The Fintech Blueprint

Lex chats with Farouk Ferchichi, the President of Data and Analytics at Envestnet - supplies financial and wealth management technology and services to financial institutions. Farouk starts off by delving into the journey of understanding data and analytics. The conversation explores the challenges and dynamics of embracing quantitative decision-making across industries, emphasizing the transforma...

Lex chats with Aman Behzad, Managing Partner of Royal Park Partners - A group of Corporate Finance advisors focused on Fintech. Amas kicks off the conversation talking about his early experiences in banking and his strategic focus on financial institutions, the discussion covers the dynamics of investment banking, the success vectors in fintech at Financial Technology Partners and Royal Park Partn...

Lex chats with Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Bitfinex (one of the largest crypto exchanges) and Tether (a US-dollar pegged stablecoin). Paolo kicks off reflecting on his journey into the crypto space and the pivotal role of technology, community, and opensource in his learning. The discussion navigates through Bitcoin's diverse potentials, Bitfinex's growth, and the intricate challenges of crypto exchange...

Lex chats with Asaf Horesh - General Partner at Vintage Investment Partners - who invest in the leading venture funds and growth-stage technology companies that are spearheading disruptive innovation. Asaf shares insights into his venture journey, highlighting core lessons in becoming a successful investor. Emphasizing the significance of people and recognizing signals of success, Asaf delves into...

Lex chats with Aron Alexander - CEO, and Founder of Runa - a digital value infrastructure and network that enables people to pay and get paid by anyone, anywhere, instantly. The discussion delves into the founding story of Runa, which was inspired by insights from commerce experiences. Together Lex and Aron explore the significance of payment networks and loyalty programs in aligning incentives fo...

Lex chats with  Emma Kerr - Senior Vice President, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Europe at Visa - one of the world's largest payment networks. In this episode, Emma unravels Visa's comprehensive definition of commerce and the nuances of being a merchant. She shares her remarkable journey within Visa and the evolution of payment networks over time. The discussion delves into the intriguing concep...

Lex chats with Leif Abraham, Co-CEO and Founder of Public - Public.com is an investing platform that helps people be better investors. Members can build a diverse portfolio of stocks, funds, and crypto within a single platform. In this episode, Leif delves into his journey through design, creativity, and venture, including early career insights in video game web development. Together, Lex and Leif...

Lex chats with Sankaet Pathak, the founder and CEO of Synapse - the largest regulated banking-as-a-service platform that provides payment, card issuance, deposit, lending, compliance, credit and investment products as APIs to more than 18 million end users. In this episode, Sankaet delves into his journey that led him to fintech and the decision to build a robust financial infrastructure. Together...

Lex chats with Sandy Carter, COO at Unstoppable Domains - a company on a mission to create user-owned, digital identity for every person on the planet. Sandy opens up about her journey from big tech companies - IBM and Amazon, to the realm of Web3 and crypto. Together, Lex and Sandy discuss the challenges of navigating large tech companies and the innovative services offered by Unstoppable Domains...

Lex chats with Jeff Dorman, CIO at Arca -  an asset management firm that creates and manages institutional grade products using crypto and blockchain technology. Together they discuss key aspects of crypto finance, starting with Jeff's transition into crypto from investment banking, and then delving into the impact of the Fed on financial markets and institutional investment on digital asset trend...

Lex chats with Sasha Orloff, CEO and Co-founder of Puzzle - “the first smart accounting software,” which combines a streaming financial data platform that’s connected to a general accounting ledger. Sasha starts the conversation detailing his journey from traditional banking to fintech entrepreneurship. Reflecting on the early days of fintech, contrasting the East and West Coast perspectives, and...

Lex interviews seasoned fintech expert Teana Baker-Taylor - Circle VP of Policy and Regulatory Strategy EMEA. Circle began as a peer-to-peer payments technology company that now manages stablecoin USDC, a cryptocurrency the value of which is pegged to the U.S. dollar. Teana discusses her journey from traditional finance to the frontier of blockchain and crypto exchanges. Together Lex and Teana exp...

