Around the Coin

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Matt Oppenheimer, Co-founder, and CEO of Remitly. He co-founded Remitly in 2011 and in addition to being CEO, he is also a member of the board of directors. Prior to co-founding Remitly, Matt worked for Barclays plc, a multinational bank, and financial services company, from August 2009 to May 2011. He has served on the board of directors of BECU since 2018. Matt was named EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2016 in the Pacific Northwest and has been recognized as a Puget Sound Business Journal “40 Under 40” honoree for his work with Remitly. He holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in Psychology from Dartmouth College.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Ioannis Giannaros, CEO and Co-Founder of Wyre. Ioannis has been involved in the management and growth of Wyre since founding the company in 2013. He has led the company through multiple fundraising rounds and has overseen all accounting, foreign exchange operations, risk management, banking, and compliance operations at Wyre since early 2013. Ioannis has created long-lasting banking and currency exchange relationships which have allowed the company to grow to one of the largest blockchain infrastructure companies in the market.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Abdul Akel, CEO and Co-founder of T-CETRA, a leading financial technology enabler that converts cash payments into secure, auditable, cashless transactions at over 10,000 retail locations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico that primarily serve cash preferred customers. Its payment solutions bridge the digital divide for these underserved communities and are used by Fortune 500 companies within various sectors, connecting them to the 84.8 million un/derbanked individuals in the U.S.  T-CETRA’s expansion into new verticals is reshaping the prepaid payment ecosystem.   Akel conceptualized VIDAPAY, T-CETRA’s proprietary cloud-based payment portal, that enables these retailers to increase sales, mitigate risk, and manage customer accounts in real-time within a safe, secure payment transaction framework.  Akel is a proven, experienced industry disruptor, entrepreneur, and growth-oriented CEO. He was recently inducted into Columbus Business First’s Class of 2020 “40 Under 40” as well as Columbus CEO's "Future 50."   Additionally in 2020, Akel co-launched the T-CETRA Foundation which addresses the needs of the underserved from a charitable point of view.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend speaks with Brian Bondy, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Brave Software. Prior to Brave, Brian worked at Khan Academy where he focused on developing the interactive learning environment for the programming section. Previously, he worked at Mozilla on the Firefox browser. Before joining Mozilla, Brian co-founded two companies in the backup software space: Robobak and VisionWorks Solutions. He holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science with Honors from the Faculty of Mathematics at Waterloo University.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Mike Townsend sits down with Sir John Hargrave, CEO of the media and communication company Media Shower. His company publishes the blockchain investor website, Bitcoin Market Journal which reaches 100,000 blockchain investors monthly. He is the author of the bestselling investing book Blockchain for Everyone (Simon & Schuster, 2019), as well as Blockchain Success Stories (O’Reilly, 2020), which has been called “The Bible of Business Blockchain".Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 offer Buy Now, Pay Later for their members. Shoppers have instant access to the cash needed to afford the purchases they want, all without disconnecting from their bank. Bryce has extensive experience in banking and payments and a passion for entrepreneurship. Prior to founding equipifi, Bryce was the Vice President of Payments for Alaska USA FCU, a $10B+ financial institution with more than 700,000 members. Previously, Bryce was Vice President of Payments for APS Payments, now REPAY. He lives in Scottsdale, AZ.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 range of leadership and product management roles prior to returning to Minnesota from the Bay Area to join Branch. He most recently served as one of the earliest Product Managers and a VP of Product at Marqeta, where he helped build the modern card issuance platform from the ground up without using any legacy technologies. In addition to building the next wave of fintech startups, Siddiqui is the author of the best-selling book, The Anatomy of the Swipe: Making Money Move, which has been adopted by a number of technology companies, institutions, and universities to help the next generation of fintech leaders better understand payments. He has spoken at a number of universities and conferences, including the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business, University California, Berkeley Haas School of Business, University of Georgia Law School, and Money2020.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 working at Google, Ivan spent his time sourcing through people’s problems on GitHub lending his invaluable expertise to strangers who need his help. In fact, sometimes he even admits to dreaming in code. He strives to make life easier for people, be it a niche time-saving script or an exciting new product that millions will love, and believes that there are endless possibilities for improving this world. Ivan received a B.A. from UC Berkeley and Computer Science and received his MBA from the Quantic School of Business and Technology.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 firsthand how difficult and time-consuming financial modeling can be, and built Finmark, so that anyone, not just finance pros, can easily make and update a financial model without having to spend weeks laboring over complicated spreadsheets.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Europe. Coming from a legal background, Arnab has a passion for the intersection of law and tech and has led and contributed to blockchain policy discussions as a member of INATBA, an association focused on advising lawmakers and regulators with regards to their blockchain strategies.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices