Fintech Leaders

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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

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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.

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

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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!

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

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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!

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

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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

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Miguel Armaza interviews Shensi Ding, Co-Founder of Merge, an integrations infrastructure platform that has quickly grown from serving early-stage startups to powering integration layers for some of the largest financial services companies in the world including Revolut, Airwallex, Ramp, Brex and many more. They have raised a total of $75 million from great investors including NEA, Addition, and Accel.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Building credibility with engineers and product teams
• Unique advantages of being a first-time founder. Plus some hard lessons learned.
• How customer obsession and early security investments shaped company strategy
• Why fundraising is a game with rules first-time founders need to learn... 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

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[Original air date, February 6, 2024]  Miguel Armaza sits down with David Magerman, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Differential Ventures, an early-stage fund that invests in data-focused entrepreneurs building enterprise technology.

In a past life, he spent 22 years in leadership roles at Renaissance Technologies (RenTech), a legendary hedge fund with over $100 billion in AUM and probably the most successful fund in history.

David is also a contrarian thinker and a non-conformist, which made our conversation even more interesting.

We discuss:

• How David and a small group of engineers helped introduce quantitative data science to trading and public capital markets investing
• Why he is highly skeptical of the new wave of GenAI
• A very convincing argument to introduce friction in online communication processes to restore balance and reduce its negative effects on society… 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 70,000+ 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

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Miguel Armaza interviews Ryan Graciano, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Credit Karma, one of the most successful fintech companies serving over 130 million customers. Credit Karma was bought by Intuit for $7.1bn in 2020, marking one of fintech’s largest acquisitions ever. Ryan began his journey as CTO after a brief stint at IBM and helped build Credit Karma from the ground up since 2007.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Key technical decisions that shaped Credit Karma's success
• Ryan's vision for the future of AI in personal finance
• Lessons from raising capital and building the company during the global financial crisis
• How to create excitement and drive organizational transformation... 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 70,000+ 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

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Miguel Armaza welcomes back Jackie Reses, CEO and Co-Founder of Lead Bank, a pioneering bank reimagining modern financial infrastructure and fintech partnerships. Jackie previously held leadership roles at Square and Yahoo, and served on the board of Alibaba, working alongside visionaries like Jack Dorsey and Jack Ma.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Lead Bank achieved instant product-market fit before even acquiring their bank charter
• Why banking regulation needs a "first principles" rethinking approach and why the CFPB may need significant reform
• The evolution of AI in financial services and why regulators are becoming more open to algorithmic innovation
• Invaluable leadership lessons from working with Masayoshi Son, Jack Ma, and Jack Dorsey... 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.

Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~70,000+ 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