Austin Tech Connect: The Podcast For The Austin Technology Ecosystem, Business Leaders, and Tech Entrepreneurs!

Justin Fischer has over 20 years of financial technology experience, with a heavy focus on community financial institutions and user experience. Before RiskScout, Justin was the founder and principal consultant of Launchy Consulting, which provided MSB and scale consulting to start-ups and financial institutions around the country. Launchy also worked with VC and PE groups for buy-side reviews of emerging technology companies.

Previous to Launchy, Justin served as the CEO and CPO for Student Loan Genius (SLG), a Prudential Financial-backed company with clients such as Voya, John Hancock, and New York Life. Prior to SLG, he served in various executive roles with Q2ebanking, including Senior Vice President of Operations, in the approach to their hugely successful IPO in 2014. Before Q2, Justin worked in the enterprise banking and international payments company S1, where he led senior development teams providing FinTech solutions for large financial institutions and payments processing. Justin was also the co-founder and CTO of CoreTrac, Inc., who developed some of the first CFI CRM and marketing solution software, and was later acquired by Aptean

About RiskScout

After decades of developing enterprise software for financial institutions, pioneering cloud banking and infrastructure, and writing regulatory compliance as part of the FFIEC, our team of experts came together to solve a big problem for financial institutions (FI) compliance.

Traditional FI tools are too broad in scope to effectively address the increasingly interrelated risk environment that FIs are forced to manage. Currently available tools tend to stop at basic scoring and evaluation, forcing FI staff to perform duplicative time intensive work when qualified staff are more difficult to find than ever. Think: the TSA line at the airport on a good day. RiskScout is a modern compliance system that automates the onboarding, business verification, and ongoing compliance required to handle all higher risk businesses and entities. RiskScout is the Clear terminal at the TSA line - not less compliance, just done in a better way!

How can someone thrive as an entrepreneur with their startup, not only once, but many times over? CEO of Austin Technology Council, Thom Singer sits down with the Founder & CEO of Gembah Henrik Johansson and discuss his entrepreneurial journry here in Austin, TX. \

Henrik Johansson is a serial entrepreneur who co-founded and built the product company Boundless into a $100M company. Currently he is the co-founder and CEO of Gembah, a product development platform and marketplace, and the Executive Producer of Final Product, a reality TV show incubated at Gembah. He was previously a co-founder and board member of OutboundEngine, and before that the president of EverydayWealth, and co-founder and president of Creditland.

Johansson specializes in technology-enabled services, marketplaces, and software as a service. He is an expert on scaling startups, building world-class teams, culture, and scalable processes and infrastructure and has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Austin Business Journal, and was named Counselor's 2017 Person of the Year.

Gembah- The 1st Marketplace for Product Development

Gembah is a product development marketplace specializing in bringing new products to market through all stages of development. Gembah connects creators with its global network of designers, engineers, and supply chain specialists and oversees production at factories in China, Southeast Asia, Mexico, and South America. Founded on the belief that humans are natural inventors, the company's goal is to empower creators and make product development accessible to anyone. Gembah was established in 2018 in Austin, TX and has been featured in Forbes and Entrepreneur. To learn more, visit Gembah.com, or find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube.

AI is a major focul point in the world right now. Austin Technology Council CEO, Thom Singer sits down with the Founder of Macami.ai and discusses the quickly changing world of AI and how it's impacting the Tech world, specifically in Austin.

Carlos Martin is the CEO of macami.ai, a company focused in bringing efficiency to the enterprise by leveraging Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and AI. Formerly Director of Strategic Alliances for Brazil for the company Blue Prism, which pioneered the RPA market, and where he worked for 5+ years. Carlos has a degree in Computer Science and a Master's in Technology Commercialization from UT Austin. He has more than 20 years in IT with a solid experience in technology, systems, problem solving, research and business strategy.

Carlos is the author of the upcoming book "The Efficient Enterprise", which will discuss topics on how to leverage these technologies for bring exponential benefits to business.

Carlos' company macami.ai is an AI consultancy headquartered in Cedar Park, Texas that demystifies the use of artificial intelligence and robotic process automation to make businesses more efficient and allow them to scale effectively. The founders have trained and mentored the top consulting firms on best case use of AI and practices of automation. macami.ai analyzes companies' financials and the cost of business processes with a top down approach to recommend and execute simple financial and software methodologies that incorporate AI and RPA technology. The company will also be providing free trainings online and within local communities on spotting financial scams.

As co-founder and CEO of BP3, it's my job to help our clients find a faster way. Our clients want a specific business outcome, and they want it in the fastest way possible, and that's what BP3 is here to deliver. We deliver those outcomes because we bring a more focus, more foresight, and more followup approach to every single client engagement. We leverage our experience in Process, Design, Robotics (RPA), AI, Machine Learning, Decision Automation, and Software Engineering to deliver Intelligent Automation Solutions for our clients. Prior to BP3, I was Chief Architect and Director of Technical Services and the Lombardi On Demand Assistance program at Lombardi Software, which was an early and innovative entrant in the Business Process Management (BPM) software space, later acquired by IBM in 2010, and becoming the cornerstone of IBM's offering in that space. Prior to Lombardi, I started Westslope Software, LLC to manage my independent software consulting efforts. Prior to Westslope Software, I worked 7 years with Trilogy in several different senior technical, management, and leadership roles - from Development to Consulting to Technical Sales.

This week Austin Technology Council's CEO sits down with the founder & CEO of data.world Brett Hurt and they discuss what startups need to grow, how the pandemic has impacted business, and so much more.

