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Miguel Armaza interviews Steve Stagner, CEO of Crete, an AI-powered roll-up deploying $500+ million to modernize the accounting industry. Backed by Thrive Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and others, Crete is acquiring US accounting firms and transforming them with OpenAI-powered tools. Steve brings battle-tested insights from building Mattress Firm from a single $1,300 franchise to a $3.8 billion Fortune 500 giant.

In this episode, we discuss (1) Why "People, Process, Technology" - in that exact order - is the only formula that works for AI transformation; (2) How Crete's partner equity model differs from traditional PE roll-ups, letting firms keep their culture while accessing enterprise-grade AI tools; (3) Why firms that don't embrace AI will lose and how Crete has already seen 30-50% efficiency gains through AI-powered trial balance normalization and audit testing... and a lot more!

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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.

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[Original air date, April 9, 2024]  Miguel Armaza interviews Jack Zhang, CEO & Co-Founder of Airwallex, a global payments and treasury giant that moves $7 billion in monthly transaction volume and serves 100,000+ clients, including Brex, Rippling, and SHEIN.

Founded in Melbourne in 2015, Airwallex was last valued at $6.2 billion and has raised over a billion dollars from Sequoia, DST, Square Peg, Greenoaks, Mastercard, Tencent, Salesforce, and many more.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How investing in a coffee shop led him to co-found a global payments network
• Why Airwallex prioritizes people with great leadership skills who are also technical
• The impact of AI in financial services
• New risks of AI-powered financial fraud
• Partnering with almost 100 banks around the world… and a lot more!

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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.

Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z

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Miguel Armaza interviews Eynat Guez, CEO and Founder of Papaya Global. She has built an HR and payroll platform that has transformed how companies manage and operate global teams across 180 countries. After having faced over 1,000 rejections from VCs, Papaya has now grown to process $34 billion in payments annually and they've raised significant funding from Insight Partners, Bessemer, Greenoaks Capital, and more.

We discuss why brutal honesty and direct leadership creates stronger companies, how founders need to learn "investor language" to sell the company vision rather than the product, the operational complexity of building global from day one across 160 countries, and how being a mother of three shaped her approach to building a hypergrowth company. 

Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.

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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.

Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z

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Miguel Armaza interviews Chen Amit, CEO and Co-Founder of Tipalti, a global fintech platform processing billions in payments and serving over 4,000 mid-market companies worldwide. By focusing on the underserved mid-sized companies, Tipalti has achieved 99% gross revenue retention over 15 years and secured licenses across 50+ jurisdictions.

We discuss:

• Navigating "once-in-a-decade" disruptions that now seem to happen every six months
• Why customer intuition can override conflicting data points
• How saying "no" to your customers or partners can sometimes be the right strategic move
• Why licenses, bank integrations, and data moats matter more than ever in the AI era... and a lot more!

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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.

Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z

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Miguel Armaza sits down in NYC with Anré Williams, Senior Executive Advisor at American Express. Anré has spent over 35 years at Amex, rising from summer intern to, most recently, CEO of American Express National Bank (which represents ~60% of the company's revenues). Under his leadership, Amex transformed its banking business into a top 25 US bank by assets.

Amex is one of the oldest financial services companies in the world. The company is 150 years old and in 2024, they reported record revenues of $66 billion dollars.

We discuss:

• The Amex playbook for maintaining industry-leading low loss rates even through major economic crises
• Building the AmEx digital bank from a small operation into a powerhouse with over $100 billion in assets
• How hyper-targeted data analytics revolutionized Amex's global expansion strategy
• Lessons from pioneering fintech partnerships with disruptors like Square, insights on effective mentorship... and lots more!

Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.

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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.

Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z

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Miguel Armaza travels to Sao Paulo for an interview with Eduardo Chedid, CEO of PicPay, a Brazilian fintech giant that has quietly become one of the most important financial companies in Latin America.

With 60 million customers and handling 11% of all Pix payments transactions in Brazil, PicPay has achieved profitability while maintaining hyper-growth—posting 61% revenue growth and 7× higher profits in 2024.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How PicPay transformed from a digital wallet into a multi-product financial platform
• The power of business unit autonomy and prioritizing top talent acquisition
• Building a two-sided ecosystem that serves both consumers and businesses with separate monetization strategies
• Why Brazilian market volatility creates resilient managers and how to avoid the "incumbent trap"... and lots more!

Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.

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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.

Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z

Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc

Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp

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Miguel Armaza stops by the New York Stock Exchange to interview Yoshi Yokokawa, CEO & Co-founder of Alpaca, an API-first brokerage infrastructure company that has raised over $100 million to serve more than 200 financial institutions across 40 countries, with 5 million brokerage accounts on their platform.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Balancing data-driven decisions with entrepreneurial instinct
• Why Alpaca's self-clearing model slashes dependencies, cuts costs, and accelerates innovation
• Why API-first companies need a sandwich approach: bottom-up developer community and top-down enterprise sales
• Why Japan's economic history shaped a generation of domestic entrepreneurs while global founders like Yoshi remain the exception… and lots more!

Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.

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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.

Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z

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Miguel Armaza interviews Daniel Vogel, CEO & Co-Founder of Bitso, one of Latin America's leading cryptocurrency platforms serving over 12 million customers across Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, and Brazil. Bitso processes over 10% of the remittances flowing from the US to Mexico ($6 - $7 Billion), and is pioneering the use of stablecoins for cross-border transactions throughout Latin America.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why rate of learning is one of his core principles for company culture and personal growth
• Using transparency to drive company performance and employee engagement
• How stablecoins are transforming global payments and why Bitso is betting big on this technology
• Building personal side projects that feed a curious mind and nurture innovation... and a lot more!

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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.

Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z

Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc

Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp

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Miguel Armaza interviews Bam Azizi, Co-Founder and CEO of Mesh Connect, a fintech infrastructure company that has transformed from a consumer-focus to a fast-growing B2B platform serving hundreds of corporate clients including Revolut, and Coinbase. After raising nearly $130 million, including a Series B closed in just one month, Mesh is now focusing on serving the stablecoin ecosystem.

We discuss:

• The rollercoaster journey from B2C to B2B and the painful but necessary pivot decisions
• Why stablecoins represent a $37 trillion opportunity that's reshaping global finance
• How fragmentation across chains, wallets, and currencies creates the perfect infrastructure opportunity
• The immigrant mindset needed to survive funding cycles and build through market volatility and a lot more!

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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.

Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z

Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc

Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp

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Miguel Armaza interviews Johnny Ayers, CEO and Co-Founder of Socure, a leader in digital identity verification that has transformed the industry using machine learning and graph databases. From surviving a major risk event in 2014 to becoming a trusted partner for the largest financial institutions, consumer businesses, and government agencies, Socure now processes over 15 billion rows of data weekly and has verified more than 3 billion identities globally.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Socure rebuilt in 2014 and turned a near disaster into an advantage
• Why government fraud prevention lags 15-20 years behind the private sector, costing billions to tax payers
• Johnny's strategic approach to M&A, including their acquisition of Effectiv
• Preventing $3 billion in fraudulent disaster relief applications in just six weeks
• The future of digital identity: from biometrics to tokenized credentials and wearables... and a lot more!
  
  

Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.

Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 75,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!

Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.

Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z

Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc

Fintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp