Searching for Mana with Lloyd Wahed (Lloyd Wahed)

Sammy Rubin (Founder and CEO of YuLife) sits down with Lloyd to talk about how his company brings together life insurance, wellbeing & rewards in one simple app.

After entering the industry with his Computer Science degree from Imperial College London, he co-founded Policy Portfolio with his father from their family’s dining room table and became the youngest Director of a publicly listed company on the London Stock Exchange. He was later a founding CEO of PruProtect, the first life insurance company in the UK to reward healthy behaviour, which later became Vitality Life. Following his personal experience and passion, he is now a Founder and CEO of YuLife - the world’s first lifestyle insurance company, with personal wellbeing at its core.

In this episode, Lloyd and Sammy discuss the ways YuLife transforms traditional life insurance and employee benefits into life-enhancing experiences - including mental wellbeing, financial wellbeing and social wellbeing with a healthy dose of gamification. Later they delve into Sammy’s entrepreneurial experience in the life insurance industry since the age of 21, sharing his life changing personal experience that has transformed his values and life ever since.

 

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Episode Highlights:

02:00: Intersecting life insurance & tech & wellbeing

11:37: Mental, financial and social wellbeing

24:45: A paradigm shift in employee protection and wellbeing

28:42: The starts of Sammy’s entrepreneurial journey

36:00: YuLife as a purpose-driven company, Serendipity and Gratitude

43:15: Looking forward in life post-COVID

Sendi Young is the European Managing Director for global crypto payments leader Ripple, with  an extensive background across payments with traditional corporate powerhouses. Growing up  in Istanbul in the 1980s, Sendi’s background has helped her acclimatize to the volatility of the crypto world, becoming accustomed to cycles of economic growth and rapid declines, sparking  her curiosity and passion for macroeconomics.

From here, Sendi built out expertise across global payments with marquee names, before  immersing herself in the world of blockchain, having recognised the pain points and pitfalls of  the traditional financial system. A “crypto gal” through and through, Sendi represents a  European and Global Crypto leader, providing invaluable technical insight into the crypto and  payments ecosystems, her love of the Argentine Tango and how she has risen to prominence.

 

00:00 - 1:24 - Introduction and Sendi’s Background 

1:24 - 3:53 - Who is and how big is Ripple?

 3:53 - 7:26 - The advantages of blockchain payments 

7:26 - 9:05 - Pain points of current cross-border payments 

9:05 - 10:53 - Market opportunity for Ripple

 10:54 - 13:40 - Cruciality of Partnerships across Web3 

13:40 - 15:38 - UK as a crypto hub? 

15:38 - 17:16 - Scale of Ripple 

17:16 - 21:23 - Ripple’s Culture & Sendi’s Upbringing 

21:23 - 24:53 - Economic benefit of Web3

 24:53 - 29:04 - Moving from corporate to startup 

29:04 - 32:08 - Volatility of tokens 

32:08 - 35:14 - Diversity within crypto 

35:14 - 41:44 - Get to know Sendi 

41:44 - 42:27 - Sendi’s Mana 

Chris Eastwood, co-founder and co-CEO at Penfold, sits down with Lloyd to talk about how his digital-based pension platform for self-employed workers and SME’s. 

After entering the industry as a consultant with the Big Four, Chris leads now a UK-based fintech company that reached in 18 months 25,000 users with £25m of assets under management. The company is on a mission to give people more visibility and control over the environmental or social impact of their pension investments.

In this episode, Lloyd and Chris discuss the motivations behind his journey to revolutionise the pension landscape, the opportunities to serve the UK SMEs and self-employed sectors, and Penfold’s partnership with Starling Bank or Just Eat, reaching their 300k SMEs and 18k riders customer base. Later they delve into Chris’ journey as an entrepreneur and the experience of leading a fintech company in midst of the COVID-pandemic.

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Episodes Highlights:

01:32: Reaching 25,000 users in 18 months

06:47: Building an end-to-end backend tech platform

09:42: How can we track our old pension investments?

13:37: Balancing the sustainability goals with performance

21:18 Partnerships with Starling Bank and Just Eat

30:05: Journey from management consultant, M&A to entrepreneurship

40:01: Future plans 

44:31: Chris’ Mana

Dr. Louise Beaumont joins Lloyd for a far-reaching conversation that covers the future of open banking, the history of UK FinTech and everything happening in between.

Louise is an ideal guest to comment on it all. Since completing her PhD in just 15 months and working as a consultant for Capgemini, she’s led a versatile and varied career, making an early investment in Funding Options and advising organisations from Bottomline to TechUK and Pay.UK. Louise holds a number of prominent roles in UK FinTech, and even chairs a podcast company, Message Heard, on top of it all.