Brett Hurt is the CEO and co-founder of data.world, an Austin-based Certified B Corporation and public benefit corporation. data.world makes it easy for everyone—not just the "data people"—to get clear, accurate, fast answers to any business question. data.world's cloud-native data catalog maps its customers siloed, distributed data to familiar and consistent business concepts, creating a unified body of knowledge anyone can find, understand, and use. data.world is also home to the world's largest collaborative open data community, including public COVID-19 datasets. In 2017, 2018, and 2019, data.world was honored on the "Best for the World" list by B Lab that recognizes the top 10% of all B Corps globally. And in 2020, data.world was named by the Austin Business Journal as one of the top-three companies to work for. Brett is also the co-owner of Hurt Family Investments (HFI), alongside his wife, Debra. HFI are involved in 115 startups, 31 VC funds, and multiple philanthropic endeavors. Brett co-founded and led Bazaarvoice as CEO, through its IPO, follow-on offering, and two acquisitions. Bazaarvoice became the largest public SaaS (Software as a Service) business in social commerce and was named by the WSJ as one of the top IPOs of 2012. Brett also founded and led Coremetrics, which was rated the #1 Web analytics solution by Forrester Research and, like Bazaarvoice, expanded into a global company and leader. Coremetrics was acquired by IBM in 2010 for around $300m. In 2017, Brett was given the Best CEO Legacy Award by the Austin Business Journal. He is a Henry Crown Fellow and Braddock Scholar at the Aspen Institute. Brett began programming at age seven and doing so on the Internet at age eighteen. He finished his book, "The Entrepreneur's Essentials", in August 2019 (available at databrett.medium.com for free).

The future of technology and the future of Austin are entangled. In this episode we hear from Whurley (Will Hurley), the founder and CEO of Strangeworks. He is a leader in the quantum computing field and serial entrepreneur. Hear his take on quantum computing's role in the future, and his predictions and advice for the Austin.

About Whurley:

whurley is founder and CEO of Strangeworks, a quantum computing startup that makes the power of quantum computing easily accessible and available to all. He is an Eisenhower Fellow, Innovator in Residence for the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at the Sloan School of Management at MIT, A Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Chairman of the Quantum Computing Standards Workgroup at the IEEE, the first Ambassador to CERN and Society, a regular contributor to TechCrunch on the topic of Quantum Computing, and the co-author of "Quantum Computing For Babies". Prior to starting Strangeworks he was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs [NYSE: GS]. He came to Goldman Sachs via the acquisition of his second startup, Honest Dollar. Prior to Honest Dollar whurley founded Chaotic Moon Studios which was acquired by Accenture [NYSE: ACN].

This week, we sit-down with the CEO of Ticketbud Kayhan Ahmadi

Ticketbud was built on the idea that anyone, anywhere in the world wanting to organize an event should have the tools to do easily. We promote this idea everyday through the dedication of a team based out of Austin, Texas.

We make the focus of our efforts the event organizers, who work hard to ensure that their attendees have a great experience. We share their passion for bringing people together to create memories and enrich lives.

On this episode of Austin Tech Connect we talk to Linda Ginac, CEO and Founder of TalentGuard. Linda has been active in the Austin Technology Community for thirty years, and believes that growing connections and community are the key for all business leaders (of both home grown companies and those who have relocated to Austin). Hear her story of success and her advice on how to be more engaged in the local community.

About TalentGuard:

TalentGuard's Workforce Skills Management solution brings together data, software, and ecosystem to unlock complete visibility of skills, intelligent data insights to make informed decisions and help companies develop the highest potential in their workforce.

About Linda Ginac:

Linda is the Founder and CEO of TalentGuard. Before TalentGuard, she founded a successful career development franchise, The Ginac Group, serving clients across the U.S. and Canada since 1999. Prior to this, Linda was Vice President of Product Strategy at Cofiniti, where she was instrumental in pioneering Cofiniti's global entry into collaborative financial planning using cloud-based technology and helping to prepare the company for a successful exit. Linda also served as marketing executive at pcOrder collaborating with the team that led the company from an start-up to a NASDAQ-listed public corporation. In prior leadership roles, Linda served as Vice President of Marketing at EPSIAA, where she led global expansion of the brand through acquisition by Fiserv, Vice President of Business Development at Computer People and numerous leadership roles at Digital Equipment Corporation. Linda sits on the Board of the Austin Technology Council and several other community organizations. Linda holds a Master's Degree in Career Development from John F. Kennedy University, and a Bachelor's Degree in Liberal Arts from Norwich University.

On the first episode of the Austin Tech Connect, our host and CEO Thom Singer sits down with the Presidnet of NetSpend, one of the most successful FinTech companies in Austin.

Kelley Knutson serves as the president of Netspend. Previously, Knutson served as Executive Vice President of TSYS and President of International Issuer Solutions, based in London since 2003. He was responsible for TSYS' strategic execution, global sales, business development, relationship management, local product partnerships and new growth initiatives outside North America (United States, Canada, Mexico and Central America). Prior to TSYS, Knutson served as CEO and acting chairman of Clear Money Ltd. (Clear), a provider of Electronic Bill Management Services to UK billers and financial institutions; SVP of GE Capital's Global Consumer Finance (GCF) cards business, where he was responsible for developing and executing GCF's cards strategy and driving card-based consumer finance initiatives in more than 15 markets around the world. Prior to GE Capital, he was SVP at Visa International, where he was responsible for developing/marketing Visa's debit products and introducing e-commerce solutions (security, chip and remote banking) throughout Europe.

This podcast is hosted by the CEO of the Austin Technology Council. It sits down with leaders in Austin, Texas who are pushing technology forward.