Global Innovators in Business

YeePay is a leading payment service provider that delivers payment solutions for enterprises across industries, including airline & travel, new retail, fintech, administration & education, and cross-border transactions. Prior to founding YeePay, Chen held various roles at Oracle, John Deere Health Care, and AT&T Bell Labs, and served as a director at the Silicon Valley enterprise SVC W...

Join us for a conversation with Sam Obletz, co-founder and CEO of Claim. Claim is a marketplace that benefits both customers and merchants: customers get real cash back on food, beverages, fitness products and more, while merchants gain actual or potentially long-term customers at a lower marketing cost. Claim recently raised a $12 million Series A led by VMG Partners, with participation from prev...

Nick Johnston, a former biotech banker and entrepreneur, founded Alis Biosciences to solve one of the biggest challenges that every biotech might face on its road – how to maximize shareholders' value when a public-listed company loses market confidence? Alis creates a safety net for shareholders by giving the trapped capital back and supporting the company with promising science to get back on tr...

Imagine transforming a simple text prompt into a fully produced song—within seconds. That’s exactly what Udio does. Founded in December 2023 by a team of former Google DeepMind researchers, including CEO David Ding , Conor Durkan , Charlie Nash , Yaroslav Ganin , and Andrew Sanchez , Udio is reshaping how music is made. Backed by industry giants like a16z, will.i.am, Common, Tay Keith, and Steve S...

Aquaria, co-founded in 2021 by Brian Sheng, is dedicated toaddressing the growing global water scarcity problem. Using its cutting-edge Atmospheric Water Generation technology, Aquaria’s products extract water from the air, purify it, and make it suitable for human consumption. This breakthrough provides an alternative water source, especially in regions where traditional methods like desalination...

Ron Gura is the co-founder and CEO of Empathy. Founded in 2020, Empathy aims to provide bereaved families with holistic support, such as emotional guidance through grief, estate settlement, benefits and probate, etc. Empathy partners with employers, life insurance, health plans, and consultants to help people who have lost loved ones through the darkest of their lives. Prior to founding Empathy, R...

Dr. Ansari started to lead The Permanente Medical Group (TPMG) in 2023 as the first female CEO of the organization. With over 11,000 physicians and 44,000 staff, TPMG provides care to over 5.4 million Kaiser Permanente members. Dr. Ansari is passionate about addressing physician burnout, improving team-based care, and fostering innovation in healthcare delivery. In this episode, you will hear abou...

In this interview with Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera, we dive into the inner workings of Jeff to understand how he sees driving impact. Since joining Coursera in 2017, Jeff has helped grow the platform to over 148 million learners worldwide, partnering with morethan 7,000 institutions. He became a CEO for the first time at 27, leading Financial Engines, after graduating from Stanford MBA   In...

Malaika Judd, an entrepreneur, angel investor, and previous co-founder of Sendy. Sendy was a one-stop logistics platform for enterprises and merchants, covering delivery needs in the region to help small businesses/side hustles reach their customers more efficiently and cost-effectively. In this episode, you will hear about: 🚚 What does Sendy do? 📱 Challenges of Social Commerce (selling local go...

Andreata is a partner at TLcom Capital, a leading tech VC firm based in Nairobi. Locally rooted and globally connected, TLcom has managed in excess of $300M and is currently investing from its TIDE Africa fund, which invests in early to growth-stage companies in Sub-Saharan Africa. TLcom is also famous for its initiatives in building strong technology and entrepreneur-centric ecosystems. 🌟 What l...

Francis Dufay, CEO of Jumia, a leading e-commerce platform in Africa. With proprietary logistics Jumia Logistics and JumiaPay fintech platforms, Jumia is able to seamlessly deliver the widest range of genuine products at low prices to the customer. Juia is also the first African startup that went public in NYSE. Today, it is active in 11 countries across Africa. 🎯 How did Francis transition from...

Jesse Moore, the CEO and co-founder of M-KOPA. M-KOPA, a leading technology startup in Kenya, helps underbanked low-income African households unlock essential products and services that improve their life qualities with fair and flexible financial choices. M-KOPA has built one of the world’s most advanced connected financing platforms, deploying $1 billion in products and credit to 3 million custo...

Joseph Rehmann is the Founder & Group CEO of Victory Farms. By rebuilding the fish value chain from scratch, Victory Farms drastically reduced the cost of protein in Africa. Through this journey, Joe and his team have built one of the first truly regenerative aquaculture farms in the world: all while improving biodiversity, sinking carbon, and supporting jobs and local communities in Kenya and...