To kick off the episode, Louise walks Lloyd through her early experience and tells us why she’s never worried about making her career look good on paper. From there, the conversation dives into the ways Louise affects regulatory change, why Funding Options is such an intuitive company, how to make innovation accessible to businesses and which companies are best positioned to capitalise on open data.

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Listen to the I Can Be podcast

Check out the full roster of Message Heard shows

Check out a few of the companies Louise works with, including:

Bottomline

Funding Options

TechUK

Pay.UK

 

Episode Highlights:

02:45: The Starling vs Monzo news and why Catherine Zeta-Jones should play Anne Boden

08:51: Why Louise has never tried to make her career look good on paper

12:32: How increased diversity improved business at Capgemini

20:25: How Louise helps companies get ahead of regulatory changes

27:05: Why Louise is suspicious of innovation books

32:30: Want to understand Open Data? Think of a daisy

40:20: How the government can enable progress within the FinTech community

47:06: The secret superpower that fuels Louise’s career

In this new episode of Searching for Mana, we delve into the exciting world of insurance and cutting-edge technology. Led by our knowledgeable hosts Dan O'Riordan and Sachin Doshi, the discussion explores how the technical prowess of companies like Root is inspiring a new generation of insurance services. Louw Hopley is the CEO and co-founder of Root, an end-to-end digital insurance platform that enables the launching of new products and digital engagement channels fast. Root is based in Green Point, Cape Town, and Louw shares how this innovative company is redefining the industry not only in Africa, but in more places of the globe, such as the UK. He also shares his experience in creating cultural values and adapting them as the business scales up at a rapidly changing speed. ❓Curious about Louw Hopley and Root? Dive deep into their ideas here:  Louw Hopley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louwhopley/ Root: https://rootplatform.com Follow Searching For Mana to stay tuned into our latest episodes. Website: https://manasearch.co.uk/browse-jobs/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mana.search/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana1 ✍️ We'd love to hear your thoughts! Drop us a comment with your opinion, experiences, and questions – we would love to bring them to our future episodes! 👍 Like this episode and subscribe to this channel if our content helped and inspired you! See you in our next episode!

Michael Brown (Senior Market Analyst, Caxton FX) joins Lloyd for a special Thursday episode tackling the latest economic developments in the UK.

Since joining Caxton FX in 2016, Michael has shown an impressive knack for predicting developments in the foreign exchange markets. In this episode, he shares why traders are bracing for a no-deal Brexit and tells us which currencies to invest in for Q4 2020. Plus, Michael warns us about of COVID-related economic shocks, a W-shaped recovery for the housing market and the dangers of negative interest rates at the Bank of England.

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Episode Highlights:

02:43: Why traders now predict a no-deal Brexit.

04:19: Don’t go below zero: predicting the Bank of England rate cut

08:55: Can the UK control a second wave of COVID-19?

11:20: The hot currencies traders should invest in for Q4 2020

13:44: Michael's biggest economic fear

15:40: Taxing big tech giants: should the UK do it?

17:25: How did Michael form his passion for economics?

20:48: Why Michael didn't go to university

24:32: How AI can (and can't) improve foreign exchange

30:22: Michael’s big advice for forex traders

Arik Shtilman heads up global payments solution Rapyd – one of Europe’s most highly valued fintechs.  Arik’s first rung on the career ladder was the Israeli army, which taught him a ‘carpe diem’ approach to business that has since helped him win over investors and turn Rapyd into  Israel’s most valuable private company (it recently achieved a 15bn dollar valuation).

Arik explains that the genesis for Rapyd lies in a fellow founder being stung on FX charges on a stag do to the Czech Republic.  It was a steep learning curve where they encountered ‘every single problem on planet earth’ before pivoting and establishing a B2B product rather than B2C.  The company continues to go from strength to strength, undaunted by the pandemic (Arik kept everyone working in the office believing working from home hinders productivity) and the potential of a recession (‘I love a recession’).

This is a great episode and a great example of true entrepreneurship with many career and life lessons highlighted.

