Wharton FinTech Podcast

In this podcast, Justin Karfo (WG ’19) chats with Tayo Oviosu, Founder and CEO of Paga. Founded in 2009, Paga is a Nigerian mobile payments company that allows users to send money, pay bills and receive payments easily from any mobile phone. Today Paga is the largest fintech company in Nigeria, with over 8.5 million users, 15,000 agents across Nigeria and 200+ employees. During this podcast, Justin and Tayo discuss the African and Nigerian fintech ecosystems and highlight the challenges associated with building an organization such as Paga. Tayo also shares his entrepreneurial wisdom and journey so far. This podcast was recorded at the Africa Fintech Summit in Washington DC. Tayo has over sixteen years of experience in a variety of technical and business roles in high−tech and Private Equity. Most recently, he was Vice President at Travant Capital Partners where he was responsible for executing the firm's investment strategy in West Africa. Prior to joining Travant, Tayo was a Manager, Corporate Development, at Cisco Systems in San Jose California. In that role, he was responsible for strategy, acquisitions, and private equity investments in four technology sectors − Virtual Computing, Application Networking, Security, and Network Management. Tayo also helped lead Cisco's investment expansion in Africa. At Cisco, Tayo led numerous acquisition and private equity investment opportunities, including the $130m acquisition of Reactivity, and investments in Aquantia (10G Base−T, Series A), and Guardium (Database Security, recently sold to IBM). Tayo was also responsible for the private sale of 22% of Cisco's South African operations to a consortium of investors in 2007. Prior to Cisco, Tayo was a Senior Consultant at Deloitte Consulting in the CRM and Technology practice. At Deloitte he worked on cases in five industries − high tech, telecom, pharmacy retail, government, and healthcare. He was primarily responsible for leading technical implementation teams. Tayo also had stints at start-ups Biomorphic VLSI as a Semiconductor Chip Design Engineer, and Event411 as a Software Engineer. Outside of work, Tayo is passionate about encouraging entrepreneurship across various sectors. He believes entrepreneurship is a major driver of sustainable change and growth across the continent. This passion has led Tayo to work with entrepreneurs to develop their ideas as an Angel investor and adviser. He is currently an investor and adviser in Yswara, Africa's home-grown luxury brand; ReelFruit, a Nigerian fruit processing agribusiness; and ChopUp, a mobile gaming start−up. Tayo also takes time to volunteer at the Bake for Change charity organization, working with young kids who have been displaced from their homes. Alongside Paga's numerous achievements, Tayo has been nominated for the West African Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2013 All African Business Leaders Awards. He is also an Ambassador for Junior Achievement − working with one of the largest non-profit youth groups, to inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy. Tayo earned his Bachelors of Science degree in Electrical Engineering, cum laude, from the University of Southern California. He also has a Masters in Business Administration from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.

Justin Karfo (WG ’19) chats with Eghosa Omoigui, the founder and Managing General Partner of EchoVC Partners, a seed and early-stage venture capital firm. Based in Silicon Valley, EchoVC has invested millions of dollars in promising innovative African ventures. In this podcast, Eghosa discusses his firm's investment philosophy, the key themes in the African startup ecosystem and his firm’s key strategic partnership with TPG Growth. This podcast was recorded at the Africa Fintech Summit in Washington D.C. Eghosa Omoigui is the founder and Managing General Partner of EchoVC Partners. Before this, Eghosa was with Intel for nearly 10 years and his last role was as Intel Capital Director, Strategic Investments, Consumer Internet & Semantic Technologies, where he acted as a senior investment professional focused on platform-agnostic consumer web services and digital media-based investment opportunities. Omoigui also drove ICap's investment focus on next generation semantic technologies, smart data and the realtime web. Eghosa was personally responsible for (developing supporting theses for and) sourcing investment opportunities in various companies including AdMob, Jaiku, Powerset, Facebook, LinkedIn, Teracent and Pandora. Prior to this role, Omoigui was Chief of Staff to the President of Intel Capital (the largest global tech corporate VC), and, before that, Chief of Staff for Intel’s Treasury organization, helping oversee an $18B cash platform. Omoigui attended UPenn Law School and Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College.

Fei Ye (WG ’19) chats with Abby Chao, Co-Founder and COO of CollegeBacker. CollegeBacker helps parents open a tax-advantaged 529 College Savings Plan in minutes, and then invite family and friends to contribute. With CollegeBacker Gifts, anyone can kickstart a child’s college fund. During this podcast, Fei and Abby deep dive into the college savings sector and highlight the current challenges associated with saving for college. They also discuss the transition to entrepreneurship from professional services.

