Democratizing Access to Capital

Meet Preeti Adhikary: A woman with an incredible background who is doing so many things to make the world a better place.

In addition to her role as Senior Manager of Policy & Implementation at Innovations for Poverty Action, Preeti is also active in the venture capital world as a Venture Partner with Republic and a Venture Fellow with Alumni Ventures and Laconia. Her work in this area is centered in connecting underrepresented founders to capital.

Although we have evolved so much as a society, access to capital is still a huge barrier for entrepreneurs from marginalized backgrounds or smaller countries and cities.

Throughout her life's travels - born in Nepal and then living in Canada, Singapore, and now the U.S. - Preeti has seen that good ideas and hardworking people are everywhere. But many don't have the exposure, mentorship, guidance, and education that come with access to the VC ecosystem.

Listen to our full conversation to learn more about the evolving VC space, which areas in the world are hotbeds for talent, and hear Preeti's advice for any unrepresented founder hoping to get their idea heard.

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The Adoption of the Metaverse

Meet Meagan Loyst, Founder of Gen Z VCs, Investor at Lerer Hippeau Ventures and an overall rockstar whose energy and passion matches her hustle. Coined as the "Queen of Gen Z VC," Megan is certainly one of the top up-and-comers changing the world of venture capital.

We sat down to discuss a big topic that is certainly top of mind for most in the tech world: The Metaverse. With so many buzzwords and interpretations, what is the Metaverse in actuality? 

Simply put, the Metaverse is, "A virtual world where you can work, socialize, shop, and play." Although it has become a standout concept in our current zeitgeist, especially since Facebook's rebrand to Meta in October of last year, the Metaverse is not new. Virtual worlds like Halo, Pokemon Go, and the newer worlds of Roblox and Sandbox are all inherently Metaverses. 

Some believe this space is just hype but the numbers are already telling us otherwise, in the not too distant future, ie by 2024, it is expected to develop into a $800 billion opportunity.

Tune into our conversation and read Meagan's full interview below to learn more, especially as we go into the difference between open and closed Metaverse as well as real use cases for both consumers and enterprises.

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10 Women in Fintech You Need to Know

Throughout my career, I have had the incredible honor of meeting and working alongside some of the world's brightest minds. People who wake up everyday to work on solutions for our world's problems and to create products that transform industries.

A great deal of these brilliant people are women. Women who, despite at times being underestimated, undervalued, and underrepresented, rose above whatever barriers stood in their way in order to achieve their vision for the future. 

The theme of this year's International Women's Day is "Break the Bias", a call to action for all of us to identify and wipe out gender bias in our workplaces and in our individual actions. 

To celebrate this day and to recognize the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women, I have put together a list of 10 women in the fintech industry who you need to know. I listed only 10 here for brevity, though I could list hundreds of more who I am lucky enough to call friends. Head over to their interviews to learn about their stories and impact they are making on the world.

10 Women in Fintech You Need to Know

1. Sharon’s Fortune Bowden, Client Technical Leader, IBM

2. Susan Ehrlich, Board Member, Fintech Advisor, Investor & Consultant

3. Sophie Giubaud, Co-Founder & Chief Growth Officer, Fiat Republic

4. Kisha Alison, Head of Content, Money20/20

5. Mariquit Corcoran, Group Chief Innovation Officer, Barclays

6. Regina Chien, Director of Post Launch, Marqeta

7. Tanya Van Court, Founder and CEO, Goalsetter

8. Jill Castilla, President & CEO, Citizens Bank of Edmond

9. Ramona Ortega, Founder and CEO, My Money My Future

10. Peggy Van De Plassche, Managing Partner, Roar Ventures

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Fraud and Financial Crime

Fraud has been a hot topic in the news as of late, featuring eye-catching headlines such as Paypal's recent discovery of 4.5 million "illegitimately opened" accounts, high profile crypto scams, and apps like Sardine rushing in to solve the day with fraud detection services.

For obvious reasons, fraud has always been a problem within financial services. As the fintech world continues to explode, and options as well as money flow channels increase, fraud is becoming more frequent and harder to detect. 

Everyone is affected by fraudsters, but ultimately the banks or neobanks who are in possession of funds are the players that bear the brunt of the problem. At the end of the day, the money lost is coming out of their bottom line. Central banks and governments are also particularly at risk, with institutions like the Internal Revenue Service receiving millions of attacks per day. 

Luckily, there are brilliant minds on the defense. People like Livia Benisty, financial crime and regulatory intelligence expert, are working everyday to mitigate risk and lessen the burden of fraud on our financial institutions and daily lives.

Listen to our conversation below from October 2019 and read her full interview to learn more.

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The Role of Regulation in the Future of Fintech with FDIC Chairman

Happy #TechTuesday! This week I am talking regulation with a very special guest, a true powerhouse in a human and one that I am incredibly honored to call my friend - Jelena McWilliams, Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Board of Directors. 

As we think about the intersection of technology and financial services, there are a lot of components to success and true scale. One key part of the ecosystem that is a crucial participant is that of the regulator. As such, Jelena's perspective is one that I have been wanting to highlight for some time. In her experience in the U.S. Senate, in the banking world, and now in the FDIC, Jelena has had a front row seat to the world of regulation, and has seen first hand the role it plays in supporting or stymieing innovation. 

When I asked Jelena about the role of regulation in the future of fintech, she responded that it was a crucial question for all regulators to consider. Anything that is new is innately risky, and with the massive amount of innovation coming out of the fintech space, that risk creates apprehension on the regulatory side. In response to this concern, Jelena encourages fellow regulators to take a more agile and open minded approach and to look at new ideas from the perspective of harnessing new technology and systems for the greater good. As always, Jelena's perspective is a breath of fresh air and I left our conversation feeling more inspired than ever. 

So how can regulators and fintech work together to keep innovation moving forward? By coming to an "equilibrium" that includes equal effort and collaboration on all sides. By acknowledging the risk of new innovations, appropriately regulating them, and then managing them from the company side. 

This is a truly revolutionary time, and the future of the space in large part depends on the ability of regulators to responsibly allow innovation to flourish.

In Jelena's words, 

"There is so much good that can come from allowing innovation and entrepreneurship to come through our systems and change the way we look at things. We need to be openminded to how we look at innovation, to accept risk, and to regulate new ideas appropriately. This is the impact we're leaving on the generations to come."

Tune into our full conversation to learn more, I assure you, you will leave as inspired as I did.

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The Intersection of Innovation and Culture

Meet William Crowder, Managing Partner at Aperture Venture Capital. I've known and respected William through many stages of our careers, and I was thrilled to have him on the series to tackle a big topic - the intersection of innovation and culture, two concepts that are very near and dear to my heart as I believe both are fundamental to achieve true business success.

The intersection of innovation and culture brings up two questions: "Who is driving innovation?" and "Who it is for?" As demographics shift in the U.S. and around the world, we are seeing more and more people of color, women, and other minorities becoming not only lead end users, but also producers of new innovations and products. This change is reflected in the type of companies that are being started, and who is getting the capital.

Today, an emphasis on diversity and inclusion is being demanded of corporate America. Companies are getting backlash for having little diversity on their team or board of directors, and more VCs are looking to fund the next wave of fintech companies that address issues like income inequality. 

As William says, "What we saw on the streets in 2020 made its way into the corporate boardroom, and corporate America's response was, 'We need to do better.'"

What exactly does better look like? Tune into my conversation with William and read his full interview below to learn more.

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Best of 2021

2021 marked the third year of running my series, Tech Tuesday. I was honored again to host some of the brightest minds in tech and various other industries - people who are innovating and transforming current systems and building a better future. 

I have so much gratitude for not only my guests, who gave their time and expertise, but also to you all, dear readers. Your readership and engagement with the series keeps it going and make all the back and forth emailing, recording, editing, writing and beyond worth it.

To wrap out the year, I pulled the top 5 most viewed interviews from 2021. Each of these interviews gives us a snapshot of where we were, so that we can better predict and plan for what's next.

Click here to read the full article on LinkedIn…

Sustainable Finance with Sarah Biller

The Future of 401K with Sheridan Clayborne

The Evolution of GeoData with Marusia Musacchio

Employer Impact on Financial Wellness with Romy Pazick

Building a Developer Ecosystem from Scratch with Bo Jiang

The Future of Insurance

Meet Angel Sorane Andrade, longtime architect within financial services and current Head of Architecture at Zurich Santander Insurance in Brazil.

Angel joined me on the series to discuss the state of insurance today and the role technology is playing in shaping the future of the industry (spoiler: IoT may be mentioned).

Like banking, insurance has been around for hundreds of years. Just as the pandemic has driven massive digital transformation in the financial services industry, the insurance industry has seen its own shift with the greater adoption of tech in the last two years.

When asked about her prediction of the future of insurance, Angel painted the picture of an interconnected web with different types of players around the world, allowing for on demand insurance products. With tech, insurance is evolving into a space that can faster meet people where they are when they need it most.

Click here to read the full article on LinkedIn…

Biases and Artificial Intelligence

Meet Sharon’s Fortune Bowden, Client Technical Leader at IBM and an all around leader whose daily mantra is, "make today matter!" 

Throughout her career, Sharon has held a variety of roles, seeing the data and technology from all angles. She has had roles across delivery, sales, and strategy. Known for her expertise in hybrid cloud and analytics architectures, Shannon drives technology integration and delivery that include people, process, and technology management. 

