Fintech

In today's episode, Anirudh Singh sits down with Liran Zelkha, Co-Founder and CTO of Lili, an all-in-one banking app designed for freelance workers. In this episode, they discuss the thriving startup ecosystem in Israel, why it's so hard to manage your money as a freelance worker, and how Lili hopes to make freelancers' lives easier. 

Liran Zelkha:
Liran Zelkha is Co-Founder and CTO of Lili, the all-in-one banking app designed for over 500K freelance workers. He has over 20 years of tech industry experience, including as a freelancer, which inspired him to create a solution for independent workers’ unique pain points. From strategic management to hands-on coding, Liran specializes in turning lofty ideas into functioning businesses. Prior to founding Lili, Liran served as CTO and VP, Research and Development for Pepper, the first and only challenger bank in Israel. Liran was also CEO and CTO at tech consulting firm Tona and owner / co-CEO of Aluna, Israel’s leading Java and service-oriented architecture (SOA) consulting firm. Liran received bachelor's degrees in computer science from Universitat Ben Gurion Ba-Negav and The Academic College of Tel-Aviv. He is based in Israel.

Liran Zelkha, Co-Founder and CTO of Lili - Upgrading the Financial Stack for Freelance Workers

In today's episode, Anirudh Singh sits down with Christina Melas-Kyriazi, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures. Previously, Christina served as Head of Product for Consumer Foundations at Affirm and Senior Product Manager at GoFundMe. They discuss being at Affirm as the company IPOed, launching her whirlwind career at Bain Capital Ventures, and helping founders go from 0 to 1.

Christina Melas-Kyriazi:
Christina joined Bain Capital Ventures in 2021, where she focuses on early-stage investments in fintech and commerce.

Christina was previously Head of Product for Consumer Foundations at Affirm, where she led a team of product managers to enable a delightful, frictionless customer experience from account creation to loan servicing. Before Affirm, Christina was a Senior Product Manager at GoFundMe, where she worked on growth and new product areas. Earlier in her career, Christina also spent time in business operations at LinkedIn and as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs.

Christina is an active angel investor and an advisor to early-stage companies. She has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics from Stanford University.

Christina grew up in Los Angeles, CA and now lives in San Francisco with her husband John and son Theo. She loves running in the Presidio and skiing.

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Christina Melas-Kyriazi, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures - Finding the Next Great FinTech Founders

Anirudh Singh sits down with Nathan McCauley, Co-Founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital, a leading digital asset platform for institutions. Previously, Nathan worked as an early employee at Square and at Docker. They discuss the lessons Nathan learned from helping scale Square, getting a banking charter at Anchorage Digital, Nathan’s thoughts on key crypto trends moving forward, and much more.

Nathan McCauley:
Nathan McCauley is the Co-Founder and CEO of Anchorage, the leading digital asset platform for institutions. He started his career at Arxan Technologies, where he worked on anti-reverse engineering and key management for commercial and military applications. As an early employee at Square, he worked on the infrastructure security platform now used to move over $80B in annualized GPV. Later, at Docker, together with Anchorage Co-Founder Diogo Mónica, he built and led the security team, developing code that helps secure containers, one of the core underpinnings of modern infrastructure.

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Nathan McCauley, Co-Founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital - Becoming the First Chartered Crypto Bank

Gabriela Ariana Campoverde sits down with Mike de Vere, CEO of Zest AI. Zest helps lenders make better credit decisions -- increasing revenue, reducing risk, and automating compliance. The company serves its customers by providing them with custom credit models leveraging more data, better math, and smarter software. Today Mike is leading Zest to fulfill a mission of making fair credit available to everyone. 

In this episode, you will learn all about:
- How it builds more inclusive underwriting models for its clients
- The loan decision and funding journey
- Zest’s company culture 
- Insights on how the lending landscape is changing
- And so much more!

About Mike de Vere
Mike is passionate about expanding access to fair credit. He has a rich career in leveraging customer insights given his time at Nielsen, Harris Interactive and JD Power & Associates. He earned his MBA from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and studied Business Administration at the California State University, Northridge.

About Zest AI
Zest AI makes the power of machine learning safe to use in credit underwriting. The Zest Model Management System enables lenders to analyze vast amounts of credit data to help increase approval rates and reduce the risk of faulty credit decisions. The platform also provides the ability to explain data modeling results to measure business impact and help comply with regulatory requirements. To learn more about Zest, visit zest.ai.

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Gabriela’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/gcampoverde

Mike de Vere, CEO of Zest AI -- Making Fair Credit Available to Everyone

Anirudh Singh sits down with Arvind Purushotham, Global Head of Venture Investing at Citi Ventures. The two discuss Arvind's early career at Menlo Ventures, developing partnerships between portfolio companies and Citibank, investments in Doconomy, DriveWealth, and TRM labs, Citi impact fund, and much more.

Arvind Purushotham:
As Global Head of Venture Investing, Arvind leads Citi’s efforts to identify, invest in, and partner with leading startups as a way to bring cutting-edge technologies and capabilities to Citi’s businesses and functions. Additionally, he serves as a partner to Citi’s business leaders and helps identify market trends based on the 1000+ startups the Venture Investing team meets every year. Under his leadership the group has partnered with category-defining startups such as Square, Plaid, DocuSign, Honey, Betterment, Braze, Netskope, and Tanium. In his capacity as head of venture investing for the company, he also co-leads the Citi Impact Fund.
Prior to Citi, Arvind spent nearly a decade as a Managing Director at Menlo Ventures, where he was an investor and Board member at companies including Kazeon Systems, Cavium Networks, Solidcore, nCircle Network Security, Intelligent Results, and Vhayu Technologies. Previously, Arvind was a design engineer and a Program Manager at Intel Corporation.
Arvind obtained his BSEE from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, an MSEE from Case Western Reserve University, and an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School. He enjoys running, photography, and reading in his spare time. Arvind is passionate about golf—a passion, sadly, that his skill level does not match. He lives in Palo Alto, CA with his wife, two sons, and their black lab Rocky.

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Arvind Purushotham, Managing Director and Global Head of Venture Investing at Citi Ventures

In today's episode, Olamide Williams catches up with Professor Chris Brummer of Georgetown Law to discuss fintech regulation, balancing that with innovation, the unique connection between fintech and rap, as well as his top five rap artists of all time. Professor Brummer is the host of the Fintech Beat Podcast, which features the latest trends, movers and shakers, ideas, and policies in fintech. He sits on the boards of Fannie Mae, K2 Integrity, public.com and is the Scholar in Residence at Paradigm, the $2 billion crypto fund. He is also the host and organizer of DC Fintech Week.

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Chris Brummer, Professor at Georgetown Law - Money, Power, and Respect in Fintech

In today's episode, Ally McCloskey sits down with two-time guest Dan Westgarth, COO at Deel. Deel makes growing remote and international teams effortless by simplifying international hiring, compliance, and payments all on one platform. This means businesses can hire anyone, anywhere as independent contractors or full time employees compliantly, in minutes, and with the ability to pay them in over 120 currencies and cryptos starting with USDC. The company has raised over $631mm from the likes of a16z, Spark Capital, Y Combinator, Coatue, Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, Alexis Ohanian, Daniel Gross, and others, most recently closing their $425mm Series D this past October. 

Dan joined Deel in 2020, after spending what he calls his "postgraduate education" at Revolut. For more on that chapter of his life, check out the link below to his 2019 WFT Podcast debut. 

In this conversation, Ally and Dan discuss:
	• Dan's time at Revolut and his lessons learned leading the early U.S. expansion
	• Meeting the founders of Deel and building conviction that they'd be the team to tackle global hiring and payroll
	• How Deel replaces long email chains, generic contracts, individual wire transfers, and foreign subsidiaries and instead enables quick and compliant hiring of employees living anywhere in the world
	• The effects of the pandemic on demand for foreign talent
	• How Deel thinks about company culture when it has 450 employees working in more than 50 countries
	• Why Dan values investor diligence as it relates to his own technical operations
        • And a lot more

About Dan (twitter.com/Dan_Westgarth)
Fintech enthusiast Dan Westgarth currently serves as Chief Operating Officer at Deel, where he manages Deel's Business, Operations, Legal, and Compliance teams. Before joining Deel, Dan was one of challenger bank Revolut's earliest employees, most recently in the role of General Manager for North America. Outside of his day to day at Deel, Westgarth spends his time making early-stage angel investments into interesting technology companies and helping them scale. 

Dan's 2019 WFT Podcast debut: https://soundcloud.com/wft/dan-westgarth-north-america-general-manager-for-revolut

About Deel
Deel is a global payroll solution that helps businesses hire anyone, anywhere. Using a tech-enabled self-serve process, companies can now hire independent contractors or full-time employees in over 150 countries, compliantly and in minutes. Today, Deel serves 6,000+ customers from SMBs to publicly traded companies, including Coinbase, Shopify and Dropbox, among others, and just recently announced that customers can now fund their payroll in crypto. For more on its journey, check out What's the deal with Deel?

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As always, for more Fintech insights and opportunities to collaborate, please find us below:
WFT Blog: medium.com/wharton-fintech
WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech
WFT Home: www.whartonfintech.org
WFT LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/
Suggest a Podcast Guest: airtable.com/shrdbokQPxAJzgVh7

Ally's Twitter: twitter.com/AllyMcCloskey
Ally's Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/allyraemccloskey/

Dan Westgarth, Deel COO - Accelerating Global Hiring of Anyone, Anywhere

Anirudh Singh sits down with Rishi Khanna, CEO of Stocktwits. The two discuss Rishi's lessons learned as a serial entrepreneur, the benefits of social trading, international expansion at Stocktwits, meme stocks, NFTs, and much more.

Rishi Khanna:
Rishi Khanna is the CEO of Stocktwits, the original social platform for individual investors and traders with 6M registered members. Before Stocktwits, Rishi was Managing Director at SS&C GlobeOp at SS&C Technologies Holdings Inc, where he had overall responsibility for sales, product, operations and strategic direction of a number of businesses serving the alternative assets industry. In 2007, Rishi co-founded and served as President of Novus, a global portfolio intelligence platform company that invented the art of portfolio intelligence, solving unique data and analytics challenges facing capital allocators and fund managers across liquid and illiquid investments. Prior to co-founding Novus, Rishi was responsible for the development of the technology and product platforms for Gerson Lehrman Group. Rishi holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Cornell University.

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Rishi Khanna, CEO of Stocktwits - Facilitating a Global Conversation for Individual Investors

In a collaboration with GGV Capital's "Evolving for the Next Billion" podcast, Joshua Benadiva hosts a fascinating conversation with Hans Tung, widely recognized as one of the best venture investors in the world. Hans is the managing partner of GGV Capital, and has been named to the Forbes Midas List of the world's top venture capital investors for 11 consecutive years.

Throughout our conversation, we explore the unique decision-making strategies that have fueled Hans' successful investments. We delve into his distinct perspective on human and technological transformation and discuss how he uses these as data points in his broader investment strategy.

Hans Tung is a Managing Partner at GGV Capital, focusing on early-stage investments across the global digital economy ecosystem. He is consistently recognized among the top venture capital investors in the world, having been named to the Forbes Midas list 11 consecutive years from 2013-2023, and has been in the top 10 for the last 5 years. He has also been recognized among the Top 100 Asian Americans by Gold House in 2018-2020. In 2023, Hans and his team launched the Embedded Fintech 50, a list highlighting the rising stars in fintech innovation. Hans oversees the GGV’s DE&I initiatives, and he is also the co-host of the popular podcast, “Evolving for the Next Billion” on entrepreneurship around the globe.

Hans Tung - Mastering Global Venture Capital

Russell Matambo hosts Wemimo Abbey and Samir Goel, co-CEOs and co-founders of Esusu, a leading Fintech platform that reports on-time rental payments to credit bureaus so renters can build credit while building owners and property managers maximise their portfolio health.

They discuss how Esusu is expanding financial access in the US, Esusu’s growing pains and lessons learnt along the way, Samir and Wemimo’s principled and purposeful leadership as Co-CEOs, and much more!

About Wemimo and Samir:

Wemimo Abbey and Samir Goel are co-CEOs and co-founders of Esusu. Esusu is the leading Fintech platform providing rent reporting, property management analytics, and rental assistance to unlock financial access and stability for renters and property owners in the US. In 2023 alone, Esusu unlocked $21.9 Billion in new credit activity for Esusu renters, by enabling 107,000 renters establish credit score for the first time while helping many more with existing credit scores increase theirs by at least 36 points. Most recently, Esusu was valued at $1 billion in their $130 million Series B round.

Prior to Esusu, both Samir and Wemimo founded social enterprises and had successful corporate careers. Samir Co-Founded Transfernation, a nationally recognized non-profit that used technology to direct over 5 million pounds of excess food to nearly 2.5 million people in underserved communities across New York City. Wemimo on the other hand founded Clean Water for Everyone, a global social venture providing affordable access to clean water for 250,000+ people in six countries. He also founded a data analytics company gathering data on NGOs operating in Africa, which was acquired in 2014. 

