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In our latest episode of the Wharton Fintech podcast, Miguel Armaza (WG’21/G’21) is joined by Pedro Conrade and Marcelo Haddad Silva from Neon Bank, one of the fastest growing Neobanks in Brazil and around the world. Join us as they share some great anecdotes and advice on a variety of topics. Pedro Conrade Pedro Conrade is the CEO and founder of Neon, one of Brazil’s top challenger banks. After a frustrating episode with his bank, he decided to drop out of university and launch Neon in 2016 with the goal of liberating its customers from the bureaucracy of traditional banks. Today, the company has grown to over 3 million clients and hundreds of employees across Brazil, offering a wide range of banking products. Marcelo Haddad Silva Marcelo is a Group Product Manager at Neon. In this role, he oversees the digital account for individual consumers, including payment methods, investments, and core banking transactions. Prior to joining Neon, Marcelo worked almost 10 years in strategic planning in firms such as BRK Ambiental, Whirlpool Latin America, and Booz & Company. Marcelo holds an MBA/MA from the Wharton School and the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the Instituto Tecnologico de Aeronautica, and a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Virginia. In this extensive interview, Pedro and Marcelo share: - Pedro's serial entrepreneurship, how he went from launching a bikini shop at only sixteen years old to dropping out of college to found Neon Bank - How high fees and poor customer service from his old relationship bank, motivated Pedro to start Neon in 2016 without any prior professional banking experience - The multifaceted challenges of building a financial institution from scratch and the steps Neon took to develop their initial products - How Neon's focus on understanding customer needs helps them analyze and decide their expansion efforts - The duo's management approach to ongoing monthly double-digit growth and why finding the right talent and technology are Neon's biggest challenges - Neon's relationship with the Brazilian banking regulator - A look forward to Pedro's vision of the Brazilian banking industry in the next decade - The factors that drove their September 2019 acquisition of MEI Facil, a fintech startup servicing Brazilian micro-entrepreneurs - The duo's advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, including the importance of finding the right investors and why attractive unit economics matter greatly Interview recorded February, 2020.
In our latest podcast, Miguel Armaza (WG’21/G’21) is joined by Steve McLaughlin. He is the founder, CEO and managing partner of FT Partners. Steve started his investment banking career at Goldman Sachs covering financial technology companies in 1995. Seven years later, he left Goldman to launch FT Partners at the age of 32. He has been successfully running and growing the firm for almost 20 years and is one of the undisputable leaders in Fintech capital raising and M&A advising. McLaughlin has been recognized with multiple industry awards, including Investment Banker of the Year by The Information, and is consistently ranked as one of the most influential people in Fintech around the world. Steve holds an MBA from the Wharton School and a BSBA from Villanova University. FT Partners FT Partners is the only investment banking firm focused exclusively on providing strategic and financial advisory services to clients and CEOs in the dynamic global FinTech sector. The firm offers strategic advisory services in mission-critical transactions including mergers, acquisitions, IPOs, LBOs, refinancings, recapitalizations and private capital raises. San Francisco-based FT Partners has the largest and most senior group of dedicated bankers focused on FinTech. For additional information, please visit www.ftpartners.com. In this extensive interview, Steve shares: - How he launched FT Partners in 2002, some of the challenges they encountered early on, and how the firm has grown to 160 employees in 2020 - The company’s data and analytical driven coverage model, led by a dedicated 30 person internal research team - FT Partners’ close relationship with the Fintech ecosystem, including Venture Capital funds and entrepreneurs - Why Steve believes we are only at the early innings of the Fintech revolution and some of the verticals and companies he is excited about - The road ahead for FT Partners and their role in the industry Interview recorded on March 6, 2020.
In this podcast, Sam Werther (WG ’20) is joined by Alexander Lebow, co-founder of Say. Alex talks about how he and his co-founders came up with the idea for Say. As a lawyer specializing in M&A transactions, Alex had first hand experience working with incumbents in the shareholder communications industry. He and his co-founders realized how the incumbents were operating without any incentive to improve the process for stakeholders or shareholders. Alex talks about what differentiates Say, the partnerships they’ve built in fintech, challenges they’ve faced since founding the company, trends and regulations impacting Say’s business, and what’s coming next for the company. To learn more about the company visit saytechnologies.com. Say is a New York City-based technology company disrupting the $4B investor communications industry. Say serves millions of investors as a full-service proxy processing and shareholder communications provider in partnership with leading brokerages and investment platforms. Say is also pioneering new modes of shareholder engagement for investors, funds, and companies, including a high-profile engagement with Elon Musk and Tesla for their earnings calls, annual shareholder meetings, and product launches. The company has raised $18 million to date. This podcast was originally recorded in 2019.