 

1:49 – the story of Rapyd and its move into venture capitalism

3:43 – Getting ready for a macro turndown

6:19 – ‘I love recessions’

8:13 – Investing in clients

10:05 – SME trends

11:39 – Becoming an entrepreneur

14:01 – Understanding the early potential of computers

15:12 – The potential of blockchain

16:22 – The next big trend in tech

18:10 – Starting out in the military and learning ‘anything is possible’

19:46 – What push ups and tennis camp can teach you

21:43 – Starting his first company

23:00 – The first big mistake

24:19 – Lessons learned

25:34 – The birth of Rapyd (after an expensive stag do to the Czech Republic)

30:00 – The importance of failure

31:38 – How Arik’s role has changed as the company has grown

34:16 – Rapyd’s culture

35:40 – Calling BS on working from home

38:05 – Future goal for Rapyd

41:54 – Greatest achievement – and being fearless

This week, Luno’s UK Country Manager Sam Kopelman joins Ollie Brown, our Blockchain Associate Director for an enlightening chat about crypto, entrepreneurship, career progression and so much more!
After graduating UCL, Sam joined Rocket Internet, building their operations in Minsk from employee zero to later become a Regional Head in Eurasia. Since then he worked in Berlin, and Paris helping other challenger businesses to grow and scale across Europe. With his new role at Luno, he shares incredible insight into blockchain and crypto space.
Luno is a leading global cryptocurrency company with over 8 million customers across 43 countries to date. Touching on everything from DeFI, CBDC, Sam and Ollie talk everything crypto has to offer. Then they dig into Sam’s fascinating career sharing his stories from Belarus and other valuable lessons.

Find more episodes on blockchain with previous guests from Binance, Kraken, Celsius Network, Gemini, Eterna Capital and more on searchingformana.com

Episode Highlights:

02:27: Simplifying cryptocurrency investments

03:43: Can blockchain revolutionise traditional finance?

11:32: On altcoins

17:45: Building a Rocket Internet’s venture in Belarus from scratch

34:36: Berlin and Paris experience

40:22: Sam’s Mana

45:28: On the ads controversy

47:40: On the future of crypto

The Missing Link, a podcast produced by Nayms aimed at uncovering the vital connection between blockchain and insurance. In the most recent episode, they are joined by Brian Mosoff, the CEO of Ether Capital. Ether Capital, a notable player in the cryptocurrency space, has taken a bold step by staking over 50% of its balance sheet through Ethereum. In this episode, listeners get a glimpse into the rationale behind this decision and the ongoing debate surrounding the issue of excessive centralization within the Ethereum staking community. The conversation delves into the inherent risks associated with the world of cryptocurrency, prompting reflection on whether these risks are always justified by the potential rewards, or if the more prudent approach is simply to hodl. Naturally, the discussion also explores the burgeoning opportunities for insurance within the industry and takes stock of the progress made in the transition to the tokenization of real-world assets. Nayms: https://nayms.com Mana: https://searchingformana.com

Why 90% of all startups fail? This week, Harvard Professor Tom Eisenmann joins Mimi Nguyen to discuss his new book - The Fail-Safe Startup.

Focusing his research and his MBA class at Harvard University on the mistakes and missteps of entrepreneurs, for the first time, he reveals his findings, and - most importantly - how you can avoid them.

During their conversation, Tom tells Mimi about the potential failing patterns of early - and late-stage startups, debunking common Silicon Valley / Elon Musk / Rupert Murdoch’s mythologies. Plus, they delve into the changes over the last two decades in the MBA programme at Harvard Business School and discuss the future of innovation leaders training.

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Buy Tom’s book, The Fail-Safe Startup

 

Episode Highlights:

02:09: The concept of “betting the company” and Rupert Murdoch’s empires

05:08: What spurred Tom to study entrepreneurship failures?

10:29: The failure patterns in early-stage startups

21:00: Why the right resources are key and why we need to hire for attitude?

24:00: The failure patterns in late-stage startups

23:37: Ethics and MBAs

46:15: Combining MBA, engineering and design

 

Finimize is building the world's largest and most engaged finance community, with over one million subscribers across their app. Max Rofagha, its co-founder and CEO sits down with Stefan Ciecierski to outline how they help casual investors become smarter investors through bitesize content and engaged community.

In this chat, Max tells us why neo-brokers democratising access to the stock market has opened a major opportunity to empower retail investors with new forms of information, and how Finimize is helping retail investors make informed investment decisions. Plus, he lays out how he attracts talent from top tier investment banks to work at Finimize full-time, and why it’s important that Finimize content is written by ex-Goldman Sachs or Fidelity analysts.

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Episode Highlights

02:15: Empowering retail investors to make informed investment decisions

11:00: Max’s journey as an entrepreneur

14:30: The power of snowball effect and serendipity leading to Passion Capital’s investment

18:55: Lessons from being a founder

21:40: Why company culture and priorities matter?

27:45: Creating premium content from ex-Goldman Sachs or Fidelity analysts

42:13: New opportunities on the market

43:58: Max’s Mana

Searching for Mana dives deep into WealthTech this week as Ned Phillips (Founder and CEO of Bambu, co-host of the WealthTech UnWrapped podcast) sits down with Lloyd to talk robo-advisors, sales and so much more.