Collectively Wemimo and Samir have been featured in over a dozen major business publications including but not limited to the 2020 Forbes 30 Under 30, the 2022 Fortune 40 Under 40 and the 2023 TIME 100 lists. 
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As always, for more Fintech insights and opportunities to collaborate, please find us below:
WFT LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/
WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech
WFT Blog: medium.com/wharton-fintech
WFT Home: www.whartonfintech.org

Russell's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/russell-matambo-cfa-a5900039/

Wemimo Abbey & Samir Goel, Esusu - Expanding access to credit using on-time rental payments

In our latest podcast, Keane Ehsani (WG ’20) attends the FinTech Innovation Lab 2019 Demo Day in New York, where 11 enterprise tech companies got to showcase innovative products and services.  In this podcast, Keane is joined by Maria Gotsch of the Partnership Fund for New York, Hans Morris of Nyca Partners, George Hessler of Magma Trading, and Nir Perry of Cyberwrite.

The FinTech Innovation Lab (https://www.fintechinnovationlab.com) was founded in 2010 by Accenture and the Partnership Fund for New York City.  The Lab provides early- and growth-stage FinTech companies with access to the world’s leading financial institutions. The Lab was established to help make New York a leader in FinTech and to grow technology jobs by leveraging the concentration of large financial institutions and deep domain expertise that exist in New York.

Maria Gotsch, President and CEO of the Partnership Fund for New York City

The Partnership Fund (https://partnershipfundnyc.org) has invested $173mm to preserve New York City’s competitive edge and to mobilize the city’s financial and business leaders to help build a stronger and more diversified local economy.  In addition to leading the Fund’s investment operations, Maria has spearheaded the creation and operation of a number of the Fund’s strategic initiatives, including the FinTech Innovation Lab for New York.

Hans Morris, Managing Partner of Nyca Partners

Nyca (https://www.nyca.com) is a leading venture capital firm focused on connecting innovative companies to the global financial system.  In addition to being the Managing Partner of Nyca, Hans also serves as chairman of the board of Lending Club and as a board member of AvidXchange, Boomtown, Payoneer, and SigFig.  Prior to Nyca, Hans held several senior management positions at General Atlantic, Visa, and Citigroup.

George Hessler, CEO and Founder of Magma Trading

Magma Trading (https://www.magmatrading.com) has created a new kind of stock market that allows broker-dealers to trade large blocks of equities.  This structure allows market-making firms to post large potential trades without fear of getting run over by high-speed electronic sweeps.

Nir Perry, CEO and Founder of Cyberwrite

Cyberwrite (https://cyberwrite.com) enables insurers, brokers, and agents to cyberprofile and benchmark the cyber insurance risk of small-medium businesses worldwide and to estimate the financial impact of potential cyber incidents on their businesses using their unique Cyber Profiling technology.

Fintech Innovation Lab Demo Day Press Release:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190627005121/en/11-Enterprise-Tech-Companies-Showcase-Inventive-Products 

Fintech Innovation Lab Demo Day Archived Video Presentations:
https://www.fintechinnovationlab.com/new-york/live/

FinTech Innovation Lab for New York 2019 Demo Day

In our latest podcast, Peter Jankovsky (WG'20) is joined by Chris Britt, the Co-Founder and CEO of Chime. Chime is a challenger bank that was founded with the mission of helping its members achieve financial peace of mind. Since launching in 2013, it has become one of the fastest-growing challenger banks with over 4 M accounts and recently raised $200 M in funding at a $1.5 B valuation.

In this extensive interview, Chris dives into:
* His motivation for founding Chime and the distinct value prop it offers in the market today
* How Chime's customer-centric approach is fueling its rapid growth with a revenue model that is aligned with the happiness of its members
* What's next for Chime, including how Chris thinks about partnerships and his thinking on whether or not to pursue a bank charter
* The future of the US retail banking market and how it will evolve to the benefit of consumers
* Advice for entrepreneurs in the FinTech space
 
Chris Britt is the co-founder & CEO of Chime. Before founding Chime, Chris was the Chief Product Officer and SVP, Corporate Development at Green Dot. Prior to that, Chris held roles as a senior product leader at Visa and as one of the first executives at ComScore. In addition, Chris is a Board Member of coachart.org, a non-profit that connects chronically ill kids with free lessons in the arts and athletics.

