big picture, deep dive with Chris Dixon, Sam Broner, and Robert Hackett (a16z crypto, May 2025)A chart of stablecoin usage growth vs. crypto market cyclicality (@DarenMatsuoka on X)The month fintechs embraced stablecoins by Sam Broner (a16z crypto, May 2025)What Stripe's acquisition of Bridge means for fintech and stablecoins by James da Costa and Sam Broner (a16z crypto, April 2025)A guide to stablecoins: What, why, and how by a16z crypto editorial (a16z crypto, April 2025)As a reminder, none of the content should be taken as investment, business, legal, or tax advice; please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.

Kim Flynn, President of XA Investments, discusses her 25-year career in asset management, focusing on alternative investments. She highlights the challenges faced during the 2008 financial crisis at Nuveen Investments, where she refinanced $15 billion in frozen auction rate securities. Flynn explains the structure and benefits of closed-end funds, particularly interval funds, which offer periodic liquidity. She details XA Investments' three SEC-registered closed-end funds with $900 million in assets, emphasizing private credit strategies with yields ranging from 9% to 15%. Flynn also explores the potential of alternative investments like farmland, infrastructure, and crypto, noting their role in portfolio diversification and income generation. Note: this episode contains general information only and is not financial or investment advice. Please let Gene know your thoughts on this episode by emailing him at contact@economicsexplored.com.About Kimberly Ann FlynnKimberly Ann Flynn is a President at XA Investments. She is a partner in the firm and responsible for all product and business development activities. Kim is responsible for the firm's proprietary fund platform and consulting practice. Kim has developed an expertise in closed-end fund product development and is a frequent contributor to media and industry events on topics including interval funds, alternative investments and London-listed investment companies. Kim has earned the CFA designation and is a member of the CFA Institute and CFA Society Chicago. She is also Series 7, 63 and 24 licensed.Previously, Kim was Senior Vice President and Head of Product Development for Nuveen Investments' Global Structured Products Group. In her 11 years at Nuveen, she helped develop over 40 closed-end funds, raising approximately $13 billion in capital. In her leadership role at Nuveen, Kim was responsible for asset-raising activities through the development of new, traditional and alternative investment funds, including CEFs, ETFs, UITs and commodity pools.Kim received her MBA degree from Harvard University, where she was a William J. Carey scholar and President of the HBS Volunteers. Before attending Harvard Business School, Kim spent three years working in Morgan Stanley's Investment Banking Division (1999-2002) in their Chicago office. She earned her BBA in Finance and Business Economics, summa cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame in 1999 where she was a valedictorian candidate, Rhodes Scholar finalist and the first recipient of the Paul F. Conway Award, given to a senior in the Department of Finance who embodies Notre Dame's tradition of excellence and who enriches the ideals of the university.Kim was recently selected to serve on the Notre Dame Wall Street leadership committee. She also serves on the board of the Women in ETFs Chicago chapter as Head of the Mentorship Committee and on the advisory board of Youth Guidance's Becoming A Man program. She is an active member of the University Club of Chicago and the Harvard Club of New York City, where she conducts regular business. Kim and her family - husband, Leo; son, Teddy; and daughter, Rose - live in Lincoln Park.TimestampsIntroduction (0:00)Kim Flynn's Career Journey (3:09)Experience During the 2008 Financial Crisis (4:41)Development of New Financial Products Post-Crisis (7:17)Understanding Closed-End Funds and Interval Funds (8:48)Investment Strategies and Alternative Assets (21:01)Energy Investments and ESG Considerations (29:02)Gold, Crypto, and the Role of FinTech (31:36)Evaluating Asset Managers and Investment Strategies (35:03)Investment Outlook and Market Dynamics (47:07)TakeawaysAlternative Investments Offer Diversification: Kim Flynn explains that alternative investments, including real estate, private credit, and farmland, provide diversification benefits, reducing reliance on traditional stocks and bonds.Liquidity Management is Crucial: Interval funds allow limited liquidity for investors, making them suitable for illiquid asset classes like private equity and real estate.Lessons from the 2008 Crisis: Kim shares her experience during the financial crisis, where she managed funds impacted by frozen liquidity, highlighting the importance of flexibility and innovation.Private Credit and Farmland Are Popular: Kim notes that private credit and farmland investments have seen significant interest due to their yield potential and inflation protection.Understanding Liquidity Premiums: Kim emphasizes that investors should seek a 300-400 basis point premium for illiquid investments compared to equivalent public market assets.Links relevant to the conversationKim's bio on the XA Investments website:https://xainvestments.com/team/US Treasury webpage on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP):https://home.treasury.gov/data/troubled-asset-relief-programLumo Coffee promotion10% of Lumo Coffee's Seriously Healthy Organic Coffee.Website: https://www.lumocoffee.com/10EXPLOREDPromo code: 10EXPLORED Full transcripts are available a few days after the episode is first published at www.economicsexplored.com.

O consórcio é um dos produtos financeiros mais populares no Brasil, mas também um dos mais mal compreendidos. Apesar de movimentar mais de R$ 400 bilhões por ano, ele ainda carrega estigmas e uma mecânica de distribuição fortemente apoiada em modelos analógicos. No entanto, isso vem mudando — e de forma acelerada.No episódio de hoje do Fintech Talks, recebemos Eduardo Rocha, CEO e fundador do Klubi, para entender como a fintech está modernizando o setor e tornando o produto mais acessível, digital e aderente às novas gerações de consumidores.Falamos sobre a jornada da Klubi desde sua fundação, os caminhos para escalar o produto com tecnologia, a criação de experiências digitais em parceria com marcas como Vivo, Localiza, CVC, 99 e Cirela, e o uso da IA generativa no atendimento e na conversão de clientes. Também exploramos como a empresa vem construindo uma base diversa — que vai de jovens comprando o primeiro celular a famílias planejando a aquisição de imóveis — e como o consórcio pode ser ressignificado como ferramenta de inclusão financeira e realização de sonhos.Se você quer entender como um produto tradicional está sendo reinventado com tecnologia, estratégia de ecossistemas e foco no consumidor final, este episódio é essencial!Confira!

Link for the programme: bit.ly/4jnmmaBGuest Suggestion Form: https://forms.gle/bnaeY3FpoFU9ZjA47Disclaimer: This video is intended solely for educational purposes and opinions shared by the guest are his personal views. We do not intent to defame or harm any person/ brand/ product/ country/ profession mentioned in the video. Our goal is to provide information to help audience make informed choices. The media used in this video are solely for informational purposes and belongs to their respective owners.Order 'Build, Don't Talk' (in English) here: https://amzn.eu/d/eCfijRuOrder 'Build Don't Talk' (in Hindi) here: https://amzn.eu/d/4wZISO0Follow Our Whatsapp Channel: https://www.whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaokF5x0bIdi3Qn9ef2JSubscribe To Our Other YouTube Channels:-https://www.youtube.com/@rajshamaniclipshttps://www.youtube.com/@RajShamani.Shorts