Lex interviews Ashwin Kumar - Stripe's Head of Startups for Banking-as-a-Service. Stripe is a financial technology (FinTech) company based in San Francisco, CA, whose software allows individuals and businesses to make and receive payments online. In this episode, Lex and Ashwin explore Stripe's strategic positioning in the transformative world of fintech. From unraveling Stripe's core mission and...

Lex interviews Alisa Chinedu of Remita - a payment solution platform that helps individuals and businesses make and receive payments, pay bills, and manage their finances; making it key to supporting the Nigerian payments and fintech ecosystem.  discussing the company's role in enhancing the Nigerian fintech ecosystem. Alisa delves into Remita's functionality, strategic corporate partnerships, and...

Lex chats with Eric Barbier, CEO of Triple-A. Triple-A operates as a crypto payment gateway that allows businesses to accept crypto payments. In this discussion, Eric and Lex discuss the origins and growth of Triple-A, detailing its evolution and journey through the complex world of cryptocurrency payments. Eric delves into the intricacies of building a successful crypto payments infrastructure, f...

Lex chats with Anish Acharya - a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, California, that backs bold entrepreneurs building the future through technology. Anish and Lex analyze the impact and adoption of disruptive platform shifts, before charting a journey through FinTech from innovative startups to high-profile acquisitions....

Lex chats with Jacqueline Kennedy, Chief Operating Officer at Quicknode - a Web3 infrastructure platform, that helps developers and businesses build, launch, and scale blockchain-powered applications (dApps). In this episode, Jackie and Lex touch on understanding cloud infrastructure companies like DigitalOcean and AWS, understanding developer, client needs and commercial outcomes across different...

In this conversation, we chat with Alain Meier , the Head of Identity at Plaid. Plaid builds a data transfer network that powers fintech and digital finance products. Plaid's product, a technology platform, enables applications to connect with users’ bank accounts. Alain has spent the past decade problem-solving in all things digital identity. He was a founding member of the Stanford Bitcoin Group...

Lex chats with David Hoare, the CTO and co-founder of Codat - a universal API platform that connects small businesses to banks and other financial platforms. Together they discuss the value behind data aggregation, API integrations, SME enablement via APIs and the complexities involved in connecting large institutional businesses to API platforms. Additionally, Dave breaks down how the COVID-19 pa...

Lex chats with Antonio Juliano, founder and CEO of dYdX -  a crypto derivatives trading platform that caters to professional traders outside the U.S. It averages roughly $2 billion in daily trading volume (Coinbase does about $5 billion). Antonio shares his experience working at Coinbase since 2015 when Bitcoin was dominant and Ethereum was new to the game. Together, they discuss how decentralized...

Lex chats with Padman Perumal, CEO of Masttro. Masttro is a privately-held FinTech company that delivers a truly global wealth technology ecosystem to wealth owners and their trusted advisors. In this episode, they discuss the differences between wealth management, private banking, brokerage and banking, as well as the challenges of providing a consumer-grade digital experience for wealth manageme...

Lex chats with Dave Balter about the complexities of building data products on the blockchain and the importance of understanding human relationships and reality when building startups. They also discuss Flipside Crypto – a platform that builds business intelligence via a suite of analytics tools that provide insights into user behaviors, developer activities, and financial health, to crypto organ...

Lex chats with Christopher Goes, co-founder of Anoma and Cryptium Labs. Initially, they explore the current centralized monetary system, how it disconnects from physical changes, and the need for technology to evolve with the complexity of our financial systems. Following this, they deep dive into the differences between privacy-preserving and data-obscuring technology, and how privacy is importan...

Lex chats with Arno Castillo, founder and CEO of CrunchDAO. CrunchDAO is a research team of data scientists and quants that leverage the power of collective intelligence and Web3 to produce and sell next-generation predictive financial insights. In the discussion, Lex and Arnaud touch on decentralized asset management, data science, building portfolios, and web3 organizations. Arnaud shares his ba...

Lex chats with Calvin Liu, the Chief Strategy Officer at EigenLayer, about his journey in investment banking, working for a financial regulations consulting firm, and transitioning to entrepreneurship. Calvin delves deep into the inner workings of EigenLayer, a restaking protocol for Ethereum, and the importance of focus, incentives, and integration in the crypto industry. Additionally, they discu...