After starting out as a London insurance salesman in the early 1990s, Ned found success in the east as Etrade’s Managing Director for Asia. Since then, he’s become a leader in the global WealthTech space, providing solutions to HSBC, Standard Chartered, Franklin Templeton and more. And he’s only just getting started.

On the podcast, Ned tells Lloyd about the skyrocketing demand for robos amongst banks and why he wants the name ‘Bambu’ to be synonymous with WealthTech. He also explains why he never hires anyone who’s rude to a waiter, why salesmen should always work as a team of two, why a positive attitude is everything, and how FinTech is poised to be a pillar of the Singaporean economy,

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Check out Ned’s podcast, WealthTech UnWrapped

 

Episode Highlights:

03:20: Ned introduces us to Bambu and explains why he wants to rule the world of WealthTech

11:55: Big demand from banks: why so many companies are seeking out robo advisors

20:05: Turning Bambu into THE global WealthTech company

22:30: How Ned determined his career path

27:31: Ned’s superpowers: competitive spirit and relentless positivity

35:30: Why Ned prioritises attitude above skills when hiring

40:10: Lloyd’s advice for job interviews: “Be disgustingly well prepared”

46:15: Be the solution: Ned’s tips for being a great leader

50:25: How fintech could become the fourth pillar of Singapore’s economy

Few others’ experiences and career path have left them so destined to found their business, with Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Chris Dixon coining “perfect founder-market fit” to describe him, than this week’s guest, Diogo Monica, Co-Founder of Anchorage Digital.

 

With a resume boasting a PhD in Network Security, working as an early employee at Square, and rounding out his skill-set at Docker, Diogo’s rise to the top has been meteoric.

 

Diogo is now in charge of a leading crypto custodial player that has raised upwards of $450m from the likes of KKR, A16Z, Visa, PayPal and Goldman Sachs. On a pathway to supporting 20% of the world’s economy in the next 5-10 years, Anchorage is primed to be one of the most influential tech leaders of this generation, taking on 200-year-old incumbents in the likes of JP Morgan and BNY Mellon.

 

Having already achieved incredible success, and clearly with so much more to come, maybe, just maybe, dreams of San Diogo will become a reality!

 

A truly amazing episode, with one of the most impressive and likable guests to date.

 

 

[ 0:00 - 4:57 ] San Diogo, Pirate Custody & helping institutions build crypto platforms

[ 4:58 - 8:39 ] Size & Scale of Anchorage and the Neumann Flow

[ 8:39 - 12:11 ] AngelList and StableCoins

[ 12:11 - 17:21 ] Angel Investing

[ 17:22 - 24:59 ] Growing up in Portugal, computing superpowers & making video games

[ 24:59 - 31:34 ] PhDs & Doctors decide dinners

[ 31:34 - 36:50 ] Square & working with Jack Dorsey

[ 36:51 - 41:08 ] Quick-fire round, Diogo’s worldview and mantra

[ 41:09 - 47:29 ] Diogo’s Mana, coffee and reading in the rain in Seattle

[ 47:30 - 53:40 ] The Nathan story = The Anchorage Story, Docker and founding

[ 53:41 - 57:40 ] Anchorage projections: supporting 20% of the world’s economy

[ 57:41 - 1:00:55 ] AI, morality and bear markets

Speculations, hypes, doges, icos, nfts aside.. what’s next for blockchain in financial services? How can this underlying technology disrupt the banking system? 

This week we are presenting a very special panel session as part of Fintech Week London 2021 broadcasted live from Barclays Rise. We’ll have Chris Skinner, author of the Finanser, Marcus Treacher, board director of ClearBank/ ex-Ripple, Haydn Jones, PwC Director and Blockchain Specialist and the very Simon Taylor, co-founder and blockchain lead at 11:FS.

Big thanks to our co-organizers Erlang Solutions, the éminence grise behind some fintech projects of Klarna, Mastercard, Bloomberg LP. 

Who this panel is for:

• All invested in the London FinTech ecosystem
• Decision-makers in financial services
• CEOs and founders setting the pace in the FS startup space
• FinTech scale-ups looking to accelerate growth
• CTOs, lead architects & senior developers wanting to share and gain domain knowledge

Why you should listen:

• To discover where the real business value exists from blockchain away from the hype
• Learn from those at the cutting edge of the tech powering FinTech’s next steps
• Find jargon-busting real-world use cases from tech and business level experts to reduce costs, improve processes and gain competitive advantage

Find more episodes on blockchain with previous guests from Binance, Kraken, Celsius Network, Gemini, Luno, Eterna Capital and more on searchingformana.com

Mark Mullen (CEO anad co-founder of Atom Bank) joins Lloyd to discuss the state of UK fintech, mortgage and SME lending and what it takes to disrupt UK banking.