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Ron Rock, Managing Director for the Financial Services Sector at JobsOhio. When you think "FinTech hub," your mind might automatically jump to Silicon Valley or New York. But there’s a powerhouse in the heartland that's giving these coastal giants a run for their money: Ohio. In our conversation today, we'll unpack why Ohio – a state that puts you within a two-hour flight of 75% of the U.S. and Canadian financial services industry – might just be the strategic move your startup needs to make. KEY TAKEAWAYS Ohio has the 4th largest financial services economy in the US, so if you’re looking for partnerships, the market, people that’ll have a conversation with you, the operating costs will be a lot less than they are on the coasts in New York and California. If you’re a graduate in IT thinking about going into an IT profession, maybe it’s time to think about financial services. If you can do that kind of developing, programming or coding there’s a lot of opportunity in InsurTech and FinTech. There are a few different pillars you have to have for growth. The first is the economy in the state, which we do. Then, you have to have the ecosystem of players – the investors, large companies, startups that have found footing, and then the talent in that ecosystem has to be there as well. When we look at the talent that needs to fill the jobs of the future in financial services, we have to make sure the curriculums are up to par, including AI and low-code environments. We’re not a one-size-fits-all, we have programmes that didn’t fit earlier stage companies. We looked at that and how we could support formally and informally and now we have 3 innovation across the state. These give support whether that’s proximity to other innovators to incentives like JobsOhio growth Cap to support earlier state companies. BEST MOMENTS ‘London and Mid-Western states have similar mentalities with amicable relationships. We find a way to make something happen.’ ‘Startups have found footing in Ohio because of the climate we’re in, we don’t have large catastrophes or losses, so if you’re testing a new product or company you have that in your favour.’ ‘Ohio is a microcosm of a larger market, almost like a sandbox in which you can pay before you launch.’ ‘I call myself a connector, or facilitator, it’s the core of my job. I have to know the industry but I’ll never get deep into knowing exactly what the industry is doing. So I stay in my lane and make connections to the right individuals, listen to companies, and introduce people.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Ron Rock is a forward-thinking business management executive and Managing Director of JobsOhio’s Financial Services Sector. With over two decades of experience spanning financial services, insurance, economic development, and process improvement, Ron is renowned for creating and executing strategic growth plans that boost market share, elevate customer loyalty, and broaden service offerings. A dynamic leader, innovator, strategist, and connector, Ron bridges the gap between traditional institutions and emerging technology ventures. He regularly partners with founders, investors, and corporate stakeholders to identify opportunities for expansion into Ohio—home to the nation’s fourth-largest financial services economy. Under Ron’s guidance, JobsOhio provides tailored incentives and support, empowering promising fintech and insurtech startups to flourish while meeting the needs of major banks and insurers throughout the state. Known for his collaborative style and commitment to continuous innovation, Ron’s work centers on connecting bright ideas with meaningful partnerships, ultimately creating jobs and sparking economic growth. His deep understanding of market dynamics, coupled with his emphasis on data-driven strategy, has positioned him at the forefront of Ohio’s rise as a nationwide hub for financial technology and insurance innovation. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Today we're diving into a conversation about one of the most important shifts happening in business right now. Did you know the fastest-growing segment of entrepreneurship and business ownership is actually women? And at the forefront of that movement is today's guest, a true powerhouse whose story is as inspiring as it is game-changing. Our guest is Suneera Madhani — a visionary entrepreneur, FinTech innovator, and champion for women in business. Suneera is the trailblazing founder of Worth, a revolutionary platform that uses patent-pending AI technology to help small businesses gain fair access to capital. It's a bold, brilliant idea that's leveling the playing field for entrepreneurs everywhere. But her story didn't start at the top. Before founding Worth, Suneera built Stax Payments from the ground up, transforming a simple idea into a multibillion-dollar company with over $140 million in recurring revenue. Along the way, she made history as one of the first female CEOs to build a unicorn — a rare feat in the male-dominated world of FinTech. Her journey is one of resilience, grit, and relentless ambition. From selling credit card machines out of the trunk of a Volkswagen Beetle to being laughed out of boardrooms, she's faced every challenge head-on and proved the doubters wrong time and again. Today, she's not only a successful entrepreneur but also an angel investor, advisor to more than a dozen boards, and a sought-after speaker who's shared her wisdom on some of the world's biggest stages — from Meta and Harvard Business School to South by Southwest and beyond. In this episode, we'll unpack Suneera's incredible rise, her mission to shatter ceilings for women in business, and the lessons she's learned while bootstrapping billion-dollar ventures, navigating biases in leadership, and balancing the demands of entrepreneurship with family life. It's a masterclass in leadership, resilience, and what it takes to redefine an entire industry — and you're going to want to hear every word.   Episode Highlights: 00:22:00 Who is Suneera Madhani? 02:30:00 Suneera Madhani's Early Entrepreneurial Journey 05:08:00 The Game-Changing Idea and Rejection 08:22:00 Building a Billion-Dollar Company 14:10:00 Key Components of a Billion-Dollar Business 18:40:00 The Importance of Team and Culture 21:13:00 Building a Winning Team 22:09:00 The Importance of Networking 22:30:00 Hiring Strategies and Challenges 25:41:00 Reflecting on the Journey 31:39:00 Challenges for Women Entrepreneurs 38:50:00 Conclusion and Final Thoughts   Contact Info: Website: https://suneeramadhani.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suneeramadhani/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suneeramadhani/   Subscribe to the Podcast:

Jenna Griffith, VP of global ad operations at PayPal, shares how the fintech giant is using shopper insights to power a new kind of media network. 

Episode overview: In this conversation, Verto co-founder and CEO Ola Oyetayo shares the journey of building a cross-border payments platform that tackles the unique challenges African businesses face when making international transactions. Since graduating from Y Combinator in 2019, Verto has established itself as what Oyetayo describes as a profitable and cashflow positive fintech serving multiple African markets. Incidentally, the company recently made headlines after winning the prestigious $1 million Milken-Motsepe Prize in FinTech. He discusses his team's pragmatic approach to addressing payment barriers in emerging markets, why traditional financial institutions have failed to serve these regions effectively, and how technology can disrupt traditional banking networks that have historically excluded certain markets. Andile Masuku engages Oyetayo on the evolution of fintech in Africa, the role of privilege and networks in business success, and the future potential of stablecoins to revolutionise cross-border payments in ways that might prove more transformative for emerging markets than developed ones. Key topics: - Verto's position in the cross-border payments landscape - The strategic decision to focus on B2B rather than consumer payments - The untapped $286 billion trade flow between Africa and China - Why 96-97% of business cross-border payments still go through traditional banks - The innovator's dilemma Verto faces with the rise of stablecoins Notable points: 1. In 2018, Oyetayo launched Verto's business model alongside his co-founder Anthony Oduu after spotting a solutions gap for African businesses making international payments outside of traditional banks 2. Verto has been profitable and cash flow positive for approximately 18 months 3. How a chance meeting with legendary VC Vinod Khosla at YC in 2019 first turned him on to the stablecoin investment opportunity—years before they became mainstream 4. The company operates in Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and the Francophone region 5. Despite previous experience in institutional finance, Oyetayo admits "ignorance is bliss" helped him tackle a problem others saw as too risky 6. The potential of stablecoins to solve liquidity, volatility and capital control challenges in emerging markets Listen out for Oyetayo's take on Paystack's B2C play Zap, the fintech ecosystem implications of Moniepoint's "unicornification," and his contrarian insight that stablecoins will revolutionise emerging markets while having minimal impact in developed economies: "This is not a popular opinion... There's just no case for stablecoins in developed markets. People talk about, oh, it's going to disrupt Visa and MasterCard... I don't see that coming anytime soon." Image credit: Verto

In today's 40 Minute Mentor episode, we're joined by Nicky Goulimis and Nico Barawid, the Founders of early-stage FinTech Tunic Pay, the only fraud vendor designed specifically for scams. Prior to building Tunic Pay, Nicky scaled Nova Credit, the credit infrastructure and analytics company that enables businesses to grow responsibly by harnessing alternative credit data. And Nico built Casai, which was Latin America's largest short-term rental operator.  With so much experience in building successful FinTech ventures, this episode is a great listen for anyone thinking about starting a FinTech, or for anyone currently in the thick of scaling. 

Terry Mendez, the new CEO of Safe Harbor Financial, the newly appointed CEO of Safe Harbor Financial, emphasizing their experience in the cannabis industry and business transformation . We discussed Safe Harbor's success in processing over $25 billion in cannabis-related funds, their strategies for navigating industry challenges (including regulatory hurdles and taxation), and their vision for expanding into a multifaceted fintech company offering various services beyond banking.  Mendez highlighted several new initiatives, such as debt restructuring, new programs (employee banking, Safe Harbor Connects), and the development of a lending platform,  while emphasizing the company's NASDAQ listing and data-driven approach to addressing industry pain points. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hear from author and business creator Derrick Girard as he speaks with Osaic's Mark Matheny about the challenges that he faced on his career path.  Derrick shares his thoughts on the powers of adaptation, and also dives into the disputes and lawsuits that he faced. Learn how goals can empower you for success and what it means to "figure it out" in the workforce.