This week, Sharon and I sat down live on Tuesday at Money/2020 to discuss her perspective on a topic that we heard a lot about throughout the show, Financial equality and the impact on the different portions of the population. 

Listen in to our chat below (this time from a fancy studio) as we discuss the fact that gender equality is 10x between white and black counterparts and the role that data, AI, and machine learning plays in changing that moving forward.

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Building a Developer Ecosystem from Scratch

Meet Bo Jiang, cofounder and CEO of Lithic, a company making it easy for fintechs, startups, and brands to issue cards. Bo was previously an engineer at Hatch (incubated Tinder) and PixieTV (acquired by Samsung), and made his pivot into the financial services industry with Lithic. 

Today at #EmpireFintech, Bo and I had a fireside chat on the topic of building a developer ecosystem from scratch in an API community. While this is where the conversation started, we quickly switched gears to discuss, at length, the journey of a founder and the other side of what it looks like to scale. 

Read his interview below to learn more, and thank you to everyone who attended our chat today!

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Scaling: Finding a Path to Profitability

Meet Susan Ehrlich, a powerhouse name synonymous with leader in fintech, retail, and banking. Susan has held leadership positions at Amazon, Earnest, Lending Club, H&R Block, Sears, Kmart, BECU, Chase, Citibank, and Simple Bank. To say that Susan has seen this industry from every angle doesn't do her justice. Always one to end at the pinnacle, Susan was named #33 of the Top 50 Financial Technology CEOs by The Financial Technology Report right before her retirement,

I had the pleasure of knowing Susan from her time at Simple Bank when we were quasi-colleagues during her time as CFO. In this era and during many conversations afterwards, Susan and I would often go back to the concept of scaling and growth. What are the keys to successful scale ups? When is the right time? How important is profitability over hyper growth?

Listen to our conversation and read her full interview below to hear what she has learned throughout her career, her view of the current landscape, and what companies should be focusing on in order to grow.

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Beyond Fintech with Sophie Giubaud at Money20/20

At Money 20/20 Europe I got the chance to catch up with my dear friend Sophie Guibaud, Chief Growth Officer at OpenPayd.

We discussed how the Money 20/20 event came to life, how embedded finance will be used by consumers in the coming years, and the longterm impact of the massive fintech fundraising we have seen in the last in the past few months. 

Click HERE to open our video interview.

Sustainable Finance

Meet Talice Sagerer, Sustainable Finance Consultant at the United Nations Global Compact CFO Taskforce on a mission to make the world a better place one day at a time. The work that Talice and her team at the UN are doing are crucial steps exploring the combination of finance, technology, and sustainability. It is rare that I combine my personal and professional life in this way but I am honored to call Talice one of my best friends and I'm beyond proud of the work she is doing. 

I invited Talice on the series to discuss sustainable finance - a topic that, in her words, "gives companies the unique opportunity to stop doing business as usual" and shift to more sustainable practices. In her work, Talice helps CFOs channel millions of dollars in investments towards progressing on the seventeen UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In particular, she is focused on goal number thirteen - Climate Action.

As the climate crisis escalates, countries, companies, and consumers are all making urgent changes. Consumers are advocating with their wallets, buying from environmentally friendly companies and putting pressure on corporations to speed up their sustainability efforts. It's clear that we all have to do our part to protect the planet. The impact Talice and her partners are making with sustainable finance is an essential step in moving the needle.

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The Leaders of Tomorrow: The Workforce of the Future

Meet Claire Calmejane, a powerhouse in the financial services industry and the Chief Innovation Officer at Societe Generale Group.

I invited Claire on the series to discuss how the needs of the industry have shifted over the last five years from the seats she has been in leading the digital transformation journey across some of the largest financial institutions in Europe. I was particularly interested in how that shift has impacted talent and executive receptiveness in this next era of digital transformation. 

Claire has had an incredible career, with experiences leading both small and large teams. She began her financial services journey in 2006 at the Technology Transformation department of Capgemini Consulting, where she supported companies and especially financial institutions in their technological and digital transformation. She later joined the London office of Capgemini to lead the digital centre of the Financial Services sector. Today, Claire is located in Paris as the Group Chief Innovation Officer at Societe Generale where she works with clients to build a sustainable future through responsible and innovative financial solutions.

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Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Demystified

Meet Kisha Alison, event and content expert and head of content at Money20/20 USA. Kisha has recently received press for her outstanding work as a star in the industry and in a number of years has gotten deeply acclimated in the space. I brought Kisha on this week as someone who is relatively new to the space to demystify the concept of Decentralized Finance.

More and more across the industry, Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is a topic that is being discussed. In simple terms, it is taking the middle man (banks, brokerages, etc) out of transactions. It's a blockchain based form that doesn't rely on centralized finance intermediaries but instead utilizes smart contracts to put more power in the hands of the consumer. There are numerous applications and one of the most exciting aspects is that it holds the potential to create financial inclusion.

