Marketing Talk: Tearsheet interviews top fintech marketers

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Today I'm excited to introduce you to 4dFI Capital Partners — or as we call it, 4dFI — a new initiative bringing together the worlds of traditional finance and innovative fintech.

In this episode, we're diving into three key themes reshaping global financial services:

Hidden Innovations in Emerging Markets

As Russell Weiss points out, "There's some incredible innovations happening in emerging markets, and oftentimes investors and executives in the US and Europe are sort of missing it. They're not hearing those stories. They're not getting access to that technology." We'll explore how companies like Nubank are just the beginning of a wave of groundbreaking financial solutions coming from regions outside traditional financial centers.

From Fintech to Impact Investment

In regions where traditional credit infrastructure is lacking, services like earned wage access aren't just convenient—they're transformative. Josh Liggett explains how these solutions are "where a FinTech turns from a FinTech company to also an impact investment," creating both financial returns and meaningful change in consumers' lives.

Building a Value-Add Investment Community

Beyond just providing capital, Fortify aims to create a network of experienced professionals who can offer expertise, connections, and insights to emerging market fintechs. This collaborative approach benefits everyone involved—investors gain exposure to new models, startups receive valuable guidance, and ultimately, consumers get better financial products.

I'm joined today by my partners Russell Weiss and Josh Liggett, who bring complementary skills in data science, VC deal-making, and fintech expertise to this exciting venture. Whether you're a financial industry veteran looking for new horizons or simply curious about where global fintech is heading, today's conversation offers valuable insights into the future of finance beyond traditional markets.

Let's dive in.

Beyond Borders: The 4dFI fintech investment series, Part 1

In late January, Upbound Group completed its acquisition of Brigit, a leading financial health technology company. This deal brings together Upbound’s established brands like Rent-A-Center and Acima with Brigit’s digital platform that offers earned wage access, credit building products, and financial wellness tools. The combined company now serves approximately four million active customers, including Brigit’s impressive base of over one million paying subscribers.

I’m thrilled to welcome Zuben Mathews, co-founder of Brigit, to our podcast today. Zuben continues to lead the Brigit team as they now operate as a business segment within Upbound Group, alongside his co-founder Hamel Kothari.

In our conversation today, we’ll explore the strategic vision behind this acquisition, how Brigit’s technology will enhance Upbound’s existing services, and what this means for millions of Americans who have been traditionally underserved by mainstream financial institutions. We’ll also discuss how Brigit’s proprietary cash flow underwriting technology and machine learning capabilities might change the landscape for accessible financial products.

From startup to acquisition: Zuben Mathews on Brigit's social impact journey

Joe Heck, CEO of Zip, joins me on the Tearsheet Podcast to discuss the evolution of alternative payment solutions in the US. Zip is a leading Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) company. Joe shares lessons from his 20 years of experience in consumer lending and fintech payment solutions. Heck brings insights from his previous leadership roles at Happy Money and TrueStage.

Heck’s background plays a role in his approach to financial services. Growing up in Flint, Michigan, he understands the challenges of paycheck-to-paycheck living. “There’s a consumer base largely ignored by traditional financial systems,” Heck explains. “FICO doesn’t serve them well, but they have a great ability to pay.”

Zip focuses on providing financial flexibility to these consumers. It offers structured repayment plans that don’t push them into revolving debt. According to Heck, “We win when the consumer wins. If they can’t pay us back, our model doesn’t work either.”

The Big Ideas

BNPL’s Growth Potential in the US – With only 2% of payments currently in BNPL, there is significant room for expansion compared to markets like Europe and Australia.

Financial Inclusion for Underserved Consumers – Zip is focusing on consumers who don’t fit traditional credit models but have strong repayment potential. “We provide access when and where they need it,” says Heck.

Strategic Partnerships Drive Accessibility – Integrations with Stripe and retailers like GameStop are making BNPL more available to consumers.

A More Transparent Alternative to Credit Cards – Unlike credit cards that encourage revolving debt, BNPL provides structured, predictable payments. “We’re not built in a way that traps consumers in debt,” Heck emphasizes.

The Role of Cash Flow Management in BNPL’s Future – Zip is investing in tools that help consumers manage unpredictable income streams, ensuring more repayment flexibility.

