The On Call with Insignia Podcast

Continue the conversation with Spencer at this year's Business & Sustainability Programme Asia Seminar by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) Join us on call with Spencer Low, Google’s first-ever Head of Regional Sustainability for Asia Pacific and an alumnus and faculty member of the Business & Sustainability Programme by the University of Cambri...

Join this year's Business & Sustainability Programme Asia Seminar by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL)In this first episode of a miniseries produced in partnership with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and Insignia Ventures Academy, host Paulo Aquino speaks with Professor Jason Pomeroy,k founding principal of Pomeroy Stud...

In this fourth conversation between Paulo Joquino and Dr. Yanan Wu, CEO and founder of Surfin, the two catch up at a pivotal moment in the company's trajectory. Nine years after its founding, Surfin, the Singapore-headquartered fintech serving over 100 million users across 12 markets, is entering its second chapter: one defined by agentic AI, fintech as a service (FaaS), and expansion into dev...

In this episode of On Call with Insignia Ventures, join us on this call with QingGui Huang (Gui), CEO and co-founder of Konvy, for a wide-ranging conversation on what it means to build a health and beauty e-commerce platform for Southeast Asia in 2026. Now in its 13th year of operations and fresh off a Series B round backed by Cool Japan Fund, Konvy has grown from Thailand's leading beauty e-r...

Paulo sits down in person at Insignia’s Singapore office with Yam Ki Chan, Managing Director, Asia Pacific at Circle. The conversation maps Yam Ki’s vantage point at the intersection of finance, technology, and policy, from his years negotiating for the U.S. government on the G20 and G7, through Google Pay and Google Cloud, to leading Circle’s regional buildout. He unpacks how stablecoins are upgr...

In this episode of On Call with Insignia Ventures, host Paulo Joquino sits down with Jonathan Yip, Head of Innovation Banking, Asia at HSBC, recorded live at HSBC’s office in downtown Singapore. The conversation explores what “innovation banking” actually means in practice — from how a global bank serves two unusually demanding sets of customers (founders and venture capital firms) to the specific...

This special episode, recorded live at the Insignia Ventures Partners office at the Singapore Exchange Centre in Singapore with VP of Strategic Development and Operations Allen Chng, explores a question that feels increasingly urgent: if money is becoming more digitally-native, what happens to the systems built for an earlier era? Drawing on Hassan Ahmed’s experience across traditional finance, fi...

Luke Boland shares insights from his journey spanning over 15 years in banking, from managing merchant relationships during the early days of contactless payments in Australia to building Standard Chartered's FinTech client coverage across Asia. In this conversation, he discusses the evolution of bank-fintech relationships, the bank's approach to supporting both global players and homegrow...

In the crowded landscape of AI workflow automation, Diaflow has carved out a distinctive position by prioritizing what enterprise customers care about most: security, compliance, and trust. After years of building custom enterprise software and witnessing firsthand how traditional automation failed to deliver on its promises, founder Jonathan Viet Pham and his co-founders launched Diaflow in Septe...

Ganhuyag Chuluun Hutagt shares stories and insights from his journey of over 30 years, from his first job at the Mongolian Stock Exchange at age 18 to becoming a pivotal figure in the country’s financial and technological evolution. As a founder of key institutions like XacBank and Ard Financial Group, he has been a relentless champion for financial inclusion and innovation. In this episode, he di...

Osamu Abe shares stories and insights from his career of nearly 30 years at MUFG from investment banking to taking an executive education on Sand Hill Road, later on setting up MUFG's first international CVC fund then MUFG's first spin out growth debt and equity funds (Mars Growth Capital and Mars Equity), and finally continuing to work with startups as Chief of Staff for Asia Pacific. Tim...

Fresh from the Japan SEA Market Forum last November, we managed to have a quick chat with Robert Subbaraman, Managing Director and Global Head of Macro Research on Nomura, about the rest of the world's views on the Japan opportunity, especially in AI, their role in an increasingly multipolar world, and how the Japan "revival" ties to the Southeast Asia's growth story. About Rober...

After several years working at Mistubishi and then for her family office foundation investing in the public markets, Rei Murakami found a new goal while she was working out of Singapore: to get into venture capital investing. She joined our Certificate in Venture Capital for its third cohort in 2022 and a year later founded Kadan Capital, an early stage venture firm investing in fintech and AI sta...

