FinTech Focus TV – Powered by Harrington Starr

Is replacing employees with AI the smartest way to transform a business, or are companies overlooking the value of their existing workforce?

In this episode of FinTech Focus TV, Toby Babb, CEO of Harrington Starr, is joined by Krishna Nadella, Head of US Financial Services at ITRS, to discuss AI replacing jobs, agentic AI in financial services and the future of work in FinTech.

Drawing on his experience at SigTech, Krishna explains how the company went from approximately 60 employees to just 12 during its transition towards AI, with AI agents supporting the remaining workforce. Reflecting on this experience, he considers how businesses can balance automation with human expertise and whether retaining more employees alongside AI could create greater opportunities for growth.

As artificial intelligence transforms financial services, organisations are rethinking their workforce strategies, recruitment priorities and approaches to productivity. Krishna explores the difference between using AI primarily to reduce costs and investing in technology that empowers employees, accelerates innovation and supports long-term business growth.

The conversation also examines the distinction between AI spectators and operators, highlighting why critical thinking, creativity and adaptability are becoming increasingly important for FinTech professionals. From graduate employment to evolving skills requirements, Krishna and Toby discuss how AI is influencing financial services careers and the future of work.

Krishna shares how ITRS is applying agentic AI to financial technology monitoring and observability, including the development of AI-powered site reliability engineering capabilities to support operational efficiency in complex financial services environments.

Will AI replace more jobs, or will the companies that empower their employees with AI gain the greatest advantage?

FinTech Focus TV is powered by Harrington Starr, global leaders in Financial Tech Recruitment. For more episodes or FinTech recruitment advice, please visit our website: www.harringtonstarr.com

In this episode of FinTech Focus TV, host Toby Babb is joined by Jinesh Vohra, CEO and Founder of Sprive, to explore the realities of building a fast-growing FinTech, challenging the traditional mortgage industry and turning an ambitious idea into a business attracting significant investment.

After spending 14 years at Goldman Sachs, Jinesh took the leap into entrepreneurship with a mission to help homeowners pay off their mortgages faster and save thousands in interest. But building Sprive came with its challenges, including four years without taking a salary, navigating investor rejections and finding the right strategy to accelerate growth.

Jinesh shares the story behind Sprive's appearance on Dragons' Den, its £10 million Series A funding round and how the company is using everyday spending to help people reduce their mortgage debt.

The conversation also explores the future of FinTech entrepreneurship, the opportunities AI is creating for the next generation of founders, and why Jinesh believes there has never been a better time to start a business.

FinTech Focus TV is powered by Harrington Starr, global leaders in Financial Tech Recruitment. For more episodes or FinTech recruitment advice, please visit our website: www.harringtonstarr.com

In this episode of FinTech Focus TV, Toby Babb is joined by Aditya Jha, CEO of Itoflow, to explore how AI is making quantitative capabilities more accessible and changing where the real edge in trading comes from.

They discuss why better code may no longer be the differentiator it once was, how AI can remove much of the repetitive work behind quantitative research, and what happens when more people gain access to technology previously concentrated within the world’s leading hedge funds and financial institutions.

Aditya also shares why finance’s traditional culture of secrecy and slow adoption could struggle in an AI-native world, the importance of security, governance and traceability when using AI in investment processes, and why some of the best technology talent is increasingly attracted to faster-moving, AI-native businesses.

If the technology becomes accessible to everyone, where does the real advantage come from?

FinTech Focus TV is powered by Harrington Starr, global leaders in Financial Tech Recruitment. For more episodes or FinTech recruitment advice, please visit our website: www.harringtonstarr.com

In the latest episode of FinTech Focus TV, Toby Babb is joined by Bert van der Zwan, CEO of Bizzdesign, to explore what the next generation of enterprise technology could look like.

Bert shares why he believes we could be approaching the end of SaaS as we know it, as AI makes increasingly tailored and personalised software possible. But with that opportunity comes a new challenge, how do businesses embrace rapid innovation without creating the next generation of complex, unmanageable technology?

They explore the growing role of AI agents, the risks of AI and vibe coding within large enterprises, and why AI should remain a tool rather than become the objective itself.

The conversation also looks at the future of enterprise architecture, with Bert predicting a convergence between enterprise architecture, application portfolio management, business process management and governance, risk and compliance.

And through it all, one principle remains central,  the future should be human-led and AI-executed, with people continuing to validate and shape the decisions technology helps us make.

FinTech Focus TV is powered by Harrington Starr, global leaders in Financial Tech Recruitment. For more episodes or FinTech recruitment advice, please visit our website: www.harringtonstarr.com

In this episode of FinTech Focus TV, Toby Babb is joined by Scott Govoni, Regional Director - Americas at FIX Trading Community, ahead of the Americas Trading Conference in New York.