Wharton Alternative Investments Initiative and the Penn Blockchain Club hosted a fireside chat with Michael Sonnenshein, Managing Director at Grayscale Investments. With $3bn AUM, Grayscale Investments is the sponsor of the Bitcoin Investment Trust, the Ethereum Classic Investment Trust, and the Zcash Investment Trust. Sarah Hammer, Senior Director of the Wharton Alternative Investments Initiative, speaks with Michael about the basics of blockchain, the growth of cryptocurrencies, and the dynamics of and changing regulatory environment for digital investing. Michael Sonnenshein joined Grayscale Investments in January 2014. As Managing Director, he is responsible for overseeing the daily operations and growth of the Grayscale business, spanning sales, operations, product development, and investor relations. With $2+ Billion in assets under management, Michael is responsible for maintaining many of the firms’ key client relationships including family offices, hedge funds, and other institutions as well as forming strategic partnerships and evaluating service providers. Prior to joining Grayscale, Michael was a financial advisor at JP Morgan Securities, covering HNW individuals and institutions. He also worked in a similar capacity at Barclays Wealth, providing coverage to middle‐market hedge funds and institutions. Mr. Sonnenshein earned his Bachelors of Business Administration from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and an MBA from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University. He holds his Series 7 and 66 licenses.

Vivek Chauhan (Wharton MBA ’19) chats with Joel Frisch, Head of Americas at Prodigy Finance. Prodigy Finance is a peer-to-peer platform offering loans to international post graduate students using an innovative credit model. In this engaging podcast, Joel talks about his own trajectory from banking into fintech, Prodigy’s unique approach to credit modeling, impact investing, and opportunities and challenges in the P2P space. Educated in Philadelphia and London, Joel had a successful career on Wall Street and co-founded a software startup in the employee management industry prior to joining Prodigy Finance. As the first US-based employee at Prodigy Finance, Joel has helped build both the team and the market while balancing the complexities of a fast scaling company in a highly regulated space across the UK & US.

Caroline Kremer (WG '19) speaks with Colleen Briggs, Executive Director of Community Innovation at JP Morgan Chase & Co, about JP Morgan's approach to incubating and growing new financial technology companies. In this podcast, Colleen discusses the business opportunities for fintech companies focused on serving the underbanked, as well as her work with the Financial Solutions Lab and the Catalyst Fund. Colleen is responsible for helping establish and execute JP Morgan Chase & Co's global philanthropic strategies on financial health and community development, including two signature initiatives – the Financial Solutions Lab and PRO Neighborhoods competition. The Lab is a $30 million, five-year initiative that convenes leading experts in technology and design to improve consumer financial health for underserved populations. PRO Neighborhoods is a five-year, $125 million program that works to increase the availability and accessibility of vital economic opportunities in distressed neighborhoods. Colleen also manages numerous programs across both topics designed to surface new approaches to community challenges, as well as explore global cross-cutting themes across the Foundation’s work, such as women’s empowerment, peer learning, evaluation, and attracting additional investment in JP Morgan's projects. Colleen is a member of the Asset Funders Network Steering Committee and the Innovations for Poverty Action Policy Advisory Group. She earned an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dipika Sen (Wharton MBA '19) chats with Jungwon Byun, Head of the Growth Team at Upstart, the first lending platform to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to price credit and automate the borrowing process. In this engaging podcast, Jungwon talks about her own trajectory from consulting into FinTech, discusses her initiative to foster the professional development of women at Upstart, and shares her insights on the importance of diversity in the industry. Jungwon oversees all of Upstart’s user acquisition strategies across digital, offline, and lifecycle channels. She was previously a management consultant at Oliver Wyman, where she assessed the risk exposure of international banks’ capital markets businesses for regulatory stress testing. She brings experience from her time as the CEO and co-Executive Director of a domestic microfinance non-profit. Jungwon graduated cum laude from Yale University, with a B.A. in Economics.

Justina Gallegos (WG '19) speaks with Marc Andrews, Vice President of IBM Watson Financial Services Solutions. Marc has led the creation of a new organization within IBM to build industry specific solutions for the financial services industry. He is driving the design, development and delivery of offerings that apply analytic and cognitive technologies to streamline regulatory compliance, combat fraud and financial crime, and generate increased customer insights. Marc meets with business and technology leaders from financial services organizations across the globe to share best practices and help them identify how they can apply cognitive capabilities to drive new business value. Marc is a fellow Wharton alum - we are always happy to host Wharton alums in fintech on our podcast.

Kylie Francis(Wharton MBA'18) chats with Andrew Robinson, Executive in Residence at Oak HC/FT, a premier venture growth equity firm investing in healthcare and financial service technology, where his focus is on Insurtech. In this insightful podcast, Andrew talks about his foray into the insurance industry and shares his perspectives on the most interesting activity in the insurance space today, and where this is scope for further disruption.

