In celebration of Black History Month, we chat with Bosun Adebaki, Business Operations at Plaid. He is an action-oriented and analytical problem solver passionate about using FinTech to make financial systems more accessible to everyone. His extensive background in strategy, finance, and operations has helped businesses across Europe, North America, and LatAm scale and succeed.

Bosun was born and raised in a part of London called Hackney, which is known for vibrancy and diversity. He got a Business Management degree at the University of Nottingham and went to the US to get this MBA.

His interest and passion for FinTech stemmed from a personal family experience. He aims to use tools like alternative data, web 3.0 technologies, and mobile experiences to make financial tasks simpler and more accessible for end-users.

In this episode, Bosun shares his career experiences and the responsibilities of someone working in Business Operations (BizOps). Having lived and worked in different countries, he also tells us his I-don't-know-how-to-but-I-will-find-the-solution experiences and how his plans of setting up his own startup that would help women of color in the world led him to one of the most exciting FinTech startups in the US.

Episode Quotes:

On his decision to get an MBA

“I had worked for a while at PwC. I was pretty fortunate in that I had started in London, I spent some time in Switzerland, and I spent the last few years in Mexico. I was building a team. I loved it. I really enjoyed it. It was an excellent experience. I think you also get to a point where you think, “Okay, if I look forward five or ten years, is this what I want to continue doing? Or if I were the 18-year-old version of me today with what I know now about the world, would I choose to do something different? How would I think about the world? So, that was kind of the catalyst. Let's refresh and let's start off with the version of me today, not the version of me who made the first decision [about my career] when I was 17.”

On choosing Haas

“I came, walked around the campus, and I was like, I could see myself here. And it's one of these things where there was no sophistication about the decision. [It was simply], I feel like this is where I could be for a few years. And I feel like I would be happy here versus the other places where I could have gone. And I was right. It was a really fun experience. I met, as you will know, awesome people. The fact that we're speaking is sentiment to what Haas has to offer.”

On his experience at Berkeley 

“The whole way society exists around identity, around race, around all of these topics, these are very present on campus, which was good because it made you have conversations about it. But if you are one of the affected groups who are being asked to provide way more than the experience of just the student, it changes somewhat the experience. It was slightly different at Berkeley, particularly for students of color. For example, There was a lot more of a focus from classmates on, “Bos, what do you think?” Or, “What's your view?” Which is good. I like to share my views about perspectives. Sometimes it’s also nice for a topic to be so adjacent to me that no one even wonders what my opinion is. It was an interesting introduction to US society but it was also very Berkeley, right?”

The job of someone working in BizOps

“Find problems that are preventing the company from self-actualizing and fix them by whatever means necessary. Use your toolkits, use your relationship, use your creativity, use all of the things that you have at your disposal to find the best way to solve a problem and to make everybody else better equipped to be successful in their roles.”

Show Links:

• LinkedIn Profile
• Measure What Matters: OKRs: The Simple Idea that Drives 10x Growth
• Americanah
• The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds

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