In our latest podcast, Shayaan Khanna (WG '20) is joined by Anoushka Vaswani, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. Anoushka is an investor in growth-stage companies in the enterprise software and infrastructure ecosystems. Companies she covers (or has covered) include Earnin, PayRange, Side and Open Listings. Anoushka has worked across finance, consulting & investing, largely focused on the tech sector. She also has a global childhood, growing up in the UAE, Turkey, Belgium and the United States. During our interview, we learn some insights on how Anoushka got a role in VC and what she is most excited about in the FinTech space. We also discuss gender diversity and how best to foster an inclusive environment in typically male-dominated industries. Anoushka runs a monthly newsletter called Monthly M(AI)L (http://anoushkavaswani.com/newsletter) focused on enterprise applications of AI & ML, showing us how to scale enterprise startups. She also shared with us the inside scoop on some of the opportunities and challenges startups have partnering with larger financial institutions.
In our latest podcast, Shayaan Khanna (WG ’20) is joined by Husayn Kassai, CEO and Co-Founder of Onfido (onfido.com). Husayn talks about the inspiration behind founding Onfido: his own experience when his parents moved to the UK which made him realize how broken the process of identity verification was. He discusses how Onfido, through identity verification, is enabling financial services players across the world to provide access to formal finance to the unbanked. He also shares his thoughts on the latest trends in FinTech and advice for students considering entrepreneurship in colleges / schools. Onfido is a software company that helps businesses verify people's identities using a photo-based identity document, a selfie and AI algorithms. Founded in 2012 by Husayn and his two co-founders while studying at Oxford, Onfido is taking on today’s sophisticated fraud landscape. It counts Square, Revolut and Zipcar among its 1,500 clients. Today it has over 250 employees across the world, with offices in London, San Francisco, New York, Lisbon, Paris, New Delhi and Singapore.
In our latest live interview from Money2020, Peter Jankovsky (WG'20) is joined by Adam Hughes, the President and COO of Amount. Amount is a leading-edge technology company dedicated to creating and enhancing the digital credit offerings of financial institutions. Built by lending industry veterans, Amount’s multi-purpose lending products help partners go digital with a suite of proven product modules for credit decisioning, fraud prevention, account verifications, servicing engines and CRM solutions. In this extensive interview, Adam shares: * How Amount grew out of Avant and the opportunity that Adam sees for the company today * Plans for Amount's growth, including a recently-announced POS lending solution * Adam's views on how partnerships will become key to success in consumer banking going forward * Adam's advice for entrepreneurs and those entering the FinTech space Prior to his role at Amount, Adam was President & COO for Avant, where he was the first employee hired.
In our latest podcast, Keane Ehsani (WG ’20) is joined by Jeffery Kendall, Executive Vice President of North America Sales and Distribution at Temenos (https://www.temenos.com/us/). In this extensive interview, Jeffery explains how Temenos Infinity helps banks and credit unions become digital through their foundational low code platform. Jeffery also discusses how digital service has evolved to drive growth in deposits and how digital transformation and evolving consumer preferences are changing the way in which banks interact with their customers to provide a better user experience. Founded in 1993 and listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange (SIX: TEMN), Temenos AG is the world’s leader in banking software, partnering with banks and other financial institutions to transform their businesses and stay ahead of a changing marketplace. Over 3,000 firms across the globe, including 41 of the top 50 banks, rely on Temenos to process the daily transactions of more than 500 million banking customers. Temenos Infinity (https://www.temenos.com/us/products/infinity/) is a digital banking front office product focused on customer experience. Temenos Infinity delivers a cloud-native, cloud-agnostic, independent digital banking solution. This customer-focused experience operates on any core banking system. It incorporates an omnichannel experience and real-time engagement, a best-in-class onboarding, and origination capability, along with rich functionality to support personal financial management and customer servicing. As the Executive Vice President of North America Sales and Distribution for Temenos, Jeffery is responsible for driving solutions for growth for Temenos' North American customer base of 1,400. Jeffery also manages partnerships with the rest of Temenos to ensure the global success of Temenos Infinity, their market leading digital front office product. Jeffery was previously the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Banking at Kony (acquired by Temenos in 2019 for $580mm), where he led sales, marketing, professional services, and product management functions for Kony's digital banking portfolio. We would like to thank the team at Money 20/20 USA (https://www.money2020.com) for hosting Wharton FinTech in Las Vegas during their annual conference to meet with and interview thought leaders in the FinTech Industry. Money20/20 is the premier global event on Payments, FinTech, and Financial Services where C-Level Executives, renowned speakers, innovators and disruptors from across the world unite to drive change in the future of money. We would also like to thank Wharton FinTech's platinum sponsor, the Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance at Wharton (https://stevenscenter.wharton.upenn.edu). The Stevens Center is the premier research, education, and thought leadership institution in the world for financial technology.