Fei Ye (WG '19) speaks with Julien Courbe, Partner and Head of PwC's U.S. Financial Services Advisory practice. Fei and Julien discuss PwC's top 8 digital predictions in financial services for 2018. PwC's trends cover a range of topics including digital banking, insurtech and blockchain. Check out the Wharton FinTech Medium for more details on PwC's report. Julien leads PwC’s US Financial Services Advisory practice, covering banking, capital markets, insurance and asset & wealth management companies. He advises C-suite executives at major financial services institutions on how to address issues related to growth and performance improvement, digital transformation, FinTech, financial crime and regulatory compliance, as well as technology and operations effectiveness.

Brian Shah (WG '18) speaks with Dan Aisen, Co-Founder and Head of Quantitative Strategy at IEX. Dan discusses the founding of IEX and the future of high frequency trading. IEX is the subject of Michael Lewis' bestselling book Flash Boys. As part of the founding team, Dan was responsible for building out the core functionality of IEX as a trading venue. As the company grows and evolves, he continues to develop new products and tactics that IEX can use to protect investors from predatory strategies and build a more sustainable and equitable market. Prior to IEX, Dan worked at RBC Capital Markets.

John Pennington (WG '19) speaks with Jani Valjavec, co-founder and CTO (Trading) of ICONOMI, the world’s first blockchain-based digital asset management platform for the decentralized economy. A well-known member of the blockchain community, Jani is a crypto and app token expert and was an early blockchain enthusiast. In 2013, he co-founded Cashila, the first registered Bitcoin company in Europe to acquire a license for the execution of banking transactions via bitcoin. In 2016 Jani co-founded ICONOMI, the world’s first digital assets management platform, in order to provide access to a variety of digital assets and the ability to combine and trade them. Jani also serves as Chairman of Columbus Capital, ICONOMI’s first partner to serve as a dedicated Digital Asset Array manager.

Elena Gerasimova (Wharton 2018) and Nipun Jasuja (Wharton 2018) chat with Catherine Flax, CEO of Pefin, the world’s AI financial advisor. Established in 2011, Pefin is a fintech company based in New York City. Pefin, which stands for PErsonal Financial INtelligence, uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to provide fiduciary financial advice at the fraction of a cost of a traditional financial advisor. On the day this podcast was recorded (November 30, 2011), Pefin went live to end consumers! And we couldn’t be more thrilled about that. Tune in to learn how Pefin is different from traditional roboadvisors that we’ve come to know, what really is the “AI” behind Pefin and why it took six years until product launch, and some invaluable nuggets of professional wisdom from Catherine.

David Gogel (WG'18) speaks with Charles Birnbaum (WG'11), Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. BVP is a multi-stage venture capital firm that invests across enterprise, consumer and healthcare. Charles focuses on financial services, consumer and education investments. David and Charles speak about building investment and industry theses, opportunities in the cryptocurrency market, trends in insurtech, and the evolution of the tech-enabled specialty industry. Charles is a partner in Bessemer's New York office. He focuses on financial services, consumer and education investments. Charles is actively involved with many BVP portfolio companies, including Main Street Hub, BrightBytes, Bread Finance, and August Home. He currently serves on the board of Zopa, United Capital, Fabric, Spruce and Eave and was involved in the exits of Yodle, 2U, and Kroll Bond Ratings. Charles’ startup experience has been important to BVP’s early stage financial services portfolio, which includes high-potential companies such as Betterment and Quantopian. Prior to joining BVP in 2013, Charles spent more than three years at Foursquare, the location-based mobile application company based in New York, helping create and bring to market some of Foursquare’s first merchant-facing tools. As the company grew, Charles became the director of mobile and international business development, where he focused on building strategic partnerships with carriers and OEMs while leading the company’s business development efforts in key growth markets such as Brazil, Russia and Turkey. Prior to Foursquare, Charles spent six years in investment banking and equity capital markets focusing on the technology, media and telecom sectors, and executed more than 50 equity and equity-linked public offerings. Charles holds a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School, a Master of Arts in international studies from the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Arts in history from Northwestern University.

Brian Shah (WG '18) chats with Amy Nauiokas, Founder and President of Anthemis Group, a leading financial technology investment and advisory firm. In this podcast, Amy discusses why she started Anthemis and the rationale behind providing both investment and strategy capabilities under one roof. She explains her guiding investing philosophy and how the team sources and evaluates new opportunities. At the end, Amy shares her perspective on U.S. vs. European startups and key trends in the financial technology space.