Around The Coin

In this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Bryce Deeney, Founder, and CEO of equipifi, which is modernizing the way consumers interact with their money. equipifi’s mission is to support banks and credit unions’ ability to deliver experiences that help foster growth and engagement for existing and new customers.equipifi provides seamless white-labeled integrations for banks and credit unions to offe...

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Ahmed Siddiqui, Chief Payments Officer at Branch, where he spearheads product innovation, development, and strategy. Bringing nearly a decade of payments experience, he also leads Branch’s strategic partnerships with major financial services and technology providers including Mastercard, Visa, Evolve Bank & Trust, and Marqeta. Ahmed has held a wide ra...

In this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Ivan Smirnov, Co-Founder, and CTO of Elude. Prior to founding Elude, Ivan was a software engineer at Google, leading projects to improve their core “Search” feature along with Google Ads, Google Assistant, and Google Cloud. Ivan is a builder, problem solver, and engineer passionate about creating code-based solutions to technological problems. While wo...

In this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Rami Essaid, CEO & Co-Founder of Finmark. Rami is a three-time startup founder and passionate entrepreneur, has been building companies for over a decade. He was the founder and CEO of Distil Networks, acquired by Imperva in 2019, before starting his latest venture Finmark, financial modeling software for startups. At Distil Networks, he saw firsth...

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Arnab Naskar, Co-founder of STOKR, the EU’s pioneering digital marketplace for alternative assets, where smart investors connect with and fund forward-thinking founders. Arnab oversees STOKR’s business strategy and is dedicated to promoting open and decentralized capital markets. He is a regular speaker at major blockchain conferences and webinars in Euro...

 In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Jack O'Holleran, CEO/Co-Founder Skale. Jack is a veteran entrepreneur with a deep background in machine learning, AI, security, and blockchain. Prior to co-founding SKALE, Jack was a founder at multiple Silicon Valley based enterprise technology companies including IncentAlign, a digital currency platform, and Aktana, the leading Machine Learning An...

In this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Liran Zelkha, Co-Founder and CTO of Lili, the all-in-one banking app designed for 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...

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Sohaib Zahid, Chief Executive Officer at Railz. Sohaib is a serial entrepreneur with a decade of successful experience in building teams, products, and companies. He focuses on Sales and Marketing. Prior to founding Railz, Sohaib founded Vanhawks, where he led product, sales, and operations. Vanhawks was acquired in 2016. Originally from Pakistan, Sohaib...

In this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Tron Black, President of Ravencoin Foundation. Tron is a freedom advocate, crypto developer, entrepreneur, and founder of two startups that were sold to publicly traded companies.  Tron holds a BS in Computer Science and a Master's of Business Administration.  Since early 2013, Tron has been working in the cryptocurrency space as a miner, developer, i...

In this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Richard Groome, executive chairman, and CEO at ALT 5 Sigma. He leads the firm’s global business and support to clients worldwide including financial institutions, institutional investors, and corporate clients. After 36 successful years in the securities industry, starting two leading securities firms from scratch, completing over 600 financings raisin...

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Michael Weisz, Co-founder and President of Yieldstreet, the only multi asset alternative investment platform for retail investors. As a seasoned Alternative Investments expert, Michael has created access to investments spanning art, real estate, private business credit, litigation and marine financing, structured notes, and more previously only available...

In our latest episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Weiwu Zhang, CTO of Smart Token Labs. Zhang has over 9 years of experience in blockchain technology, alt currency design and trading algorithms. He has served as blockchain architect for CBA (largest Australian bank), held the R3 global architect office, and also architected 3 altcoins and 7 ICO projects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit mega...

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Toby Russell, Co-CEO of Shift, the platform to make buying and selling cars simple and accessible to everyone. Previously, he was Managing Vice President of Digital at Capital One, where he led the bank’s consumer technology transformation, including building the mobile capabilities that drive the majority of Capital One’s new customers and interactions....

In this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Brad Levy, CEO of Symphony, the leading financial markets’ infrastructure and technology platform. A driven and dedicated leader with decades of experience in the financial services industry, Brad has played an integral role in the growth of Symphony, and particularly in establishing Symphony’s platform as critical market infrastructure in financial servic...

In this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Ben Jorgensen, CEO, and Co-Founder of Constellation Network, the first scalable decentralized base layer zero infrastructure built for speed, security, and economical and technical scalability. Constellation Network is a framework that allows everyone to build and conduct a business on the blockchain. Their focus is to be the first decentralized ecosys...

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Andrew Jamison, the CEO, and Co-Founder of Extend, a fintech that provides digital payment infrastructure for financial institutions to enable modern card experiences. Prior to Extend, Andrew was the head of B2B Corporate Payments Products at American Express with a mandate to drive digital payment innovation and adoption. Over the course of six years at...

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Brett Goldstein, Co-Founder of Launch House, a community for founders and creators. Prior to Launch House, Brett was a Product Manager at Google, where he worked cross-functionally with engineering, design, marketing, machine vision research, and art as well as served as an M&A strategy analyst for the CEO of Google. He then took the role of Senior Pr...

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Oded Zehavi, the Founder & CEO of Mesh Payments, and board and advisory board member of several Israeli FinTech companies. Previously, he served as Payoneer's Chief Revenue Officer. Prior to Payoneer, Oded served as the business development director for PayPal, where among other responsibilities he led the inception of the PayPal services in the...

In this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Steve Berneman, the CEO and Co-founder of Blueprint. He is a former practicing attorney and a serial entrepreneur. Prior to starting Blueprint, Steve was the Co-founder and CEO of Overdog, a gaming company acquired in 2016. Steve formed the thesis for Blueprint while an Entrepreneur in Residence at Vanderbilt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaph...

In this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Paul Garibian, President of Nota. Fintech expert, entrepreneur, and executive Paul has spent nearly 20 years helping financial institutions drive product development and grow revenue and market share. Nota is an innovative legal industry fintech solution powered by M&T Bank that adds value through increased productivity and decreases compliance risk. B...

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Brenda Loya, the CEO and one of the founders of Tellor. She's an economist and a self-taught solidity developer. Previously, she was an economist and supervisor at the U.S. Department of Labor, developing and leading teams to develop statistical software for principal economic indicators. She joined the space initially by helping to develop a derivat...

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Stephen Stonberg, CEO of Bittrex Global, one of the most reliable and secure cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. Stephen has spent his entire 25-year career working in financial markets in London and New York. He left the traditional world of finance to get involved in the crypto and blockchain industry. Prior to Bittrex Global, Stephen joined the Inve...

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with the architect of the Supra BFT Consensus Algorithm. Blockchain Designer & Developer, Joshua Tobkin is a Meta-Game Theorist behind projects such as Unitychain.io's venture projects and more recently SupraOracles.comA lateral thinker, creative, and curiously dyslexic, Josh has been building SaaS companies for the last 10 years. Josh is a well-known...

In this episode, Mike Townsend interviews Trent Sorbe, President and Founder of Central Payments & Co-Founder of Falls Fintech. He is an architect of Central Payments’ Open*CP Fintech API Marketplace. With more than 28 years of debit, credit, and prepaid payments experience, Trent is responsible for products garnering nine Paybefore Awards, three of which garnered Best in Class or Category. He...

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Vivek Krishnamurthy, Principal at Commerce Ventures, an early stage FinTech, InsurTech & RetailTech focused fund based in San Francisco. The Fund's investments include Marqeta, Bill.com, MX, Socure, Forter, and +90 others. At Commerce Ventures, Vivek primarily focuses on vertical FinTech applications, core financial services enablement technologi...