Zip CEO Joe Heck: Expanding financial inclusion through Buy Now, Pay Later innovation

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the financial landscape, creating new opportunities for innovation while reshaping consumer expectations around speed, personalization, and security. As financial institutions and businesses race to integrate AI capabilities, we're witnessing a fundamental shift in how payments are processed, how fraud is detected, and how financial services are delivered.

Today, I'm delighted to welcome Davi Strazza, President of North America at Adyen, a global financial technology platform that's at the forefront of this AI evolution. Davi leads Adyen's North American operations, where the company is leveraging artificial intelligence as a strategic growth driver through initiatives like their recently launched Uplift platform.

In our conversation today, we'll explore how Adyen is implementing AI solutions to enable hyper-personalization, enhance fraud detection, and automate complex financial processes. Davi will also share his insights on the state of real-time payments in the US and what companies need to do to make instant payments a more fundamental part of our commerce and financial system.

"Taking the hardest path in payments": How Adyen's AI platform boosts conversion and reduces fraud

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.


How Citizens Bank is building GenAI with a five-year vision, not just quick fixes

Tearsheet is excited to launch 4dFI Capital Partners, an exclusive group of out-of-the-box builders and investors building a community to invest in the next wave of fintech startups around the world. If you are an accredited investor and want to learn more, sign up here

Across Latin America, we’re witnessing a massive shift as regions traditionally dominated by cash transactions begin embracing digital financial tools. This transition represents more than just technological adoption—it’s creating new economic opportunities, enhancing financial inclusion, and building resilience against growing cybersecurity threats.

The numbers tell a compelling story: a $448.4 billion digital payment opportunity exists across Latin America, the Caribbean, and the U.S. With nearly 12 million small retailers processing $362 billion in B2C sales — 43% still in cash —a nd 90% of B2B transactions between small retailers and suppliers handled through traditional methods, we’re looking at a financial transformation that’s just beginning.

Today, I’m joined by someone at the forefront of this transition. Walter Pimenta serves as Executive Vice President of Commercial and New Payment Flows for Mastercard Latin America, where he’s leading initiatives to expand SME acceptance solutions, scale enablement through strategic partnerships, and strengthen cross-border payment capabilities.

Walter’s team is also tackling another critical trend: the growing cybersecurity challenges facing SMEs, with recent research showing 46% of small businesses have experienced cyber-attacks, resulting in bankruptcy for nearly 1 in 5 affected companies.

Inside Mastercard's push to move LATAM's small retailers beyond cash

The financial services industry is undergoing deep technological change. API-first architectures are creating new possibilities for integration. Digital platforms are democratizing access to investing. Artificial intelligence is personalizing wealth management. Digital-first brokerages are redefining what's possible. Global investing barriers are falling. Traditional firms are navigating complex digital transformations. And infrastructure companies are scaling to meet growing demands.

To help us understand these critical trends, we're joined by Harry Temkin, Chief Digital Officer at DriveWealth. DriveWealth is at the forefront of embedded investing technology, powering fractional trading and digital investment experiences for partners across the globe. As CDO, Harry leads the company's technology strategy and digital innovation initiatives, bringing decades of experience in financial technology.

“Embedded investing isn't a feature — it’s a platform”: DriveWealth’s Harry Temkin on the future of investing

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast, where we explore financial services together with an eye on technology, innovation, emerging models, and changing expectations. I'm Tearsheet's editor in chief, Zack Miller.

As digital assets mature beyond speculation into practical financial tools, forward-thinking institutions are evaluating how programmable money fits into their product strategies. For traditional banks, it's an opportunity to modernize settlement systems and explore new revenue streams. For fintechs, it's about embedding digital asset capabilities without the regulatory and technical overhead.

Today, I'm joined by Ben Milne, whose journey from founding payments innovator Dwolla to now leading Brale offers interesting insights into the evolution of financial infrastructure. At Dwolla, Ben built an API-first payments platform that helped modernize ACH transfers. Now with Brale, he's creating the infrastructure layer for compliant stablecoin issuance across multiple blockchains.

What's particularly notable about Ben's transition is how it reflects broader shifts in the financial services landscape—from renovating legacy rails to building entirely new ones. In our conversation, we'll unpack how this experience shapes Brale's approach to working with both incumbents and challengers, the strategic considerations for institutions exploring stablecoins, and what product and strategy executives should be planning for in this rapidly evolving space.

