Searching for Mana with Lloyd Wahed

For episode 3 of our second season - Lloyd was delighted to be joined by Isabel Woodford - Fintech Journalist at Sifted.eu the leading (and FT backed) media site for Europe’s innovators and entrepreneurs. Isabel has been featured in The Guardian, Reuters, The New York Times, and prior to joining Sifted, as a reporter at US crypto news outlet, The Block. Please do continue to like/share/comment/sub...

Breaking: Exclusively on Searching for Mana - Conrad reveals to us the details of his latest venture Conrad Ford is the founder of, SME finance broker, Funding Options - having founded the company in 2011 - Conrad and his team built the business into the leading SME marketplace winning multiple awards along the way and accumulating an exceptional leadership team. Conrad left for new projects in 20...

To kick off Season Two of Searching for Mana - Lloyd was delighted to be joined by Anna Brailsford Anna is the CEO of Code First: Girls and a Board Member for the Institute of Coding. Before joining CF:G Anna was the CEO and co-founder of Founders Factory incubated EdTech startup Frisbee. Prior to that, Anna was the Commercial Director of Lynda.com and LinkedIn. When LinkedIn acquired Lynda for $1...

It's the Season One Wrap Party - and to celebrate we are releasing a 'Best of' episode featuring highlights from our wonderful guests. Including: Nick Ogden - Clearbank/Worldpay Julian Sawyer - Gemini/Starling Bank Charlotte Crosswell - Innovate Finance Husayn Kassai - Onfido Keith Grose - Plaid David Brear - 11:FS Ed Vaizey - Former Tech Minister and the musical stylings of Ray Brash and The Love...

This week Lloyd was joined by David Brear - founder and CEO of award-winning Fintech Consultancy 11:FS. Having worked on both the industry and consultancy side of financial services, in early 2016 alongside some notable Fintech superstars - David founded 11:FS - determined that they would be the consultancy equivalent of so many other lauded financial disruptors. David takes us back to his early l...

“You don’t pivot, you refine”This week we were delighted to be joined by noted entrepreneur and inventor of e-commerce, Nick OgdenFrom building the first online shop in 1994, Nick has since founded 4 businesses - Worldpay, Cashflows, Clearbank and RTGS.Nick spoke fascinatingly about his entrepreneurial genesis on the Channel Islands and pitching his first idea to Sony executives in Japan, to found...

We were delighted to be joined by Peter Briffett - CEO and founder of Wagestream, the Fintech with a truly fantastic social purpose. Recorded from his amazing ‘work from home’ shed and giving Lloyd surely the most unique opening to a show he’s had so far, Peter speaks in-depth about how Wagestream is truly helping people to manage their finances by utilising open banking to stream their wages into...

We are thrilled to have with Searching for Mana our next guest Husayn Kassai, CEO and co-founder of Onfido. He is sharing with us his 8-year journey from graduation from Oxford University to building up an AI company. He also explains the concept of "immunity passports" for governments battling coronavirus. Onfido has just raised $100 million, reaching a total funding amount of $200 million. Husay...

"It doesn't really matter what your education is, you can make that change" - Charlotte Crosswell. Charlotte Crosswell is the CEO of Innovate Finance - the industry body for UK Fintech. Charlotte speaks passionately about the need for financial wellbeing education in schools, how Fintech can emerge from the current crisis and accelerate the need for digital adoption and transformation. We learn of...

Ed Vaizey was the UK’s longest-serving Minister for Technology, working for UK Prime Minister David Cameron from 2010-16.During his time as Minister, Vaizey oversaw a major expansion in fixed and mobile broadband coverage; helped the UK become a world leader in tech investment, working with companies such as Google and Facebook, as well as supporting the start-up ecosystem. Ed was educated at Mert...

In this episode, Lloyd Wahed is joined by Melanie Palmer - Chief Marketing Officer at Nucoro . The Nucoro Wealth Engine provides solutions to automate, personalize, and accelerate wealth management for businesses who want to grow and thrive in the modern world. It provides Wealth Management as a Service for B2B markets in the UK and CE, enabling large institutions serving mass-affluent clients to...