Daniel Yu is the Founder and CEO of Wasoko. Wasoko aims to unleash African commerce from various aspects. Using Wasoko’s services, shopkeepers and suppliers are more efficiently connected. By simply ordering products via the mobile app, shopkeepers can receive deliveries at their doorstep. Additionally, Wasoko has been able to support and finance small retailers. Daniel is also conversant in more...

Basil Moftah, the General Partner at Nclude, a venture capitalist fund and Fintech innovation engine with a core focus on the Middle East and North Africa. As an influential force in the venture capital space, Basil is at the forefront of the Fintech revolution in Egypt, a country experiencing a quantum leap forward in its Fintech ecosystem. In this episode, you will learn:📚From a student with an...

Vikas is the Founder & CEO of abillion. abillion is a social media platform focused on helping people create better daily habits and rituals, starting with what they eat and buy. abillion’s mission is to become the definitive global ecosystem for everything sustainable. In this episode, you will hear about: 💼What’s the motivation for founding abillion? 💡 How did Vikas make plans for his earl...

Jim Rogers, a well-known investor, author, and financial commentator. He is the co-founder of the Quantum Fund, a hedge fund that achieved an impressive record of returns, and the author of “The Investment Biker”. In this episode, you will learn: 🎓 Jim’s early life journey from Yale to Oxford 💼 The Quantum Fund – how it beat the S&P by nearly 4200% in 1970s? 📈 Jim’s way of thinking about in...

Pierre Paslier is the co-founder and co-CEO of Notpla, a leader in the sustainable packaging and container manufacturing industry. Notpla is replacing the use of plastic in packaging with seaweed and plants that biodegrade in weeks to make our world more sustainable. In this episode, you will hear about:🌱 How do biodegradable plants, especially seaweed, make food takeaway boxes more sustainable?...

Atish Davda is CEO and Co-Founder of EquityZen, a company working on bringing private markets to the public. Atish talks about his journey to starting EquityZen and what this company means to the future of investing in innovation. The interview is dedicated to PennPAC. PennPAC works with nonprofit organizations to help solve their business challenges through the engagement of Penn alumni who serve...

Rick Bates, CEO and Co-Founder of RxSense. RxSense is a healthcare technology company that provides advanced cloud-based enterprise solutions. RxSense also contracts with the nation's largest pharmacies (including CVS, Walmart and Walgreens) to deliver consistently low prices directly to consumers on prescription drugs through its SingleCare (www.singlecare.com) prescription savings services. Tune...

In 2015, Joey Zwillinger co-founded Allbirds with his partner Tim Brown. Since its founding, Allbirds has gone to design what Time Magazine has called the “World’s Most Comfortable Shoe” and has been worn by Barack Obama, Leonardo DiCaprio, and many others. But even more fascinating is Allbird’s no-compromise mentality to developing sustainable and eco-friendly shoes. Join us to learn more about A...

Steve Gu, CEO of AiFi, talks about how he is using AI to automate stores around the world. While AmazonGo and other large conglomerates are pursuing a cashier-less future, Steve Gu talks about how AiFi is shaping this emerging landscape and what to expect in the not-so-distant future. In this interview, you will learn: How do computer vision and machine learning work in the context of an autonomou...

Tracy Young, the co-founder and CEO of TigerEye, a sales and go-to-market platform that helps leaders track and predict the future performance of their business. She was previously the co-founder and CEO of PlanGrid, a construction productivity software. PlanGrid grew from 5 co-founders to 450 people and helped build over 1 million construction projects around the globe before being acquired by Au...

Fred was a part of the original founding team of Zappos and alongside Tony Hsieh and others, helped Zappos grow into a company with more than $1 billion in gross merchandise sales before it was bought by Amazon in 2009. He is also the founder of Las Vegas-centric investment fund Honus Capital, and the co-founder of luxury fashion brand Ross and Snow. This full interview is dedicated to the Goodie...

We talk with Matthew Bannick, the Former Managing Partner of Omidyar Network, Former President of eBay International, and former President of PayPal on his advice in entering the impact investment sector as one of the pioneers in the industry. The conversation also covers Matt's advice on helping a company achieve global expansion, strategies to measure impact and what it takes to be a great leade...