From ACH to stablecoins: Ben Milne's infrastructure evolution

While attention often focuses on developed markets, the most exciting fintech innovations are emerging where mobile technology, young digital-native populations, and gaps in traditional banking converge. These regions aren’t just adopting Western models – they’re creating entirely new paradigms that may eventually reshape global finance.

Today I’m joined by Nadia Costanzo, Director of Banking for the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America at Wise. Nadia drives Wise’s expansion across these regions by building banking relationships, securing licenses, and navigating complex regulatory frameworks.

Her background is uniquely valuable – before Wise, she worked with Kiva in Nairobi facilitating microfinance across Africa, contributed to the World Bank’s Universal Financial Access agenda, and worked directly with microfinance institutions in Paraguay.

Today, we’ll explore how fintech evolves differently across emerging markets, examine key challenges, and discuss surprising innovations where traditional banking is limited. We’ll also consider what these developments mean for established financial institutions looking to engage with these dynamic markets.

How Wise captured 25% of Brazil's cross-border market

The venture capital world has a liquidity problem. With IPOs scarce and M&A exits few and far between, investors have been stuck in positions for years, unable to return capital to their LPs or move into new opportunities. But while traditional exit doors have stayed shut, technology has opened up new ones—specifically, platforms that make it possible to create and trade Special Purpose Vehicles at scale, something that used to require armies of lawyers and fund administrators.

Today I’m joined by Nik Talreja, the CEO and co-founder of Sydecar, a platform that’s turned what used to be a manual, months-long process into something you can do in days. He started his career as a securities attorney at firms like Weil Gotshal and Cooley, where he spent his days drafting the same documents over and over for venture deals. That experience showed him that much of what venture capitalists were paying lawyers to do could be standardized and automated, which led him to found Sydecar in 2021.

In our conversation, he explains how technology is reshaping private market infrastructure, what gets automated and what still needs human expertise, and how software is changing who can participate in venture investing.

Why venture capital infrastructure is finally getting automated

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

We're experimenting with an interesting new series on the podcast called Marketing Talk. We're talking to top finance and fintech marketers sitting on the front lines of their business, hustling to bring in the next cohort of customers. As much as TechCrunch makes this stuff look easy, it isn't and we want to hear from marketers — in their own words — what's working for them, how they're structuring their teams, and what channels are delivering.

I'm excited for this series and first up is Jonathan Metrick, head of marketing at PolicyGenius. If you ride the New York City subway like I do, for sure you've noticed last year when the usual poetry public service ads started promoting insurance and PolicyGenius. It did tick off a lot of New Yorkers but it won awards and contributed to a 100% lift in the business.

Jonathan talks about that campaign and also why he prefers to run campaings in-house and not via an agency. He describes his commitment to content marketing and the impact its had on the insurance marketplace's business. I hope you enjoy the show.

If you like this Marketing Talk series, let us know. You can hit me up on twitter at @newrulesinvest or via email at zack at tearsheet.co. Let me know what you think and if you'd like to nominate a marketer or growth guy or gal for the show.

You can access this episode of the Tearsheet Podcast and over 200 previous episodes in our archives: www.tearsheet.co

Without further ado, here's Policygenius' Jonathan Metrick.

Marketing Talk: Policygenius' Jonathan Metrick

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

We're experimenting with an interesting new series on the podcast called Marketing Talk. We're talking to top finance and fintech marketers sitting on the front lines of their business, hustling to bring in the next cohort of customers. As much as TechCrunch makes this stuff look easy, it isn't and we want to hear from marketers — in their own words — what's working for them, how they're structuring their teams, and what channels are delivering.

Today's marketer on the hot seat is Bill Walsh, Lending Club's general manager and head of marketing for personal loans. Bill brings an engineer's approach to marketing. The MIT grad began his tenure at Lending Club in an operations role, where rigorous problem solving was used to solve some of the biggest problems in the business. Now that he's leading marketing on the consumer side, he brings a similar approach.

We talk about how Lending Club defines marketing and approaches channels. We pay particular attention to a recent TV campaign you might have seen over the summer of 2018. Measuring and responding to the signal is core to Lending Club's approach and in the course of this 4 week broadcast campaign, Bill's team iterated twice. This puts ad agencies on notice  -- this is the new data driven fintech marketing world.

If you like this Marketing Talk series, let us know. You can hit me up on twitter at @newrulesinvest or via email at zack at tearsheet.co. Let me know what you think and if you'd like to nominate a marketer or growth guy or gal for the show.