And he should know. Throughout his 30 years long career, Mark built his banking experience in a major incumbent bank - HSBC, and later resigned from the CEO position of first direct - one of the earliest adopters of digital UK banking - to take the first step on the next bold phase in his career, In 2014, he founded Atom Bank (with ex-Metro Bank co-founder) - UK’s first mobile bank built, with no branches, and the first digital-only challenger bank to be granted a full UK regulatory licence.

In this episode, Mark and Lloyd talk about who actually finances the UK banking sectors, why the current account system is broken, can we process a mortgage application in under 15 seconds, as well as the journey of building a company from employee one to +400. Plus, he shares with us, how is it to work with Atom Bank’s strategic advisor - Will.i.am.

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Episode Highlights:

03:04: How is the current banking system broken, and who is financing the banking sector

09:06: Why we shouldn’t have all banking products from one provider

14:35: How to process a mortgage application under 15 seconds

22:32: The need to change the banking industry and resigning from the firstdirect CEO role

27:36: Building a company from employee one to +400 and the importance of the organisational culture

35:19: The vision for the next 10 years

40:32: Mark’s Mana

In this compelling new episode of Searching for Mana, Lloyd Wahed engages in an insightful conversation with Tim Draper, one of the greatest venture capital investors. They explore the revolutionary potential of the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics in business sectors, the potentials of Bitcoin in modern economics and how it will shape our future. The CEOs candidly discuss their entrepreneurial journeys, shedding light on the challenges they've faced along the way. Tim Draper, in particular, delves into what he deems essential in business and whether he's unearthed his own "Mana" - his superpower, his magic. As a prominent venture capitalist and the founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Draper University, Draper Venture Network, Draper Associates, and Draper Goren Holm, Tim Draper boasts a multifaceted portfolio and an intuitive grasp of disruptive trends, positioning him as a driving force in molding the digital terrain. Follow Searching For Mana to stay tuned into our latest episodes. Website: https://manasearch.co.uk/browse-jobs/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mana.search/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana1 👍 Like this episode and subscribe to this channel if our content helped and inspired you!

We’ve got startup lending on the brain this week as serial VC Andrew D’Souza sits down with Lloyd to talk working capital, angel mentorship and so much more.

As Founder and CEO of Clearco, Andrew made his name raising hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital and is an adviser and investor to companies such as WealthSimple, Properly, and Tulip Retail. Since graduating engineering and working for McKinsey, he’s joined Chamath Palihapitiya in his venture right after his exit from Facebook in 2010, meeting the teams behind Instagram (before being Instagram) and Slack (before being Slack) whilst being in the Andreessen Horowitz’ fund. Today, he runs Clearco, an equity-free startup lender that has reached a $2B valuation.

To kick off the episode, Andrew walks Lloyd through Clearco's aim to offer founder-friendly capital solutions for e-commerce, mobile apps, and SaaS founders; as well as access to a powerful global network, insights and data, and recommendations through their Angel branch, the conversation dives into the ways Andrew’s entrepreneurial journey since the age of 10, and how couples that work, can work.

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Couples that Work, Professor Jennifer Petriglieri

 

Episode Highlights:

02:42: The difference between traditional venture capitalists and Clearco

08:57 Why the world doesn't need another VC firm

11:04: Clearco’s $2B valuation

14:43: How Clear Angel offer founders access to a powerful global network, data, and mentorship

17:24: How data can help to get through business volatility

20:54 How to keep sane as a co-founder of a rocket ship

26:17: Being an entrepreneur since the age of 10

28:24: The difference between an engineer and a strategy consultant

29:38: How was Silicon Valley in 2010

41:00: How to leverage the geographic diversity of talents and founders

43:55: The issue of the distribution system of capital / Why half of the world is overweight and half still starving?

48:31: Couples that work

58:24: Andrew’s Mana

In this episode, join us as 'Searching for Mana' robustly explores the UK’s digital asset landscape with our host, Dan Roberts, CEO of Nayms, Tom Duff Gordon, VP of international policy at Coinbase, and Lachlan Douglas Ferguson, business operations manager at Nayms. The trio tackles significant discussions around the country's regulatory approach and its implications for fostering digital asset innovation. Key highlight of the discussion is the comparison between the UK and US regulatory framework for advancing innovation, with the former's unified authority providing a clearer, more accessible roadmap for digital businesses. The episode also expounds upon the necessity of defining digital asset taxonomies and use-cases more distinctly, setting a robust ground for future negotiations and considerations. To delve deeper into the 'Web3 Democratising the Internet' report, you can read the complete report here: https://lnkd.in/en2PksHH Follow Searching For Mana to stay tuned into our latest episodes. Website: https://manasearch.co.uk/browse-jobs/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mana.search/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana1 ✍️ We'd love to hear your thoughts! Drop us a comment with your opinion, experiences, and questions – we would love to bring them to our future episodes! 👍 Like this episode and subscribe to this channel if our content helped and inspired you! See you in our next episode!