Il s'agit de l'extrait de l'épisode diffusé ce dimanche avec Bobby Demri, le Managing Partner de Roch Ventures.***************************Finscale, c'est bien plus qu'un podcast. C'est un écosystème qui connecte les acteurs clés du secteur financier à travers du Networking, du coaching et des partenariats.

In today's short mini-episode FinTech expert and speaker, Sameer Gahlot, discusses cybersecurity and safety in the FinTech sector while discussing the future of blockchain and crypto in India and Asia. Follow Sameer on IG @phirseuddchalaaLinkedin @Sameer GahlotFollow host King Jewelz as he interviews financial influencers and entrepreneurs on financial education and budget tips to help singles and married couples break cycles of living paycheck-to-paycheck, so they can begin a new legacy of financial freedom for future generations.Today's episode has been sponsored by: Join our debt freedom community of singles and married couples who are achieving financial freedom by "smart tracking" their finances monthly. You can become one of our "Smart Jewelz"  by subscribing and registering for our Smart Financial Jewelz program today! Smart Financial Jewelz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.smartjewelzenterprises.org/financial-freedom-begins-now⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Smart Jewelz Network Join our network for entrepreneurs, professionals and content creators to go on customized creator retreats, summits and trips along with checking out our media essential services with the link in the below⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.smartjewelzenterprises.org/start-podcast-now⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Today's episode has been powered by: StreamYard

Dan Battista, CEO and Partner at Factor4, takes us on an journey through the rapidly evolving gift card landscape. With genuine passion and deep industry knowledge, Dan reveals how Factor4 has grown from just 3 employees to 22 staff serving over 21,000 merchants in just a decade.The conversation illuminates Factor4's remarkable approach to customer service – answering emails within 10 minutes and phones within two rings – which has become their true competitive advantage. Unlike competitors owned by large payment processors, Factor4 focuses exclusively on gift and loyalty solutions, allowing them to devote 100% of their investment and attention to perfecting these offerings.Dan walks us through the transformation of gift cards during the pandemic era – from traditional plastic cards to essential digital solutions delivered via email and SMS. What was once a "nice-to-have" became a critical business necessity, pushing Factor4 to develop comprehensive omnichannel capabilities that seamlessly connect online and in-store experiences.Particularly compelling is Dan's insight into loyalty programs as customer relationship management tools. When pandemic restrictions hit, merchants suddenly realized they had no way to communicate with their regular customers about changing hours, outdoor dining, or reopening plans. Factor4's customized loyalty solutions filled this gap, helping businesses build valuable customer databases while driving repeat business.The conversation also explores Factor4's innovative approach to technology, including their development of iOS and Android apps that enable gift card transactions without additional hardware – simply using a smartphone camera to read barcodes. This adaptability has allowed them to integrate with over 50 different POS systems and expand internationally across ten countries.

Au programme :Apple se prend une claque légale dans son procès contre EpicOpenAI contraint de pivoter à 90° sur son changement de statutQui doit vérifier l'âge des enfants, Meta ou Apple?Le reste de l'actualitéInfos :Animé par Patrick Beja (Bluesky, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok)Co-animé par Melinda Davan-Soulas (Twitter).Produit par Patrick Beja (LinkedIn) et Fanny Cohen Moreau (LinkedIn).Musique libre de droit par Musicincloud.Le Rendez-vous Tech épisode 618 – Le RDV Argent, au bonheur des milliardaires – Apple vs Epic, OpenAI Bcorp, Meta vs Apple, Galaxy S25 Edge---Liens :

Season 4 of Couchonomics with Arjun kicks off with a venture builder shaking up the system — Gautam Jain from SC Ventures by Standard Chartered.From launching digital banks in Asia to building full-stack ventures in the GCC, Gautam's now part of a team transforming how venture-building happens inside a bank.In this episode: 

Glen connects with Paylume's Andrew Gomez to unpack the burgeoning pay by bank model, explore lessons learned from other countries' rollouts, and consider the pros and cons facing banks and credit unions. Also- a possible open banking do-over, more stadium naming rights, and resisting the urge to spike the ball before the goal line.    Links related to this episode:   Andrew Gomez/Paylume: https://www.linkedin.com/in/r-andrew-gomez/    Nacha's Remote Connect, June 6-9: https://payments.nacha.org/remote-connect    Part One of our Nacha Payments conference coverage: https://www.big-fintech.com/getting-direct-about-ach/    CU Daily's coverage of a positive sign for CUs' tax exemption: https://thecudaily.com/in-victory-for-credit-unions-cu-tax-exemption-not-targeted-in-committees-bill    The recent CU Town Hall on which we debated implications of the tax exemption: https://www.cutownhall.com/    Bloomberg Law's coverage of potential Open Banking (Section 1033) reconsideration: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/banking-law/cfpb-plans-to-revisit-open-banking-rule-despite-workforce-cuts    BECU's partnership with the WNBA's Seattle Storm, one of several recent naming rights deals: https://storm.wnba.com/news/storm-announce-becu-as-partner-for-performance-center   Join us for our next CU Town Hall- Wednesday May 21 at 3pm ET/Noon PT- for a live and lively interactive conversation tackling the major issues facing credit unions today. This session will feature a round robin on the countless recent regulatory twists and turns. The Town Hall is free to attend, but advance registration is required:  https://www.cutownhall.com/   Join us on Bluesky!  @bigfintech.bsky.social;  @154advisors.bsky.social (Glen); @jbfintech.bsky.social (John) And connect on LinkedIn for insights like the Friday Fintech Five: https://www.linkedin.com/company/best-innovation-group/  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbfintech/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/glensarvady/

In today's rapidly evolving financial landscape, small business CFOs are navigating complexities that demand more than spreadsheets and manual processes.In this episode of The Modern CPA Success Show, Ahikam Kaufman, co-founder and CEO of SafeBooks AI, explains how AI is transforming financial operations, enhancing data integrity, and streamlining decision-making. With over 20 years of experience in Fintech and corporate finance, Ahikam shares practical insights on using technology to elevate CFO strategies beyond traditional boundaries.From automating transaction monitoring to strengthening financial data governance, Ahikam discusses real-world solutions that empower CFOs to focus on strategy rather than spreadsheets. His expertise sheds light on how AI-driven automation reduces errors, improves efficiency, and creates room for deeper financial insights. Tune in now if you're ready to take your financial processes to the next level and ▶️ SafeBooks AI: How AI is Shaping the Future of Small Business CFOs? With Ahikam KaufmanEpisode resources:● Summit Virtual CFO by Anders website: https://www.summitcpa.net/ ● If you have questions or would like to be a guest on the show, email us at mcpasuccessshow@anderscpa.com ● Check out the Virtual CFO Playbook Course: https://anderscpa.com/virtual-cfo-services/vcfo-playbook/ QuotesAhikam Kaufman - "Automation and AI should be your best friends. Whatever can be automated should be automated."Tom Wadelton: "The biggest value we can provide to clients is not just doing the work faster, but doing it more accurately and catching issues before they become bigger problems."Adam Hale - "There's a lot of different tools out there, but really just start with understanding what the problem is first and then attack it from that direction."Ahikam Kaufman is the CEO of SafeBooks AI, a technology executive with deep expertise in Fintech, SaaS, business operations, and corporate finance. He has led and scaled global businesses, using technology to streamline financial processes and drive growth. At SafeBooks AI, he empowers small business CFOs to optimize decision-making through AI-driven solutions.Website: http://www.safebooks.ai/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ahikam.kaufmanLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahikam-kaufman-688310/_________________________________________________________________________________________The Modern CPA Success Show is the go-to podcast for accounting firm owners eager to enhance profitability and master Virtual CFO services. This podcast leverages combined expertise in delivering top-tier Virtual CFO services across North America.Website: https://the-modern-cpa-success-show.simplecast.com/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vcfobyanders  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vcfobyanders/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vcfobyanders YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@vcfobyanders   X: https://x.com/vcfobyanders ________________________________________________________________________________________Tom Wadelton is a Virtual CFO at Summit CPA Group, bringing

HEADLINES:♦ Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Launches HUMAIN to Power Nation's Bold AI Push♦ Elon Musk Set to Join Trump Delegation at Saudi-U.S. Forum as Gulf Tour Begins♦ MBC Group Posts $70M Q1 Profit Surge as New CEO Michael Sneesby Takes Helm♦ Money Without Borders: Hubpay's CEO on the Future of Fintech in the UAE

IronIA Fintech presenta hoy las carteras ejemplos de Blackrock, José Antonio Esteban CEO de IronIA Fintech, nos cuenta que las carteras ejemplos sirven para los que tengan menos idea puedan partir de un buen ejemplo, “encima en el caso de Blackrock la patrocinan, te pagan ellos por tener la cartera” expone el invitado. La novedad es que estas carteras ya se pueden contratar directamente desde la aplicación de cliente, antes estaba desde la web pública, “ahora se lo hemos puesto más fácil a nuestros clientes, que intentamos cuidarlos”, indica José Antonio Esteban. Hay mucha gente que no se dedica a esto, y para eso están las profesionales como Blackrock, que ha diseñado carteras con diferente nivel de riesgo, Javier Riaño, co-fundador de IronIA, explica los niveles: “De más conservador a más agresivo, sencillas con cuatro o cinco fondos, que tienen esos criterios para que uno pueda ver, contratar y contratarla”. Está construida con fondos de Blackrock, “una gestora de primer nivel que tiene productos excelentes en todas las categorías”, indican los invitados. Hay cuatro carteras y tienen entre cuatro y seis fondos por dentro, todo de Blackrock. “Si por ejemplo tienes una cartera con tres fondos, habría que pasarlo a día de hoy, uno a uno y a final de mes, de bloque en bloque”, concluyen los invitados.

Money Travels Podcast Season 3, Episode 1In 2007, the release of the first iPhone helped trigger a major shift in what customers expect from the finance industry. Established banks quickly found their traditional model was no longer working – and that other companies were better placed to give customers what they wanted.At the vanguard of these changes, today's guest JP Nicols helped pull his established bank from the centre to the edge of money, to meet customers where they were. He pioneered innovations to give customers what they wanted, redefining the bank-customer relationship and transforming the banking industry in the process. 18 years on, he's still at it, helping established banks and fintechs work together to meet the ever-growing expectations of the consumer.Disclaimers:Visa Direct capability is enabled through a financial institution partner.Visa Direct product availability and functionality varies by market.The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.Visa neither makes any warranty or representation as to the completeness or accuracy of the information within this podcast, nor assumes any liability or responsibility that may result from reliance on such information and any information from third parties. The information contained in this podcast is not intended as investment or legal advice, and listeners are encouraged to seek the advice of a competent professional where such advice is required.All brand names, logos and/or trademarks are the property of their respective owners, and do not necessarily imply product endorsement or affiliation with Visa.

In this episode, Erika Dean dives into the evolution of attack surface management (ASM) in financial tech. From foundational strategies to future-focused threats, she explores how shifts in the fintech landscape demand deeper organizational awareness, ongoing tabletop exercises, and proactive preparation. This segment is sponsored by Axonius. Visit https://cisostoriespodcast.com/axonius to learn more about them! Visit https://cisostoriespodcast.com for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://cisostoriespodcast.com/csp-212

In this episode, our guest is Luis Buenaventura, a FinTech executive and devoted EV enthusiast based in the Philippines. Luis shares his firsthand journey into electric vehicles, offering practical insights on everything from vehicle comparisons to charging infrastructure, and debunks major EV myths around range anxiety, fire risk, and flood safety. He explains why Teslas are surprisingly affordable in the Philippines, what sets the local EV market apart, and how the nation's EV ecosystem is rapidly evolving. Luis paints a compelling picture of why now is the time to go electric, from efficiency and cost-savings to smart driving tech and even the emotional value of vehicle ownership. Please join to find more. Connect with Sohail Hasnie: Facebook @sohailhasnie X (Twitter) @shasnie LinkedIn @shasnie ADB Blog Sohail Hasnie YouTube @energypreneurs Instagram @energypreneurs Tiktok @energypreneurs Spotify Video @energypreneurs

Let us know your thoughts. Send us a Text Message. Follow me to see #HeadsTalk Podcast Audiograms every Monday on LinkedInEpisode Title:

As society evolves, so do its values and principles, but is that desirable for technology that seeks to build the most reliable, trustless and censorship resistant global settlement layer? Ever since the rise in popularity of Solana with its inflow of retail capital in a memecoin gold rush, Ethereum became even more criticized for sticking true to its core values despite the completely divergent demands of market participants. Moreover, the rollup centric scaling roadmap seemed to further silo attention and cause liquidity fragmentation, driving away value from Ethereum mainnet. As institutional demand is expected to grow with the introduction of staking ETFs, a new executive leadership took charge of Ethereum foundation to help steer the protocol's narrative at the intersection between community demands and Ethereum's ethos.Topics covered in this episode:Hsiao-Wei's & Tomasz' backgroundsHow they became co-executive directors of Ethereum FoundationEthereum Foundation's role moving forwardDecision making in Ethereum FoundationShaping Ethereum's narrativeThe layer 2 landscapeScaling Ethereum as the global settlement layerShardingRollup scalability & their trade-offsWhat values drive adoptionL2 interoperabilityFuture goalsEpisode links:Hsiao-Wei Wang on XTomasz Stanczak on XEthereum Foundation on XEthereum on XSponsors:Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.ioChorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.oneThis episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

 It was a strong week for the markets, with the S&P 500 posting solid gains, driven by upbeat economic data and a newly announced trade deal between the U.S. and the U.K. The April jobs report surpassed expectations, with steady unemployment, while the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady, citing caution amid shifting global conditions. We also dive into what it really means to work with a financial adviser—K.C. likens it to a financial root canal, digging into every aspect of your financial life to build a customized plan. Plus, if you're rolling over a 401(k), should you reinvest all at once or ease in with dollar-cost averaging? We break down the pros, cons, and emotions behind each strategy. And finally, fintech firms are offering flashy high-yield savings accounts—but are they too good to be true? We explore what's real, what's risky, and the questions you should ask before chasing higher returns. Join hosts Nick Antonucci, CVA, CEPA, Director of Research, and Managing Associates K.C. Smith, CFP®, CEPA, and D.J. Barker, CWS®, and Kelly-Lynne Scalice on Henssler Money Talks as they explore key financial strategies to help investors navigate market uncertainty. Henssler Money Talks — May 10, 2025  |  Season 39, Episode 19 Timestamps and Chapters 4:00: Solid week buoyed by trade deal and April jobs report 16:15: Engaging with a financial adviser 34:26: All in at once or dollar-cost average? 43:56: Fintech: Shaking up the savings game Follow Henssler:  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HensslerFinancial/ YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/HensslerFinancial LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/henssler-financial/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hensslerfinancial/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hensslerfinancial?lang=en X: https://www.x.com/hensslergroup  “Henssler Money Talks” is brought to you by Henssler Financial. Sign up for the Money Talks Newsletter: https://www.henssler.com/newsletters/ 

Brent Weiss is the Co-Founder and Head of Financial Wellness at Facet, and he joins the show today to share how his career journey took him from student athlete at Notre Dame to financial planner. If you're interested in discovering how to break into financial planning, navigate startup environments, or grow your role in a fast-changing firm, this episode is for you! Listen in as Brent shares how a canceled personal finance course during his final semester led him to independently research financial planning and ultimately pursue it as a career. He explains how he landed his first position in the field, why he made the leap to join a startup, and how his role has evolved since then. You'll also hear the lessons he's learned from his journey so far, insights on career development, and more. You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://tinyurl.com/vndrenrb 