Without further ado, here's Bill Walsh.

LendingClub's Bill Walsh: 'At its core, marketing is a data problem'

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

We're experimenting with an interesting new series on the podcast called Marketing Talk. We're talking to top finance and fintech marketers sitting on the front lines of their business, hustling to bring in the next cohort of customers. As much as TechCrunch makes this stuff look easy, it isn't and we want to hear from marketers — in their own words — what's working for them, how they're structuring their teams, and what channels are delivering.

Off a recent IPO in London, Funding Circle is doubling down on its growth strategies. Partnerships with financial institutions and other strategics play a big role in how the small business lender acquires new customers.

U.S. managing director Bernardo Martinez joins us on the podcast to talk about how partnerships fit into the firm's momentum and ambitions for the U.S. market. We use the firm's relationship with INTRUST Bank as a model for how financial institutions assist with Funding Circle's customer acquisition. We also look at the firm's partnership with Intuit and how it helps Funding Circle reach more small businesses in the United States.

Bernardo Martinez is my guest on the podcast today.

Funding Circle's Bernardo Martinez on the role banking partnerships play in customer acquisition

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

We're experimenting with an interesting new series on the podcast called Marketing Talk. We're talking to top finance and fintech marketers sitting on the front lines of their business, hustling to bring in the next cohort of customers. As much as TechCrunch makes this stuff look easy, it isn't and we want to hear from marketers — in their own words — what's working for them, how they're structuring their teams, and what channels are delivering.

On the startup side of things, branding is tricky. It's hard to put forward a strong brand when a company is still growing up, searching for its business model and target customer, and finding its voice. But there comes a time when a business matures and it can be intentional about who and what it is. 

Accounting software firm, Wave has grown up a lot since it launched in 2010. The company now has over 3.5 million customers.  It's always helped small businesses get control over their finances through simplifying things. But through the rebrand, the company wanted to convey the feeling that there's power in this process — Wave's new branding focuses on empowering small businesses and entrepreneurs. It's a nuanced change but makes a huge difference.

Director of marketing creative at Wave, Grace Marquez was the architect of Wave's re-launch and she takes us behind the scenes to see how the rebranding process was organized, how various teams across the company worked together on the project, and how the financial brand found its new voice and image.

Grace Marquez is my guest today on the podcast.

Wave's Grace Marquez: Behind the scenes of the re-brand

Welcome to the Tearsheet Podcast. I'm Zack Miller.

We're experimenting with an interesting new series on the podcast called Marketing Talk. We're talking to top finance and fintech marketers sitting on the front lines of their business, hustling to bring in the next cohort of customers. As much as TechCrunch makes this stuff look easy, it isn't and we want to hear from marketers — in their own words — what's working for them, how they're structuring their teams, and what channels are delivering.

I don't know about you but I consume a hefty amount of podcast content. I spend less time streaming music, less time watching videos and more time listening to recorded audio. It's estimated that 26 percent of all Americans over the age of 12 listen to podcasts. And we're not just drive-by listeners, either. We're listening to at least seven podcast episodes every week. This is a huge opportunity for financial marketers who made a living using television and radio to brand their products.

MasterCard has been an early rider on the podcast train. Last year, the payments firm launched Fortune Favors the Bold (https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/consumers/fortune-favors-the-bold.html), a podcast about the unique and changing role money plays in our lives, and about what happens when we take risks, take control and redefine our relationship with it. The podcast was well-received, both critically and among Mastercard's target audience. The podcast's audience grew by 55 percent between episode one and five, and the company is about to drop season two any day now.

Marcy Cohen, svp of digital content creation at Mastercard, joins me to discuss the genesis of Mastercard's podcast activities. She shares what's worked with the show and the firm's strategy to use the podcasting medium to market to the firm's own employees, in addition to acquiring new customers and branding in the market. She also explains how the firm used an agency to strategize and produce its great content.

Marcy Cohen is my guest today on the Tearsheet Podcast.

Mastercard's Marcy Cohen on launching and growing a podcast

Tearsheet is news, opinion, and analysis on the business of finance.

Candid conversations with senior executives, fintech entrepreneurs, investors, industry experts -- all weigh in on the trends impacting the industry and the disruptive impact technology is having on the business.

Where social media, technology and finance intersect.

LendingClub's Bill Walsh: 'At its core, marketing is a data problem'

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