Welcome to another episode of Blockchain Chatter! Dexter Cousins is joined by David Engel, Head of Business Development for Starkware, a Layer 2 scaling solution that helps companies build on top of Ethereum while reducing the cost of doing so by up to 1000x.

About David Engel

David is a business development executive, with deep experience in accelerating the growth of Web3 and Fintech companies.

Prior to StarkWare, David was a Fintech BDM at AWS, in both the ANZ and EMEA markets from 2019-2022.

David has also been a Commercial Director for the Australian and New Zealand markets for Verrency, a fintech platform that allows card issuers to innovate faster, and at scale, as well as Australian Country Manager for i2c, a Silicon Valley-based cloud payments processor.

Twitter: @davidengel79

About Starkware
StarkWare is paving the way to a Web3 future, using uncheatable cryptographic technology to scale blockchain for mass adoption.

StarkEx, StarkWare’s SaaS-based scaling service, has settled over $770B, processed over 294M transactions, minted more than 90M NFTs, and serves hundreds of thousands of users monthly through customers like ImmutableX, dYdX and Sorare.

StarkNet, a permissionless, general-purpose scaling solution, is live (Alpha) on Ethereum Mainnet. Developers from across the world are using it to build tomorrow’s decentralized applications.

Starkware: https://starkware.co/
Starkex: https://starkware.co/starkex/
Starknet: https://starkware.co/starknet/

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In episode 129 Dexter Cousins is joined by Stevie-Ann Dovico of NAB and Simon Terry of Hicaps for a special Live recording of the Fintech Chatter Podcast.

The show was recorded in front of 200 plus NAB employees for their Outside In conference.

In this special edition, Dexter chats to Stevie-Ann and Simon about how Fintech's and large Banks can collaborate and work in tandem.

About Stevie-Ann Dovico

Stevie-Ann Dovico  2022 Executive Leader of the Year - Women in Digital has over 15 years of experience in Banking & Financial Services.  She is a dynamic senior leader of a global team who builds and run the NAB enterprise digital channels including: NAB Mobile, Internet Banking, NAB Connect, NAB Connect Mobile, Digital Customer Establishment

Stevie-Ann has led innovation, transformation, technology, risk & compliance advisory, and product design & distribution teams across multiple channels. She is highly skilled at solving tough, strategic problems and relentlessly driving execution.

About Simon Terry

Simon Terry is a Board-level growth leader in the health and education industry. He is experienced in high growth, start-up, and mature businesses, managing business strategy,  transformation, and end-to-end operations from customer-facing to operations to technology teams. 

He has a proven track record of leading highly engaged teams to deliver business growth & innovation, particularly in customer experience and digital business opportunities. 

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Welcome to Blockchain Chatter, our new show where Blockchain leaders join Dexter Cousins for a chat. 

To kick off the show we couldn’t think of a better person who embodies the spirit of what this show is about 

Today’s guest is Chloe White the CEO of Genesis Block.

Chloe is Blockchain Leader of the year and has worked directly on blockchain policy since April 2018. Chloe joins us to talk about the current state of the industry following last week's collapse of FTX.

Can the industry regroup or does this spell the end. What lessons can we draw from the GFC and where might there be new opportunities in the future? What role do regulators play now and how do we educate the public and regulators on the nuance of our industry.

Find out more about Genesis Block - https://genesisblock.com.au/

It seems a little crazy to start a blockchain podcast the week after the FTX collapse! 

So why have we done it? 

It has never been more important to provide a platform for the builders in this space. 
Too much attention and focus has been given to crypto influencers and noise makers. 

Blockchain Chatter aims to cut through the noise and give the industry's outstanding leaders the opportunity to talk about their businesses,  the big problem they solve and how Blockchain and emerging technology can become the operating system of a fairer, safer, and more efficient world.

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Chloe White from Genesis Block joins Dexter Cousins for this special Blockchain News recorded live at the Singapore Fintech Festival.

It has been an epic 3 days, 50,000 plus people, an amazing line up of speakers and lots of focus on blockchain - one of the highlights for Chloe was joining a panel of experts on Blockchain.

Dexter and Chloe discuss - 

JP Morgan and DBS making a Defi transaction via Polygon Network

Brian Armstrong of Coinbase and Sopnendu Mohanty in a sometimes heated debate between regulator and innovator

Vitalek Buterin and his thoughts on what's next for Ethereum after the merge and Twitter

Is blockchain having it's mainstream moment?

And could Asia be the epicentre of adoption of digital assets, crypto and payments infrastructure on blockchain?