Chris Britt, CEO and Co-Founder of Chime

In our latest podcast, Keane Ehsani (WG ’20) is joined by David Lessing, Chief Revenue Officer at Addepar (https://addepar.com). In this extensive interview, David explains how Addepar empowers financial advisors and investors to navigate the increasingly complex world of investment management. David also discusses how the wealth management industry has evolved with the proliferation of breakaway advisors, the regulatory hurdles that financial advisors and wealth tech platforms face, and how Addepar’s data aggregation, financial operating system, and real-time analysis help investors monitor their portfolios.

Addepar works with hundreds of family offices, wealth advisors, and private banks representing more than $1 trillion of assets on their platform. Addepar gives investors and advisors a clearer financial picture at every level of their portfolios.  With real-time analysis and customizable reporting, financial advisors can visualize and communicate relevant information to their clients. 

David Lessing recently joined Addepar after serving as a Board member, advisor, and CEO of several financial services startups over the past four years. He has spent most of his career in senior leadership roles in the wealth management industry, serving as Chief Operating Officer for Morgan Stanley’s U.S. Field Management Group and Head of Merrill Lynch’s Global Private Client Direct Division.

David Lessing – Chief Revenue Officer at Addepar

In our latest podcast, Peter Jankovsky (WG'20) is joined by Andrew Endicott, the CFO, President, and Co-Founder of Petal. Petal is a new kind of credit card company on a mission to make credit honest, simple, and accessible. Petal is one of the fastest growing fintech companies in the United States and is pioneering the next generation of consumer lending through its proprietary cash flow underwriting strategy, which promises to serve tens of millions of creditworthy borrowers that are currently ignored by traditional underwriting approaches. 

In this extensive interview, Andrew shares the founding story of Petal and how it expands access to safe and affordable credit by using underwriting cash flows instead of just credit scores; how Andrew tested the concept before launching, the unique challenges that lending companies face in establishing product-market fit, and Andrew's advice for entrepreneurs; and Andrew's thoughts on the industry's broader evolution, among other topics.

Prior to co-founding Petal, Andrew was an investment banker at Lazard and focused on buy-side and sell-side acquisitions involving consumer-facing companies and non-bank lenders.  Prior to that, Andrew practiced corporate law at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, where he focused on public and private M&A, along with securities offerings, including IPOs, equity and debt offerings, and other transactions.  Andrew holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School as well as a B.S.B.A. from the University of Arkansas and is a periodic lecturer on strategic transactions at the Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, where he is also a member of the Dean’s Alumni Advisory Council.

Andrew Endicott - CFO, Co-Founder, & President of Petal

In our latest podcast, Peter Jankovsky (WG'20) is joined by Omer Ismail, the head of Goldman Sachs' US consumer business. In this role, Omer oversees the Marcus by Goldman Sachs and Clarity Money businesses as well as the Goldman Sachs/Apple credit card partnership. Omer was originally the consumer business' first employee, and under his leadership, Goldman Sachs' US business has grown to over 4 million customers, $5 B in loan balances, $50 B in deposits, and 1,300 employees.*
 
In this extensive interview, Omer dives into:
• The story behind Goldman's decision to enter consumer banking and how it went about understanding consumer pain points to deliver a unique value proposition
• How the consumer business operates as a distinct business within the broader Goldman umbrella, and how its focus on constant iteration of design and UX delivers a differentiated customer experience
• Surprises and challenges that Goldman tackled as it scaled its consumer business
• Thoughts on what's next for Goldman in the consumer banking space, as well as Omer's view on opportunities/challenges in the market
 
Prior to launching Goldman's consumer business, Omer spent a decade in the private equity division at Goldman Sachs, focused on investing in technology-enabled businesses in the financial services, media and healthcare sectors. Omer grew up in Karachi, Pakistan and earned a BA from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Forbes, Fast Company and American Banker. He has been recognized as one of Business Insider’s 100 People Transforming Business, Crain’s 40 under 40 and Bank Innovation’s Innovators to Watch. Omer lives in New York with his wife and two kids.

* Stats mentioned in audio may slightly differ; podcast was recorded at start of summer 2019.

Omer Ismail - Head of Marcus U.S. (Goldman Sachs' Consumer Business)

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Omer Ismail - Head of Marcus U.S. (Goldman Sachs' Consumer Business)

Wharton Fintech Podcast

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