April: Welcome to the Weinberg in the World Podcast where we bring stories of interdisciplinary thinking in today's complex world. My name is April and I'm your student host of this special episode of the podcast. I'm a second year student studying physics and integrated science, and I'm looking forward to learning more about our guest's career. Today, I'm excited to be speaking with Rachel Pike who graduated from Northwestern in 2006 and is now COO at Modern Treasury. Thank you, Rachel, for taking the time to speak with me today. Rachel: Nice to be here. Nice to meet you April. April: You too. To start us off today, I was wondering if you could tell us more about your time at Northwestern as an undergrad. What did you study? And how did you get to your current career path? Rachel: Oh, man, two different parts. The easy part is to say what I did at Northwestern, so I majored in chemistry, physical chemistry specifically. I had a minor in African studies through the center or program for African Studies. And I did my honors chemistry work with Franz Geiger, Professor Franz Geiger in the chemistry department. So that's sort of the what. My major extracurricular was Fusion Dance Company. That's where I spent a lot of my time. How I went from there to here is such a circuitous, crazy path. It is not direct. I left Northwestern and did a Gates scholarship, I did a PhD in chemistry at Cambridge. Loved it, but I was not meant to be a professor. You could ask John Pyle or Franz Geiger, both of whom advised me. It's just it takes a very certain wonderful mindset, but it's not me, to be a lifelong academic. So I left academics and got an amazing role in venture capital and got to learn all about startups from the investing side. Did that for just over four years. And in my last couple years, started getting really close to one of our companies and operating with them and ended up launching products for them and got the bug. Realized that that was a better calling, a better match for me, which we can talk more about what I mean by that. And moved into operating, so then I worked for a health tech healthcare software company and then I moved here into FinTech. So it sort of couldn't be more random, but also each step made sense only as one step. It's just as a sum, they lead you very far from where you were. Not normal in any sense, but in the end I just don't think anything is normal. All paths turn out to be good as you make these accumulation of small decisions. April: Yeah, okay. What are the most challenging and rewarding aspects of your current job then? Rachel: There's a lot. The hardest thing in a startup, there's so many things that are hard about startups, growing startups, but prioritization and focus is one of the hardest things. And you have to actually prioritize not doing things you want to do, which is very antithetical to what it's like to be a driven, hungry person and be in a company of 200 driven, hungry people. You want to do everything that you see that seems like a big opportunity and a challenge that we need to fix, but you can't. There just literally is not enough time in the day and there's opportunity cost to lack of focus. So I think the hardest thing is, the phrase I always use with my teams is you have to let that fire burn. You just have to pick things that you know are broken that you're not going to fix, that it's not the highest priority thing to fix or things you want to work on that you know we just can't go work on that thing right now, we have to work on this other thing. So it's very counterintuitive and I would say that's the hardest thing to learn when you enter startups, how to get through that kind of mindset. April: Yeah, prioritization is pretty hard when there's so many options. Rachel: Yeah. Yeah, when there's so many options and when you're hungry and you feel like a small startup is always up against big Goliaths, so there's a billion things you can do to go after companies that are bigger. So I would say that's the hardest in terms of not the content of what we do is the wrong word, but what Modern Treasury builds and how we bring it and sell it in the market and how we run the company. Letting fires burn and ruthless prioritization is the most unnatural part of working for a startup, I would say. On the interpersonal part, so not what we do, but how we do it, like in every stage of life and everywhere I've been, the hardest part of anything is getting really good at giving and receiving feedback. And that is a lifelong, you have to dedicate your life to it and using that to make decisions with people. April: Could you talk a little bit more about what your company does and what your role is? Rachel: Yeah, sure. So I'm chief operating officer of Modern Treasury. Modern Treasury is a payment operations software platform. So we help companies of all sizes, from other startups to huge big public companies, manage their money movement. And it sort of sounds like a back office thing, but really, we actually mostly get bought by product and engineering teams. And those product and engineering teams that are our customers want to do payment stuff. They want to build a digital wallet or embed payments in their application. Or we also serve non-tech companies, so you're buying a house and you need to pay the real estate agent or you're buying a house and you have to go through the title and escrow process on that home purchase. A lot of money moves around in those businesses. In fact, it's core to all of those products to move and manage and track money. So we build the software for that. Complex payment systems get built on top of us and complex payment products. We have an engineering database product called Ledgers, which is how you, with high performance and perfect fidelity, track balances, which is a really hard computer science problem, although it seems that it should be easy. It's a very hard computer science problem. And then you can imagine that as we grow and have more and more data and understanding, we're building more and more AI into our platform, so teams can run in a safe way with AI helping them. So anyway, yeah, it's a complicated thing that we do, but we help companies move and manage their money movement. April: Okay, cool. So how well did college prepare you for this career, do you think? Or what was the most important skill that you learned from college? Rachel: There's so many things that you learn in college as you sort of separate from home life and become your own person. I think there's soft skills and hard skills. I obviously don't use the traditional academic knowledge that I got in my undergrad and graduate experiences in chemistry, not a chemist anymore. But I don't think there's anything that can replace scientific training in how to think and pursue questions and how to separate how to go through a research process and understand and also understand the limits of your knowledge. That is a very profound experience the more advanced you get in science. I didn't even get that advanced. But in understanding the boundaries of what the community of scientists knows and what personally and how to ask questions, build a hypothesis, and go again. And I know that the hypothesis process is something you learn in like second grade or fourth grade or whatever, you go to school, but truly, that process is very hard, like holding yourself to a standard of making a rigorous, very thought out hypothesis and understanding what would prove or disprove that. In a scientific setting in a lab, sometimes it's a little easier to go through that process. Hey, if this experiment works, I'll see X. In a business environment, that's actually very hard. How do you measure? Is that metric actually counting that? What else is getting conflated into these signals and systems? And then almost everything, unless it's something like website clicks or latency or something that's directly measurable, almost all the signal that you get is mediated through people. So not only do you have to go through this process of trying to constantly get to truth, everything that you're trying to pursue is going through people. So I would say academically, that's the longest lasting impression for me. My team gets annoyed because I say things like rate-limiting step all the time, which is a chemistry phrase. So it taught me how to think. I think another very impactful part of my college, two other very impactful parts of my college experience, Fusion was just getting started, I was one of the people that helped get it started. And starting a club that is, very proud to say it's long-standing and I could never audition and get accepted today, is a lot like starting any organization. How do you run things? What is governance like? How do you navigate people? What are the expectations? How do you communicate that? How do you do things excellently? Starting and building a club is very similar to starting and building an organization, it's just we get a lot more complicated with time. So I learned a lot in that process and running rehearsals and putting on a show and what it's like to run an audition process. I have very fond memories of that. And lastly, I would say is I studied abroad for all of junior year. And I don't know if this is true, but someone along the way of me, because chemistry has so many sequential requirements, and it was very hard for me to figure out how to do those requirements and still be away for a year, someone along the way told me I was the only chemistry major who was ever away for a year then. It's probably not true now. I also don't know if that's true, speaking of rigorous hypotheses, so that's an aside. But the experience of being abroad, I was in Tanzania, was obviously profoundly eye-opening. And being in multiple cultural contexts, not just for travel, but for a long period of time with real life, day-to-day life, it just changed my whole perspective on the world. And then same thing, I lived abroad again for my PhD, so I was abroad on and off again for about like five out of six years. It really changed my perspective on the world, my perspective on people, and I only got that opportunity because of college. April: Yeah, college is a great time to study abroad and do those things. Rachel: Yeah. Yeah. April: [inaudible 00:09:31] possibilities, yeah. Also, it's so interesting to hear that you found Fusion or helped found it because it's such a big thing on campus now. Rachel: It's such a huge thing now. April: [inaudible 00:09:39]. Rachel: Yeah, no. We really grew it, but it was small when we started. We were just in parades and doing small shows, and then we finally started putting shows on in Tech my last two years there. It was very fun, really meaningful experience. April: That's great. Yeah. Rachel: Yeah. April: Then you kind of touched a little bit on this, but could you elaborate more on the biggest adjustment you had to make going from undergrad to industry? Rachel: I actually got this piece of advice when I went from my PhD to venture. I went and had coffee. One of the coolest things about Silicon Valley and the technology community is that it's very open and if you ask people for advice, they're really open to giving it and having conversations like this, but times 10. So one of the coffees I had was with someone who had also had a PhD and moved into venture. And he said something to me that has always stuck with me, which is the biggest adjustment you're going to have to make is the complete lack of rigor in business decisions, which is hysterical, and I don't think fully true, which I'll explain, but it is true, the standards of rigor in academic science are completely different than the standards of rigor in making a business decision. So I always think about that moment of you got to get used to the fact that they make decisions with less information. I think that's only partially true. I think one of the reasons is true is what we talked about, that data is often mediated through people, and so it doesn't feel as rigorous. But actually, the decisions you're making about and with people are just as important. It's just different, and that is a very big adjustment. There is not always right. It's not a test or a thesis or whatever, and that's a big change. There's just making a decision and then owning the consequences of the decision and upside of the decision. But that, it's a huge change. So that's what I would say one of the biggest adjustments that I had to make. On a more practical basis, specifically like Silicon Valley and startups, they're just opportunities, they are roles, sorry, environments with very little management structure. That's the whole point, you're doing something from scratch. There's not someone telling you what to do. That's not true if you go into industry and go to a very big technology company or a bunch of industries I've never been in that are managed in totally different ways. That obviously is like two hops from undergrad. I had a PhD and then I had time in investing. But yeah, working without a lot of oversight, also a big change. April: [inaudible 00:11:58]. The training you get from undergrad to grad school and then going to industry, it's a bit of an adjustment, but yeah. Rachel: Yeah. April: It's an interesting problem, how you would apply your scientific training to the business world. Rachel: Yeah. What do we know and what do we not know, is a question I often try and ask myself. In fact, I was thinking about it late last night about something we're trying to figure out in our business. And it's hard because you sometimes feel like you know things that you don't. It's a trick of the brain. April: Then sort of related, but what are some current trends that you're seeing in the industry or in the area that you work or some of the modern day challenges? Rachel: I would be remiss if I didn't say the most enormous trend in technology right now is AI. So there's sort of no other answer you can give them that, this unbelievable explosion in technical capability and then it's application into all kinds of industries. So I don't know, Modern Treasury has been such an interesting ride. One of the things that is interesting about startups is you really cannot predict the world around you. So this tiny company, we're not tiny anymore, but this company that was tiny, I was the first employee, it was just the four of us, just us chickens in a co-working space, trying to build this payment operations company. And in the interim, COVID happened and we could never work together again until many years later. And then Silicon Valley Bank crashed and there were multiple bank failures all over the country. If that had happened two years earlier, it would've taken our business down. As it happened, it accelerated our business like, oh my god, better lucky than good. Now we're going