Joining Lloyd this week is Floww CEO & FinTech expert Martijn de Wever. Partnered with The London Stock Exchange, Floww provides data to increase transparency & liquidity across private markets.

 

Former Venture Capitalist and trader Martijn sheds brilliant light into the state of UK FinTech, the pros and cons of private vs public companies, and how his contrarian style has fuelled his success.

 

Highly insightful, honest and always with a touch of humour, Martijn is a brilliantly entertaining guest, and example of how outlier experiences so often make brilliant entrepreneurs.

 

[ 0:00 - 8:32 ] An intro to Floww’s product

[ 8:33 - 20:35 ] The Macro Market & Working with the LSE

[ 20:36 - 30:52 ] The Big Vision for Floww

[ 30:53 - 40:02 ] Martijn’s background & contrariasm

[ 40:03 - 51:16 ] Trading, 2008 and entrepreneurship

[ 51:17 - 57:26 ] Martijn’s venture thesis

[ 57:27 - 1:07:33 ] The Mana round

[ 1:07:34 - 1:21:22 ] Crypto and Floww’s Hollywood outcome

Amy Wu, Head of Ventures, M&A and Gaming at FTX represents one of the best-known and most successful Venture Capitalists in the crypto and web3 spaces.

Having had FTX’s US President Brett Harrison on as our opening guest of the series, Amy is another individual leading this generational business, with a mandate of investing in further generational businesses.

Formerly a Partner at Lightspeed, where she served on the Board at FTX, Amy switched sides at the start of the year, moving to Bahamas to work full-time 10 feet away from Sam Bankman-Fried, the youngest billionaire on the planet, who Amy describes at the greatest decision-maker and businessman of a generation.

In this superb episode, Amy sheds light on her journey, from piano prodigy, to serving on the board of one of Asia’s largest e-commerce businesses at the age of 23, to becoming one of the leading venture capitalists in web3. 

Charismatic, engaging and highly insightful, this episode is not to be missed!

 

[ 0:00 - 4:45 ] FTX, The Bahamas & the state of crypto

[ 4:46 - 7:16 ] Decision-making at FTX Ventures 

[ 7:17 - 13:44 ] Bear Markets, M&A and SBF the visionary

[ 13:45 - 20:15 ] Amy the Piano Prodigy

[ 20:16 - 24:11 ] Insight Partners, mentors and appreciation of brilliance 

[ 24:12 - 28:15 ] Quick-fire round: Finding the right time to aggressively deploy capital

[ 28:16 - 36:45 ] Vibing with founders and being a female role-model in crypto & venture

[ 36:46 - 45:35 ] The role of a modern Venture Capitalist in Web3 & being on DAO boards 

[ 45:36 - 53:33 ] L1 wars, decentralisation and the timeframe of web3 mass adoption 

[ 53:34 - 60:14 ] Working for a generational business, investing in generational businesses

Mike Weissman, CEO of music and tech giant SoundCloud needs no introduction.

Leading one of the most prominent and well-known consumer tech companies on the planet, SoundCloud sits at the forefront of innovation within the music industry. Empowering the next generation of artists to launch their tracks and musical career, SoundCloud is connecting communities of fans and artists to transact directly.

Lloyd and Mike walk us through the technology underpinning SoundCloud’s success, their culture that brings musical creativity into a technology company, kickstarting the careers of the likes of Post Malone and Billie Eilish, and what the future of the industry might look like.

With an acute fascination in music, going from aspiring guitar player to band manager, at a young age, Mike combines a close personal passion for music, with business acumen developed in his early career working on Wall Street. 

Whilst many of his cohort from Wharton pursued careers in finance, Mike went against the grain to follow this interest, serendipitously landing himself into this world, and working at iconic names including the likes of Vimeo, Viacom and Universal Music.

A truly brilliant episode to get into the mindset of someone driving innovation within the music industry, and leading the platform where the next generation of musical talent starts.