Scott shares what to expect from this year’s event and why engagement across the FIX Trading Community is growing. They look at some of the biggest themes on the agenda, including 24-hour trading, tokenisation and digital assets, prediction markets, ETFs, AI and the future of market connectivity.

They also discuss the importance of collaboration across capital markets, the growing FIX community across the Americas, and why bringing together the buy side, sell side, vendors and exchanges is so important as electronic trading continues to evolve.

With the industry moving from asking whether developments such as tokenisation will happen to considering how they will actually be supported, this conversation offers a look at the discussions helping to shape the future of trading.

FinTech Focus TV is powered by Harrington Starr, global leaders in Financial Tech Recruitment. For more episodes or FinTech recruitment advice, please visit our website: www.harringtonstarr.com

In this episode of FinTech Focus TV, Toby Babb is joined by Manuel Grenacher, CEO of Unique AI, to explore the shift from AI assistants to AI teammates and what this could mean for the future of financial services.

Manuel shares why he believes the real opportunity lies in building specialised AI agents that can take on meaningful work, rather than simply helping people complete individual tasks.

They discuss how AI is already changing wealth management, why successful adoption depends on quality and industry expertise, and the importance of moving AI projects beyond experimentation and into production.

The conversation also looks at the impact on people. Rather than simply replacing roles, Manuel discusses how AI could change where businesses invest their talent, reduce the burden of administrative work and allow relationship managers to spend more time with clients.

From AI workforces and forward deployed engineers to productivity, growth and the future of banking, this episode explores what happens when AI becomes more than just a tool.

FinTech Focus TV is powered by Harrington Starr, global leaders in Financial Tech Recruitment. For more episodes or FinTech recruitment advice, please visit our website: www.harringtonstarr.com

In this episode of FinTech Focus TV, Toby Babb is joined by Steve Grob, Founder at Vision57, to explore how technology platforms age and why the ability to repair, modernise and adapt could be more important than the technical debt itself.

Using the ageing process as a lens for understanding capital markets technology, Steve explores how complexity compounds over time and why short-term fixes can make it increasingly difficult for established platforms to keep pace with a rapidly changing market.

FinTech Focus TV is powered by Harrington Starr, global leaders in Financial Tech Recruitment. For more episodes or FinTech recruitment advice, please visit our website: www.harringtonstarr.com

In this episode of FinTech Focus TV, Toby Babb is joined by Sumit Kumar, Founder and CEO at Sosuv, to explore how AI and automation are transforming FIX connectivity and some of the traditionally manual processes behind financial markets.

Sumit shares why slow FIX certification and onboarding isn’t simply a technology challenge, but a revenue problem, and explains how smarter automation can help firms accelerate processes, improve efficiency and unlock value faster.

They also discuss the future of FIX, the untapped potential of trading data, why AI should only be used where it adds genuine value, and the importance of human oversight in financial technology.

Plus, Sumit shares his approach to building and retaining high-performing technology teams, and why challenge, learning and growth are essential for attracting the best talen

FinTech Focus TV is powered by Harrington Starr, global leaders in Financial Tech Recruitment. For more episodes or FinTech recruitment advice, please visit our website: www.harringtonstarr.com

On this episode of FinTech Focus TV, Toby Babb is joined by Espen Skogen, CEO of RocketFin, to explore why successful digital transformation starts with people.

They discuss AI’s impact on technology teams, the importance of human judgement, why junior talent still matters, the problems hidden behind legacy technology and how smaller, highly skilled teams can achieve more.

From rethinking broken workflows to doing more with less through AI, this conversation asks whether financial services needs to stop focusing on the technology and start looking at the people behind it.

FinTech Focus TV is powered by Harrington Starr, global leaders in Financial Tech Recruitment. For more episodes or FinTech recruitment advice, please visit our website: www.harringtonstarr.com

What does modern investment management technology really look like?

In this episode of FinTech Focus TV, Toby Babb is joined by Mark Veveers and Frank Glock from MAIA Technology to explore how the technology underpinning investment management is evolving.

From the limitations of legacy systems to the rise of cloud-native, API-led and composable infrastructure, they discuss why firms are rethinking their technology strategies to become more flexible, scalable and efficient.

The conversation also explores operational alpha, the growing importance of data, AI beyond the hype, and why the future may not be about AI replacing people — but people using AI outperforming those who don’t.

They also share the story behind MAIA Technology, its approach to client success and what comes next as the business continues to grow.

FinTech Focus TV is powered by Harrington Starr, global leaders in Financial Tech Recruitment. For more episodes or FinTech recruitment advice, please visit our website: www.harringtonstarr.com