In our latest interview from Money20/20, Peter Jankovsky (WG'20) is joined by Jay Dearborn, the President of WEX Corporate Payments. Jay joined WEX in 2016, bringing to the company more than 15 years of experience driving strategic growth, marketing, and operational performance improvement. As president of corporate payments, Jay is responsible for WEX’s commercial card and other payments solutions. In this extensive interview, Jay shares: 1. The opportunity that WEX sees in the multi-trillion-dollar B2B payments space 2. WEX's history as an innovator in B2B payments and how WEX is partnering with both FinTechs and incumbent financial institutions to simplify payments for businesses 3. How WEX has maintained a nimble, non-hierarchical culture despite seeing rapid growth 4. Advice that Jay has for those just entering the FinTech/payments space. Jay previously served as WEX’s VP of strategy. Prior to joining WEX in January 2016, Jay was a partner at McKinsey & Company and held a variety of roles at American Express. Jay and his wife Nisha are both double Wharton alum, having both graduated with undergraduate and MBA degrees. Jay also holds a Masters degree in Foreign Policy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
In our latest podcast, Meghna Sreenivasan (WG ’20) is joined by Richie Serna, CEO and Co-Founder of Finix (https://finixpayments.com). Richie discusses the inspiration behind Finix: seeing the difficulties companies faced when creating payments infrastructure in-house, and the opportunity this presented. He also shares his thoughts on other innovative payments companies, the future of the industry, and lessons learned from his journey as an entrepreneur. Richie co-founded Finix with Sean Donovan in 2015 to redefine the economics of payments. Finix allows growing businesses to own and make money from their payments systems (vs. paying “rent” fees to third-party processors). Finix’s software allows companies to bring payments in-house, a process that previously took 2-3 years and cost millions of dollars. With Finix, they can do the same in as little as one month, and at a fraction of the cost. Finix is trusted by companies that process $50 million or more in payments like Lightspeed POS Inc. and Clubessential to build and scale their payments infrastructure. Finix is headquartered in San Francisco, with an additional office in Cincinnati, Ohio. Finix has raised funds from Bain Capital Ventures, Homebrew, Insight Venture Partners, Visa and several others.
In our latest podcast, Keane Ehsani (WG ’20) is joined by Robert Krugman, Chief Digital Officer at Broadridge (https://www.broadridge.com). In this extensive interview, Robert explains how Broadridge helps its customers enrich client and shareholder engagement. Robert also discusses how digital transformation, changing consumer preferences, and an evolving regulatory landscape are changing the way in which Broadridge’s clients communicate with their customers to provide a better user experience. Broadridge began as the brokerage services division of ADP in 1962. Since becoming independent in 2007, Broadridge has grown into a global Fintech company with over $4 billion in revenues and is recognized as an invaluable partner for the world’s leading companies and financial institutions. Broadridge helps drive business transformation for their clients with solutions for enriching client engagement, navigating risk, optimizing efficiency and generating revenue growth. Broadridge handles millions of trades a day involving trillions of dollars, support communications that reach 75% of North American households, and manage shareholder voting in 90 countries. As Chief Digital Officer for Broadridge, Robert leads the digital strategy and innovation for the customer communications group. His team ensures banking, telecom, utility, insurance and healthcare brands are engaging with their customers where consumers already frequent online. By supplementing traditional channels with new and emerging digital ways of engaging, the customer communications team helps businesses reduce costs, improve customer relationships, and make every touchpoint a meaningful interaction. We would like to thank the team at Money 20/20 USA (https://www.money2020.com) for hosting Wharton FinTech in Las Vegas during their annual conference to meet with and interview thought leaders in the FinTech Industry. Money20/20 is the premier global event on Payments, FinTech, and Financial Services where C-Level Executives, renowned speakers, innovators and disruptors from across the world unite to drive change in the future of money. We would also like to thank Wharton FinTech's platinum sponsor, the Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance at Wharton (https://stevenscenter.wharton.upenn.edu). The Stevens Center is the premier research, education, and thought leadership institution in the world for financial technology.
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