Listen in below as Kisha and I discuss what DeFi means for the space and why it is so exciting.

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Embedded Finance: Changing all Industries

Meet Mariquit Corcoran, Group Chief Innovation Officer at Barclays. In her role, Mariquit has many responsibilities but one of the things she is most passionate about for 2021 and beyond is the impact of embedded finance across industries. In her words, the future of embedded finance is a world in which "what used to be complex becomes easy."

As many of you know, embedded finance is near and dear to my heart and is certainly not a new topic on this series and one of the things that makes it so great is that it can be discussed from so many angles. Simply put, it is creating more options for customers to pay for goods and services from their favorite brands. It's simplifying and streaming all types of financial processes, some of which are unnecessarily complex. And it's touching all industries.

Take, for example, the music industry. Innovative companies are using embedded finance to help musicians get paid directly by fans, giving artists independence from the industry's complex systems and more power over their own finances.

Read below and listen to our conversation to learn more about Mariquit's role, how Barclays is partnering with companies around the world, and how embedded finance will simplify our lives.

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The State of HealthTech and Healthcare

Meet Krista Berlincourt. Krista is a longtime friend and former fintech powerhouse and is currently the CEO & Co-Founder at Kenshō Health.

Krista came to the healthcare space after working in fintech and financial services at the beginning of the fintech revolution. Most notably, she was part of the founding team at Simple Bank, the first digital bank in the United States (for those that don't know my background, I joined BBVA shortly after we acquired Simple Bank).

When asked why she left the fintech world for the healthtech world, Krisa replied "Well, they're almost the same." And she is right in many ways. Both are highly regulated industries that have benefited greatly from the advancements of technology and they may be the two industries that have seen the quickest acceleration in response to the pandemic.

Krista is now seeking to have a positive impact on people's health through Kensho Health, the first holistic healthcare provider platform and network. The platform brings together 2000+ of the country’s top providers across holistic medicine, mental health, and integrative therapies. They make it quicker and easier for people to take advantage of their healthcare benefits by finding the right provider.

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The Future of E-Commerce

Meet Tui Allen, Senior Product Lead for Banking at Shopify. What does a product lead for banking at Shopify do? To use Tui's words "I am responsible for helping entrepreneurs move from being overwhelmed and underserved to being in control so that they can achieve financial freedom." 

The way we shop has changed and the last year has accelerated this greatly. While so much of the focus has been on the impact on consumers, it is impossible to overlook this impact on small businesses. In the last year, large segments of the population that hadn't yet adjusted to online shopping were suddenly forced to which required mom and pop shops and small businesses to rethink how best to interact with their customers. The pandemic has validated that small businesses have been underserved from a digital perspective and players like Shopify are expanding their reach within this market. Listen in below as Tui and I discuss how Shopify views it's position in the fintech landscape and where she believes the future of e-commerce is going.

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The Future of the Gig Economy

Gig work is far from new. Independent contractors and the like have been around for ages. However, the gig economy has seen a massive increase in recent times due to Covid and a new generation of workers seeking more flexibility and autonomy. And the structures that get independent contractors paid are struggling to keep up.

When thinking about the best way to get the gig economy paid, there is likely no one better to speak to than Craig J. Lewis, Founder and CEO of Gig Wage, a venture capital-backed SaaS company that builds modern payment tools for the future workforce.

Prior to building Gig Wage, Craig became an expert in payroll technology by selling over $10 million in payroll-related software for the likes of ADP and others. Craig’s vision for innovation has pushed an antiquated industry to modernize by designing a service that meets the demands of on-demand workforces. “Simple. Fast. Easy.” Click below to get a taste of our conversation and join us tomorrow, Wednesday June 9th as we dive a level deeper.

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Geoarbitrage in Practice

Meet Lauren Morton, partner at QED Investors. I have known Lauren for a number of years and have always been inspired by her career. She has that deep expertise that is able to get into the weeds while also having the big picture, global perspective. Lauren came to QED from Capital One and most recently led the marketing technology team responsible for building the data and infrastructure to power credit card acquisitions. Prior to that, Lauren spent two years as a Partner at Capital One Growth Ventures and has managed risk analytics, product development and marketing for both secured and unsecured card products during her career as an operator. Beyond Capital One, Lauren also worked for a consumer lending start-up in San Francisco, and a P2P lender in China, and a data analytics company acquired by EBay in 2013. To say that Lauren is a force to be reckoned with is an understatement. 

I was delighted to sit down (virtually) with Lauren and discuss how she has taken her experience and applied it in new geographies and to learn more about what QED is doing in LATAM. Listen in below!

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