Finmo CPO and co-founder Akhil Nigam joins Paulo for a chat live from the 10th Singapore Fintech Festival 2025 to talk about Finmo's journey creating a truly connected intelligence platform for finance teams and treasury management able to serve businesses from SMEs to larger multi-market enterprises. A lot of it has to do with Akhil's partnership-first approach to product development. Thi...

Live from Singapore Fintech Festival, we sat down with Fluid CEO and co-founder Trasy Lou Walsh on the future of B2B payments and finance they are building with AI agents on their platform. This interview was recorded live at Media Lounge in Singapore Fintech Festival 2025. Timestamps (00:00) Catching up with Trasy on Fluid since our last call in 2024; (02:52) Understanding the automation needs fo...

15% of the total trade volume of Japan with the world comes from Southeast Asia, the country's third largest trading bloc. More than 15,000 Japanese firms are active in the region. Cash-rich Japanese firms looking to scale up growth globally. Local governments are looking for innovative solutions to societal issues like depopulation. We discuss these drivers for cross-border innovation and mor...

We brought together Philippine digital bank Tonik CEO and founder Greg Krasnov and Tokyo Stock Exchange APAC Deputy Head and IPO Specialist Beomsu Son for a conversation on the Philippines digital banking opportunity (from a Japan POV), opening up Japan's public markets to more issuers internationally, the first Philippine company in TSE's Asia Startup Hub, and the value of going public in...

POPMART Head of Southeast Asia & Middle East Jeremy Lee hops on a quick but jam packed conversation with On Call host Paulo on the role of Southeast Asia in POPMART's Global Business, the opportunities for creators and storytellers in the age of generative AI and new innovations in IP protection, and his learnings on leadership across several years leading regional business development for con...

Dr Loretta Chen, PhD, a mulitihyphenate figure in the media, education, publishing, performing arts & cultural scene for over two decades, hops on a quick but jam packed conversation with On Call host Paulo on the future of storytelling, finding its value in leadership, and sifting through the noise to tell stories that matter. This On Call with Insignia episode is part of a series featuring s...

NYSE Head of International Markets Cassandra Seier hops on a quick but jam packed conversation with On Call host Paulo on Singapore and Southeast Asia public market opportunities going global, the ways NYSE is diversifying capital access for issuers and investors, globalization of venture exits, and more. This On Call with Insignia episode is part of a series featuring speakers from the NOVA 2025:...

⁠StraitsX⁠ Head of Commercial ⁠Jason Tay hops on a quick but jam packed conversation with On Call host Paulo on the ways stablecoins are becoming more global, more accessible, and more integral to payment experiences, not just for Web3 wallet holders but more importantly for companies like StraitsX, your chicken rice aunties (among hundreds of thousands other SMEs and more traditional businesses g...

Timestamps (00:00) Introduction; (00:29) How a tech exec from China joined a Singapore AI startup; (02:38) The evolution of LLMs in China; (03:33) AI Development in China and the rest of the world; (04:37) The value of building a career in China tech; (06:34) Scaling a global AI company; (08:37) Scaling in Southeast Asia vs rest of the world; (09:39) Driving the AI conversation and building strate...

Rinaldi Utama is the CEO and co-founder of Se'Indonesia, launched with a mission to redefine Indonesia’s quick-service restaurant landscape focusing on high-quality smoked beef rice bowls. He was previously CEO and co-founder of Lakuliner, a house of indonesian-fusion culinary brands. Before that he was part of the legal team at Kopi Kenangan. Follow Rinaldi on LinkedIn Timestamps (00:36) Intr...

Watch Part 1 Thothathri Srinivasan (who goes by "Tho") is the Head of AI and Engineering at Flip, one of Indonesia's largest consumer fintech companies. With over a decade of experience in Silicon Valley, Tho has built products and systems at some of the world's most recognizable tech companies including Groupon, Netflix, and Pinterest. Originally from Bangalore, India, Tho began...

Thothathri Srinivasan (who goes by "Tho") is the Head of AI and Engineering at Flip , one of Indonesia's largest consumer fintech companies. With over a decade of experience in Silicon Valley, Tho has built products and systems at some of the world's most recognizable tech companies including Groupon, Netflix, and Pinterest. Originally from Bangalore, India, Tho began his career...