through an AI transformation. Crypto has gone up and down three times in those six and a half years. It's just wild what happens around you and how that affects the work you do day to day. So I don't know. One thing I would say is things are unpredictable. I have never learned that more than in this particular job I'm in now. April: For sure. Would you say that kind of unpredictability is characteristic of working at a startup versus a larger company or even in academia, for example? Rachel: It's a good question. I'm not sure I'm the right person to answer because I've never worked in a huge company. I've always worked in... Investing is also in the business of startups, so I don't think I'm the right person to answer. I think I have a hypothesis that it affects you less. If you're in a big established company where things don't go, the amplitude of the curve isn't quite the same level, I don't think you necessarily feel it as much. AI is happening to everyone no matter where you work, right? I assume you're all using it every day in your undergraduate environment. So that's universal. I think how it affects your job or what you're using it for is probably different. If you're a computer science undergrad, it's really affecting what your experience is like compared to five years ago. If you're a physical chemistry undergrad like I was, doing some frequency generations two floors below in the basement of Tech, I'm sure it's helping on the research side, but nothing changes the lasers but hands yet, until the AI robots come. So I just think it depends how much the volatility affects your certain area of pursuit. April: That makes sense, yeah. So with all this volatility, how do you approach work-life balance? Rachel: I don't think there is any, in all honesty. My mornings are totally insane between the 27 things I'm trying to do, and I'm always later than I want to be to my first meeting, and that just is what it is. I actually have a four-page document called Working with Rachel and for people to get to know what it's like to work with me when I hire and bring on new teams or new managers, et cetera. And one of the things that's in here is my mornings are insane and I'm always late and I'm totally frazzled and whatever, but I can almost always talk in the afternoons and nights almost any day. You just have to know your rhythm. Exercise is a huge part of my management of work-life balance. So probably started before Fusion, but definitely long, hard dance practices helped me get through undergrad. And at every phase of life I've sort of had a different exercise, deep exercise pursuit and crutch, I would say, to get through the craziness of life. So that's really important for me personally to focus and, I don't know, just get to a different level than the overly intellectual all the time, brainwave level into the body and into the breath. So that's huge. And then more tactically, I'm terrible about always having my phone around, but I do always have my laptop on do not disturb. So when I'm working in my environment, Slack and email are going constantly nonstop, especially Slack. So if I actually want to write or actually want to read or actually want to listen, the pings don't help. But to do my job, I need to be ever present with my teams. So just practically, it's always on do not disturb, and then I pick when I check. So I don't know, that goes from small to big of how I manage and cope with work-life balance, but it's the truth. April: There's some pretty good tips though. Sympathize. Rachel: Do people in Northwestern use Slack? Is that part of an undergrad life or no? April: Some of the clubs use it. I have a couple- Rachel: More texting? April: Yeah, they use GroupMe. Yeah. And then I know a lot of the research labs use Slack. Rachel: Oh, that makes sense. April: Yeah. Rachel: Yeah. But less of the all in every day, all encompassing, et cetera. April: Yeah. Rachel: Yeah. April: Do you think those work-life balance habits were developed during your graduate school years or in college or as you go into industry? Rachel: I don't know about do not disturb because technology has, not technology, but the physical hardware of communication has advanced so much. I'm so old compared to you guys. And when I was an undergrad, Facebook came out when I was a sophomore. So just think about how different of a world it was then. We had really kludgy Hermes email, Hermes email server at Northwestern. So the never ending notification encroach on our life, it existed then. And of course, we texted, but we texted T9. So it's just a different world. So we had it and obviously we all needed to learn how to focus, but not to the extent that it is a challenge for people in college and PhD programs now, I don't think. That's my guess as an outsider. But some things, like exercise, 100%. I think those things get developed earlier on. But once you're in university, it's your decision to continue to pursue them and how much you pursue them and how much they're a part of the rhythm of your life. So that, I would say for sure, I established for myself at Northwestern. April: Was there anything at Northwestern that you wish you had participated in that you didn't? Or the other way around, that you did but you wish you had opted out? Rachel: I wish I'd done dance marathon earlier. I only did it senior year and it was like what an incredible experience. Once you had the experience, then you realize, oh, I should have been doing this the whole time because it's like, I don't know, it's just something you could only do in an all encompassing environment like that. My major regret at Northwestern is actually academic, which is a silly small choice, but I studied French in elementary and high school and I really wanted to learn Spanish as a California person. So I took it in college, but that ate up a lot of quarters of getting my language credit because I was going from scratch. So my regret, and I'm not very good at languages anyway, so it's not like it stuck around, my regret is actually not that I took it, it came from good intentions, but that I used up six possibilities of taking classes in non-chemistry, non-African studies. Just you're spoiled for opportunity in undergrad of going to learn about everything. And it's one of the amazing parts about Northwestern and the way they do the core curriculum, that everyone has to learn a little bit of everything somehow. And that's my biggest regret. I regret not taking a philosophy class or a whatever. I took one world religion class, but should I have taken two. That breadth is the thing that I crave and miss. And by the time you get to PhD, and certainly in the British education system, you specialize earlier, so that opportunity's gone. You can obviously go to lectures and stuff, which I did, but it's not the same as being in a class. So yeah, my biggest I wish I had is I wish I hadn't taken Spanish in that environment and done it some other way and had six quarters to go just do dealer's choice of interesting things in departments I never would've gotten to know. April: Did you have the Weinberg language requirement? Rachel: Yes. April: But you got out of it with French? Rachel: I could have taken I think only one quarter or no, I can't remember how my testing was, sorry. But I could have taken either one quarter or zero quarters of French. But I instead put myself from scratch with Spanish because I've never taken it before. So I don't know, I just think that was good intentions, wrong decision. April: It happens. Rachel: Anyway, yeah, that's my biggest, I don't know, regret is too strong a word, but if I had a magic wand and could do it all over again, I would've taken more general humanities or other types of classes. April: Speaking of classes, what were some of your favorite classes at Northwestern? If you were to- Rachel: Oh my God, do I even remember? April: Yeah. Rachel: The physical chemistry. I don't remember if it's physical chemistry honors class or physical chemistry practicum. It's the last thing you take senior year with real world lab problems. And that class, there were six of us and we were in lab, I don't know, four or five hours twice a week. We were there all the time. It was so hard and so intellectually stimulating. I remember that class extremely well. I remember my world religions class. I don't remember who taught it, but it was the only time I ever studied anything like that. That was interesting. And I remember some of the seminar debates I had with other people. I don't know, those are the two that come to mind. April: Very cool. Now that we're getting towards the end of our time, the last question is if you were to look back on your undergrad, which I suppose we already did a little bit, but what advice would you give, I suppose, other people in your position? Rachel: I have one very specific piece of advice that I give to a lot of undergrads or people early in career, which I can share. And then the other is one that I give all the time now, but I don't know if it's relevant, but I'll share that one too. I'll start with the second one first because it might be less relevant. The one I give now, that is also can be very counterintuitive to people who are working on giving and getting feedback and what it takes to truly manage and motivate teens, is that clarity is more compassionate than kindness. And I don't mean don't be kind because the goal is, of course, to deliver clarity with extreme compassion and care. But it's nerve wracking to tell someone, "You're not meeting expectations for this role," or, "We did not hit our goal as a company and we have to make this really hard decision," or whatever the hard thing is that you have to say. It's harder to say it clearer than to say, "Well, I know you this and what about that, and I'm so sorry and this is hard, blah, blah, blah. But I think maybe the role," and then the person walks away and is like, "I don't know what I heard," and they don't know that they're not meeting expectations. So I would say that took me, it's a lifelong pursuit, I don't think I'm perfect at it yet. No one anywhere in my academic career, undergrad or grad, really taught me that. So that's one. I'm not sure if that's relevant for a sophomore undergrad, but maybe. April: I think so. Rachel: Could be. The advice that I often give to undergrads or very early in career folks, who are either looking for startups or end up whatever. I actually have a call with one this afternoon who's a woman who's a family friend who's thinking about a job change and she's like just wants my advice. I think that one of the unrealistic things that somehow culturally gets imbued in very driven and successful students, like all of the people who get accepted to Northwestern, is that you can have it all in your first job. And that is fucking bullshit. And I think it leads to a huge amount of heartache and angst because it's not true. Now, what you can have is one or two awesome things. So when you're, like you graduated at 21 or 22 or whatever age you are, you have usually no strings attached. You can make incredible broad decisions that you can't make later on and that affords you the opportunity to go do amazing things. But what you can't do is do it all at once in that one first job. So the specific example that I often give is you could pick where you work or what industry you work in or that you make a lot of money, but it is basically impossible to pick all of those things. So if you're a econ undergrad at Northwestern, of which there are many, it's probably pretty hard to work in a mission-driven company, make a 300,000 a year banker undergrad job, and move abroad for that first job as an American, blah, blah. That doesn't exist. If you want to make a lot of money, there are incredible programs with established firms where they really reward you for hard work really early on and that's the trade that that job encompasses. And if that's valuable to you, awesome. But you're probably going to be in one of their major locations and they're unlikely to ship you to Sydney for being 22. If you have the opportunity to go do something extremely mission driven that speaks to you, that's amazing, go do that. But you're probably not necessarily going to pick where or you're not going to be highly compensated. So I often talk to people who are in their early 20s who are like, "But I really want to be in New York, but I really want to work, I want to be in the arts and I want to do this, but I need a lot of money to support this thing." You're like, "You can't have it all." And that's not bad, it's just true. And it's much more compassionate for me to tell you, April, if you want to pursue physics, that's awesome. I was a PhD student. You're not going to make any money in your 20s. April: That's true. Rachel: But you might work at the cutting edge of science in something incredible that super motivates you. That's awesome. So if I could wave a magic wand for undergrads, I would get rid of that angst of that decision making. And the decision can have angst because it can be hard to choose a path, but the you can have it all, I think is a great lie. That's not fair to people in their late teens and early 20s in undergrad. I thought of another one, so I'm going to give you a third, even though you didn't solicit another one. Which is you at the beginning of this you asked about my career, which is kind of all over the place from a traditional perspective. I was in academics and then I went to investing, and then I went to startups. And then in startups, I was in healthcare and I went into payments in FinTech. It's all over the place. Every time I made the jump, everyone around me told me I shouldn't because I was leaving their path. And to be an amazing professor, you stay in academics. So people leaving academics is like, they don't want to give you the advice to do that. Or when you're in investing, the way you stay in it, and particularly in private investing, it's long feedback cycles. You got to stay and practice the craft. So I said, "Hey, I'm an operator at heart. I'm going to go do this thing." Some people encouraged me, but many people said, "Why would you ever do that? Why would you ever leave the job you have? Stay in practice." And then same when I left healthcare and picked a totally new thing. So that's more mid-career advice, which is like it's okay to leave that perfect tracked path and trust your gut. April: Yeah, that's actually really valuable advice, so thank you. Rachel: I hope so. April: Yeah. Thanks for taking the time out of your day to talk with me and to give all this advice to whoever's listening. Rachel: Yeah. It's awesome. Nice to meet you, April. April: Mm-hmm. And thank you for listening to this episode of the Weinberg in the World Podcast. We hope you have a great day and go Cats.  