 

[ 0:00 - 5:41 ] SoundCloud, and enabling fans and artists to interact

[ 5:42 - 9:08 ] Post Malone, Billie Eilish and Lloyd & The Mana-ites

[ 9:08 - 12:33 ] Helping artists to launch a career, building communities and creating genres

[ 12:34 - 15:35 ] Size & scale of SoundCloud

[ 15:36 - 20:37 ] Building and evolving SoundCloud’s culture

[ 20:38 - 24:48 ] Communities, Web3 and NFTs 

[ 24:49 - 28:39 ] Quick-fire round, Mike’s Mana and steering the future of music

[ 28:40 - 31:48 ] Reading 2 hours a day and building habits

[ 31:49 - 36:38 ] Mike’s background and formative interest in music 

[ 36:39 - 40:29 ] Serendipity and starting a career in music 

[ 40:30 - 45:01 ] Mike the Marathon Runner, Cable TV & Mike’s journey to SoundCloud

[ 45:02 - 49:50 ] Predicting the Future of Music

Freddy Kelly is the CEO and co-founder of Credit Kudos, a challenger credit bureau that uses financial behaviour to measure creditworthiness. Credit Kudos aggregates and interprets transaction data for use by lenders, brokers, and financial institutions: going beyond traditional scoring to provide a comprehensive view of a borrower’s creditworthiness. Freddy started his career in Silicon Valley, with a background in Software Engineering, studying Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. Since co-founding Credit Kudos, Freddy has been the driving force behind its core accomplishments; achieving full FCA authorisation as the first of its kind Credit Reference Agency, and most recently winning ‘Best New Innovation in Consumer Lending’ by FDATA Global 2018, and ‘Innovation of the Year’ at the Consumer Credit Awards 2018. Credit Kudos is the first challenger credit bureau which uses open banking to replace traditional, narrow methods of credit assessment and make credit fair, and accessible to all. Credit Kudos has become the chosen partner for credit intermediaries including ClearScore, CarFinance 247, and Mojo Mortgages, allowing customers to use their bank data to secure better offers across unsecured loans, car finance and mortgages.

Mojo Mortgages CEO and co-founder Richard Hayes tells Lloyd Wahed how he went from a studying music to founding a leading UK online mortgage broker, that disrupts the sector through its hybrid of smart tech and human mortgage experts.

After their Series A funding of £7.6 million, mojo has excelled, recently being the finalist at the British Bank Awards 2021. With their acquisition by RVU (the owner of Uswitch, Confused.com and Money.co.uk) underway, this is set to be a monumental deal that will enable mojo to set its vision to scale faster and have a greater impact.

Richard has over ten years of experience in the financial services sector, this, combined with his passion for technology, is the driving force behind Mojo. On the podcast, Richard and Lloyd discuss the reason Mojo didn’t just focus on the mortgage broking service, and expanded into the development of their own suite of APIs, the creative and musical traits that make so many great founders and what it takes to disrupt the archaic mortgage sector. Plus, Richard shares his favourite books and how to balance family life whilst leading a successful fintech startup.

For more episodes on founders, fintech and careers please visit: searchingformana.com

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Episode Highlights:

02:12: The Acquisition annoucements

04:44: The potential of UK mortgages 

13:48: The first mortgage broker with the API suite

17:49: Who’re the right people to be on the right problems 

24:37: From music to a fintech founder

33:34: A book guide for founders

42:21: Disrupting the mortgage industry

51:43: Richard’s Mana

This week, TokenGuard CEO and Founder Kamil Gorski joins Mimi Nguyen, our R&D Head for an enlightening chat about due diligence in blockchain, smart contracts, ICOs and many more! 

Tokenguard is the first automated rating agency for Ethereum and other blockchains. The technology aggregates the best techniques for ICOs / smart contracts automated verification, allowing investors, VCs and banks to check the project they want to invest in. 

Together with Blockhunters - the mother venture of this project, it has previously received a whopping $2.3M grant from the EU European Regional Development Fund for their R&D activities within the blockchain security space. Touching on everything from crypto and DAOs Kamil and Mimi talk everything blockchain has to offer. Then they dig into Kamil’s fascinating past as a hacker and his entrepreneurial journey including setting up a hardware startup.

Find more episodes on blockchain with previous guests from Binance, Kraken, Celsius Network, Gemini, Luno, Eterna Capital and more on searchingformana.com

Episode Highlights:

01:38: Automating due diligence

15:15 How to regulate blockchain?

25:14: EU grants for blockchain R&D

37:24: The hacker’s past

41:50: Kamil’s Mana

Eterna Capital Partner Andrea Bonaceto joins Lloyd to talk about blockchain investing.

Since launching in 2018, Eterna has provided seed and early-stage funding to blockchain innovators like Algorand, Borderless Capital, DFINITY and more. Forbes has named it one of the top three boundary pushing blockchain investing firms, and Andrea has been named to the publication’s Top 30 Under 30 list.

In their conversation, Andrea and Lloyd wonder whether blockchain will have the same revolutionary impact as the internet, identify the key trends that will shape the sector’s development and question how it will drive adoption of central bank digital currencies. Plus, Andrea outlines the industry's biggest  hotspots and tells us why community-building is essential for blockchain investing firms.