Our guest in this episode is Rory Stirling - Partner at Connect Ventures - the London based Venture Capital seed firm is a product-focused, seed stage firm investing across Europe. They are singularly focussed on investing in purpose-led founders, obsessed with solving hard problems at scale, by creating products and companies that people love. Previous roles...- Partner and co-founder at BGF Vent...

My guest this week is CEO of the leading business banking challenger for cryptocurrency and blockchain companies - BCB Group. Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie has been in the finance and technology markets for over 20 years and we cover so much in this podcast. A self-professed 'Geek', after achieving academic excellence and securing an MBA from Cass Business School, Oliver found himself in the thick of...

In Episode 9 of Searching For Mana, I had the pleasure of welcoming Keith Grose to the podcast, Head of UK for Plaid. After expanding into the UK and Europe last year, Plaid has excelled, recently being named “Best Enabler” in the 11:FS 2020 Pulse Awards. With their acquisition by Visa underway, this is set to be a massive year for the fintech giant. Keith is from a small town in North Carolina, b...

In Episode 8 of Searching for Mana, I was delighted to be joined by Shefali Roy, COO & CCO at TrueLayer. Shefali was a brilliant guest. She had energy, she was open and she also gave some great insight into the innovation behind TrueLayer's success so far. We talk about so much! She started her journey in Bombay before moving to Australia, achieving academic excellence from an early age as she...

On Episode 7 of Searching for Mana, I had the chance to sit down with Julian Sawyer. Quite simply, Julian is an expert in the current FinTech market. He co-founded Starling Bank and led it through a period of incredible growth, advises the board of Australia's first neobank, Volt, and is currently MD of Europe for Gemini, the world's first licensed crypto-currency exchange platform, founded by Cam...

On Searching for Mana this week I was delighted to be joined by Ray Brash, CEO at PPS.In the podcast we cover everything from Ray's 15 incredibly successful years at award-winning PPS - including a recent partnership with Visa; his insight into the future of FinTech; and all the bits in between his career that make him such an engaging and fun personality, like being the base player in his own ban...

For episode 11 of Searching For Mana, I was delighted to welcome Richard Wagner, CEO of Cashplus. Cashplus are a leading UK challenger to banks and Richard has been the driving force behind it's growth over the last 16 years. We talk about his journey to the UK (he's from across the pond), the dreams and vision he had from the start, his incredulity at how long it took him to set up a bank account...

Episode 5 is a juicy one as I was joined in conversation with Sasha Yanshin, Founder and MD at Strategy Desk. Sasha has helped industry leading businesses build and grow successful products by developing astute commercial strategies, combined with digital innovation. Companies like MasterCard, Tesco, Barclays, HSBC, RBS, and Bank of America. Now he's helping banks innovate and grow by creating tra...

I'm really excited to share the next podcast with you all, as I was joined by David Keene, Chief Marketing Officer at Funding Options. David had been a key figure in businesses like Google, Oracle, Salesforce, and SAP before joining Funding Options. We have a really open and insightful conversation around David's journey (some of the challenges and successes of his career); how his new(ish) role i...

Fresh off the press - Dora Ziambra comes on to Searching for Mana to announce her promotion to Chief Operating Officer at Azimo! For anyone considering the merits of taking an MBA, this episode is for you. With a background in Co-Founding and trading high-frequency algorithmic equity/index products, Dora took the long view in 2013 to attend INSEAD MBA course. This is where Dora met the future to b...

The Head of Banks at Flux, Roisin Levine, comes on to discuss her journey since she graduated in History at the University of Bristol several years ago. Since then, Roisin has been awarded: - 'Rising Star' in the Women in Fintech Powerlist 2018 by Innovate Finance. - Nominated for 2019's Transformation of the Year award by Women in Credit. Flux are aiming to kill the paper receipt and automaticall...

What a great way to kick-off the podcast! For our first episode I'm joined by Valentina Kristensen, Director of Growth & Communications at Oaknorth. Valentina was one of those lucky few who found themselves at university amidst the global financial crisis in 2007/2008, trying to figure out what path she could take after graduating. After witnessing the effect of the financial downturn she deci...