In this episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast, hosts John McMahon and John Kaplan are joined by Tony Marino, a senior advisor and executive coach with a storied career as CHRO for major global companies like Fiserv. The discussion revolves around the critical aspects of corporate leadership, the parallels between athletics and business, and the importance of maintaining physical and mental well-being for optimal performance. Marino introduces the concept of 'five-tool players' in a corporate context, emphasizing the need for well-rounded leaders proficient in six key areas: financial and business acumen, client focus, people and team leadership, risk and controls, operational excellence, and innovation. The episode also covers practical strategies for establishing priorities, key lessons from transformative sales effectiveness initiatives, and the impact of habits and routines on leadership success.ADDITIONAL RESOURCESLearn more about Anthony Marino:https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-s-marino-94a6476/Read Force Management's Guide to Embedding AI In Your B2B Sales Organization: https://hubs.li/Q03ldrzD0Download the CRO Strategy Checklist: https://hubs.li/Q03f8LmX0Enjoying the podcast? Sign up to receive new episodes straight to your inbox: https://hubs.li/Q02R10xHERE ARE SOME KEY SECTIONS TO CHECK OUT[00:01:59] Corporate Athlete: Balancing Leadership and Well-being[00:04:13] Transferable Lessons from Athletics to Business[00:06:31] The Importance of Physical and Mental Health for Leaders[00:09:56] Setting and Achieving Goals: The 6% Club[00:12:34] Prioritizing and Managing Time Effectively[00:28:11] Real-life Examples and Practical Advice[00:33:54] The Importance of Operating Rhythm in Corporations[00:35:43] Predictable Management Routines for Leaders[00:38:18] Understanding the Concept of Five Tool Players[00:40:17] Six Key Traits of Successful Leaders[00:47:49] The Role of Feedback and Coachability[00:51:07] Identifying Team Archetypes[00:59:36] The Impact of Sales Effectiveness on Company SuccessHIGHLIGHT QUOTES"The greatest leaders are well-rounded, like five tool players.""If you don't take care of yourself, you lose perspective.""The best leaders I've ever met are self-aware.""Every leader should evaluate all the activities on their desk regularly to ensure they are adding value.""Sales productivity should be the number one metric for any company."