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Welcome to episode 128 of Fintech Chatter, the show where Fintech leaders join Dexter Cousins for a chat. Today’s guest is Chris Brycki the Founder and CEO of Stockspot.

Chris started Stockspot so that Australians could invest better with affordable smart tech and good advice.  We've watched this vision come to life as a user of Stockspot.

Chris shares insights from The latest Stockspot Fat Cat Funds Report which exposes the excess fees in super and provides more transparency on fund performance.

And as one of Australia’s first wave of Fintech founders, Dexter chats with Chris about his journey of building a bootstrapped business and how remaining lean is paying dividends as we enter a downturn.

Download the Fat Cat report - https://www.stockspot.com.au/fatcat/

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This week we have a Fintech News with a difference. Toby Norton-Smith of X15 Ventures and Jaco Veldsman of Paytron join Dexter to chat about the latest Xccelerate22 Program by X15 (the ventures arm of Commonwealth Bank.)

Paytron is the winner of the most recent program focussed on payments. Jaco shares his experience of Xccelerate, the benefits of access to top executives in the bank, and the types of Fintech startups that are best suited.

Toby gives a candid and down-to-earth representation of the challenges associated with working with major banks on innovation agendas. 

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Since launching the podcast in 2019 we have recorded interviews with more than 200 Fintech leaders.

There are over 200 hours of content on the podcast, so if you are new to the show make sure to follow and check out our previous episodes. If you’re coming back thanks for your support.

We are all busy and 200 episodes is a lot to digest so we’ve decided to pick out some of the very best bits to share in 5-minute listens.

Here’s Anthony Thomson on the real challenge facing banks - Trust.

This episode was recorded in July 2020 when Anthony was chair of 86 400. Anthony has just joined the board of Humm Group and you can check out an interview with Rebecca James the CEO of Humm - https://tieronepeople.com/2022/10/14/rebecca-james-humm-group/


You can listen to the full interview with Anthony Thomson https://tieronepeople.com/2020/07/13/anthony-thomson-chairman-86-400/

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In episode 127 of Fintech Chatter, Dexter Cousins is joined by Rebecca James CEO of ASX-listed Humm Group.

Rebecca has transformed Humm-Group from a traditional financial services business to a Fintech with an emphasis on FIN

Dexter chats to Rebecca about the Humm Group strategy moving forwards including the new board appointments such as a friend of the show, ex-86 400 Chairman, Anthony Thomson.

As we enter a new economic environment, Rebecca shares her thoughts on the new opportunities presented to lending businesses.

Rebecca also shares her journey as an ASX-listed CEO and her tips on leadership and business transformation.

For more information go to - https://www.shophumm.com/humm-group/
For Humm Careers - https://www.shophumm.com/humm-group/careers/

Connect with Rebecca James - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-james-9388474/

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Raising capital has become difficult but not impossible. Mark Nagy from Datamesh shares some fantastic advice on how to get investors comfortable when raising capital during a downturn.

I particularly love Mark's advice because it reflects the exact advice we give clients on hiring leadership talent for scaleups.

You can listen to the full podcast interview with Mark https://tieronepeople.com/2022/09/16/datamesh-mark-nagy/

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Dexter Cousins is joined by Dean Morrison, Chief Strategy Officer of Shaype.

Last week Shaype announced a $33m Series C round. Regal Funds Management is back as the lead investor after cutting a cheque in Shaype’s $17 million Series B in July 2021 - back when the start-up was known as “Hay as a Service”.

Dexter chats to Dean about what the raise means for Shaype and their growth strategy over the next 12 months.

They also talk about Embedded Finance and ask the question has it really made the impact we thought it would?

And Dean shares the back story to Shaype and how the business always intended to evolve from a neo-bank offering.

How you can support Fintech Chatter.

Follow on your podcast player and leave a five-star review

Apple: Scroll to the bottom of the page (iphone or ipad only), hit 5 stars and write a review - https://apple.co/3D7NsPt

Spotify:  in the app click 5 stars - https://spoti.fi/3IzSViQ

Subscribe and like on Youtube - https://bit.ly/3tBlRmE

Thanks for your support.

About Tier One People

Founded by Dexter Cousins in 2016, Tier One People is on a mission to help Australia become the world leader in Fintech innovation.

Connect on Linkedin - https://bit.ly/3DsCJBp

Tier One People helps companies like Revolut, TrueLayer and 10x build founding teams for launch in Australia.

And series A+ / ASX Listed Aussie Fintech like Lendi, Afterpay and 86 400 hire executive talent capable of delivering growth and scale.

If you are building a world-class Fintech venture and need help in hiring tier-one people contact us - https://bit.ly/3Dc1p0B

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