What happens when you combine identity verification with payment precision? That's the question Ben Turner set out to answer when he founded Verituity, a company transforming enterprise disbursements by focusing on verification at every step of the payment process.Drawing from his experiences at Network Solutions in the early days of e-commerce, Turner recognized that payment fraud and errors stem from an identity problem. When businesses can't confidently verify who they're paying, millions of dollars are lost to mistakes and fraudsters. Turner challenges conventional thinking about payment speed and modernization. While most conversations focus on real-time capabilities, he argues that what enterprises truly need is payment precision and cash optimization. "Real-time is more valuable often on the debit side than it is on the credit side," Turner explains, highlighting how businesses want to optimize when funds leave their accounts rather than simply accelerating all payments. This insight transforms digital disbursements from potential risk into strategic cash management tools.Ready to transform your approach to enterprise disbursements? Discover how Verituity's verification-first model can eliminate payment errors, reduce fraud risk, and optimize your cash management. Connect with Verituity to learn more. 

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Alon Kaufman, CEO and Co-Founder of Duality Technologies, a company that is revolutionising the way organisations collaborate on data while preserving privacy and security. During today’s conversation, we’ll explore the vision behind Duality Technologies, the real-world problems it is solving, and how organisations can future-proof themselves against risks by adopting privacy-preserving technologies. We’ll also dive into Alon’s inspiring journey as a technology leader and his perspective on the ethical and strategic aspects of data collaboration in the age of AI and Big Data. KEY TAKEAWAYS Combining and enhancing data sets is becoming more and more challenging in a world where privacy, security, regulations and data protection are becoming more critical. This is a good thing. What inspires us at Duality is to find a way to allow organisations to unlock the challenges around working together on data in a way that both protects the data and allows you to get the utility out of it. At the source of Duality is: How can we work on data sets without leaking or sharing the data. That’s where homomorphic encryption comes in. This allows us to work on and analyse data while it remains protected or encrypted. Two companies each have a list of customers and they both want to understand how many customers they have in intersection. The way you did this before is for company A to disclose it’s list of customers to company B which does the analysis and fins the intersection or go to a trusted third party. With duality, the two companies can use our software platform to run a computation that comes up with the intersection without either company seeing each other’s data. We all want our governments and law enforcement to be able to do their work, but we don’t want them to pull in every data point that we leave outside. Duality allows law enforcement investigations to run queries and analytics only on data that is allowed and only giving the insights that are needed. Government and healthcare – where data sets are large an sensitive – are big places where Duality has been successful. BEST MOMENTS ‘In order to get the most value out of data, the more you can bring data sets together and enhance them the better off you are.’ ‘Duality’s mission is to run AI data science analytics on data sets that cannot simply be centralised, and doing it where ethe data is while making sure the data isn’t exposed, privacy isn’t leaked or challenges of data localisation and regulation are not violated.’ ‘Companies that already know to work on their own data, and control it, can now go to the next step and do it in a collaborative way.’ ‘Insurance companies need to work together around fraud because the fraudsters utilise the fact different companies don’t talk and will attack one and then the other because they know the level of data shared between them is limited.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Alon Kaufman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Duality Technologies, a pioneering company at the forefront of data encryption and privacy technologies. With over 20 years of experience in technology leadership, Alon has a rich background that spans across Big Data, Data Science, Machine Learning, and Cybersecurity. As a thought leader, Alon frequently speaks on topics related to Big Data, Cybersecurity, and Innovation. He is committed to advancing the conversation around data privacy and security. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook TikTok Email Website

Taiko is a decentralized, Ethereum-equivalent (type I) rollup scaling solution which uses ZK technology. Taiko's goal is to scale Ethereum efficiently while maintaining security and decentralization. Being a type I zkEVM, Taiko retains full Ethereum equivalence, which creates a seamless DevEx, although this comes at the expense of UX as slower proof generation is the main trade-off. Moreover, in order to stay true to its decentralised ethos, Taiko operates as a based rollup, meaning that transaction sequencing is performed by L1 validators.Topics covered in this episode:Joaquin's backgroundLoopring and Taiko's beginningsThe 4 types of zkEVMsTaiko's zk circuits vs. Polygon'sBased sequencingData availability and blob commitmentEthereum's role in the futureThe L2 landscape and its compromisesSequencer security modelDealing with MEVBased preconfirmations & Taiko ecosystem UXEpisode links:Joaquin Mendes on XTaiko on XLoopring on XSponsors:Gnosis: Gnosis builds decentralized infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, since 2015. This year marks the launch of Gnosis Pay— the world's first Decentralized Payment Network. Get started today at - gnosis.ioChorus One: one of the largest node operators worldwide, trusted by 175,000+ accounts across more than 60 networks, Chorus One combines institutional-grade security with the highest yields at - chorus.oneThis episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst.

In this episode, NCUA Chair Kyle Hauptman discusses tech's role in credit unions. He highlights NCUA's open approach to digital assets, AI/blockchain use cases and DOGE's project to streamline the federal government.

As General Manager of PayPal's Small Business and Financial Services Group, Michelle Gill is responsible for bringing together the products and services that help small business owners run and grow their business. She is my guest for this episode of the Tearsheet Podcast. Michelle brings deep financial expertise and experience building platforms and tools that help customers manage their finances to her role on PayPal's Senior Leadership Team. Michelle was previously Senior Vice President of Intuit's business money management, payment, and banking service, QuickBooks Money Platform. Prior to Intuit, Michelle successfully integrated and expanded SoFi's lending business as General Manager and Executive Vice President of Consumer Lending and Capital Markets. Drawing on her early career experience as a Managing Director and Partner at Goldman Sachs, Michelle also served as SoFi's Chief Financial Officer before moving into the product leadership role. Before that, Michelle spent a decade leading the U.S. Assets business for global investment firm Sixth Street Partners. Given her career and experiences, Michelle brings a broad view of fintech innovation. She focuses on user-centered solutions. At PayPal, she leads efforts to help entrepreneurs navigate the complicated web of financial tools they often depend on. “The preponderance of [small businesses] use greater than 15 tools to run their business,” she shares. “What they got into business for is the passion… and yet they end up spending more time on things that are not what they love.” Our conversation explores how PayPal is actively trying to reduce that complexity. It does so not by offering more tools, but by making the ones they already use work better together. Gill outlines the strategy behind PayPal's cash flow-based lending model and how it fits within their open ecosystem, whether it's digital lending, embedded finance, or leveraging open banking.

Investment in data is the hallmark of successful Gen AI implementations, according to Citizens' Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Krish Swamy. Giving us a system wide view of how Citizens is leveraging Gen AI, Swamy joins the podcast to talk about harnessing the power of data to drive decision-making, enhance customer experiences, and navigate the complexities of digital transformation in the banking sector. Our conversation delves into the challenges and opportunities of building a data-driven culture within a traditional banking environment, and how Citizens is positioning itself at the forefront of financial innovation through strategic analytics initiatives. Swamy, who also heads the firm's Generative AI Council, shares his vision for the future of data in banking and the tangible ways Citizens is turning data insights into meaningful actions that benefit both the institution and its customers.

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