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Check out the book Andrea mentions, Albert Wenger's World After Capital

Browse Andrea's art

 

Episode Highlights:

03:16: Why Eterna’s first fund focused heavily on blockchain infrastructure

09:13: Digital ownership and traceability: the key trends fueling Eterna’s second fund

14:07: How can blockchain fuel adoption of central bank digital currencies?

19:42: Why blockchain is philosophically inclined toward positive social change

22:06: What drew Andrea to the blockchain space

26:45: Do you need to live in San Francisco or London to work in blockchain?

32:02: The role of community-building in blockchain-related companies

38:47: Why Andrea avoids structured approaches to work

Mona Tiesler is an investor at tokentus investment AG, a leading VC firm in the German blockchain ecosystem, where she invests in start-ups that leverage blockchain technology globally. She joins the Missing Link as our tenth guest where we cover the state of venture markets - she gives tips to founders currently raising - and the macroeconomic factors at play. We discuss upcoming regulations and which jurisdictions crypto companies should to pay attention to. Don’t miss out on her thoughts on the lessons learned from the developments in the FTX trial. This podcast does not contain any financial or legal advice and you should not seek to rely on it as such. Opinions are the personal opinions of the speaker. Nayms: https://nayms.com Mana: https://searchingformana.com

James Herbert is the founder and CEOof Hastee - an award-winning earnings on demand technology, offered as a workplace benefit that enables workers to take a portion of their earned pay, on demand, increasing choice and financial flexibility. According to Hastee’s 2020 Workplace Wellbeing Study, nearly half (41%) of workers are now relying on at least one new loan, credit card or overdraft in order to make ends meet, with over a quarter (27%) are needing to sacrifice essential purchases due to a lack of available money. This week, Searching for Mana dives deep into financial wellbeing, as James sits down with Lloyd to talk about the ethical alternative to taking on debt from sources of credit and is designed to stop the cycle of accumulating interest fees facing those borrowing money month to month.

On the podcast, James tells Lloyd about his entrepreneurial journey from setting up a T-shirt printing business, through founding Brightsparks, a staffing business that has employed over 20,000 people from his dorm room, to raising $270 million with Hastee on a mission to allow workers to immediately access up to 50 percent of their earned pay at any point during a month.

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Check out Hastee’s 2020 Workplace Wellbeing Study

 

Episode Highlights

03:20: The Workplace Wellbeing Study

06:45: Payment cycles and it’s impact on our productivity

13:19: Biggest challenges for James so far

16:12: The power of financial flexibility and discipline

23:20: The journey of an entrepreneur

29:23: James’s mission and mana

Julie Ashmore Dann (CEO, Rapid Cash at NatWest) sits down with Lloyd to talk about how her company is making loans simple for SMEs.

After entering the industry as a remittance processor, Julie developed her expertise in small-business lending at such companies as Bibby Financial Services, HSBC and Growth Street. In January 2020, she joined Rapid Cash, which helps SMEs get loans in a matter of days rather than months.

In this episode, Lloyd and Julie discuss the ways Rapid Cash has already helped companies weather pandemic-related crises before outlining the benefits of establishing fintechs at major financial institutions. Later they delve into Julie’s leadership experience, outlining the benefits of small, agile teams and sharing Julie’s lessons from a perilous polar expedition!

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Episode Highlights:

06:34: How Rapid Cash helped small businesses get the money they needed to make PPE during the pandemic

16:15: Why customers need increased choice of SME loans during COVID-19

25:00: The future of work: why smaller teams will place a greater emphasis on the customer experience

34:20: How banking became more entrepreneurial over Julie's career

41:23: How Julie remains ridiculously optimistic in trying times

45:27: Career paths: rapid rises vs sustained success

54:00: The hardest moment Julie faced on her South Pole expedition and how she overcame it

A special mid-season episode for the Nayms podcast - The Missing Link. Hosts Dan Roberts and Danielle Wall Elliott walk through a recap of the season so far, and a reflection on some of the previous episodes. There's also some big news. The Nayms Marketplace has gone live on the Ethereum Network - signifying a defining moment in the future of insurance. Dan and Danielle speak about some of this, and what to expect in the next phase of their journey.

Mana Labs Co-Founder Mimi Nguyen is in the host's seat this week as she discusses product innovation with University College London's Vaughn Tan.

And Vaughn has a unique perspective on the subject. In 2005, he joined Google as a Product Marketing Manager and later worked on projects such as AdWords and Google Maps. Since then, he's become a leading voice on innovation in the culinary sector, advising organisations like the Wellcome Collection and becoming an Assistant Professor at UCL.

Mimi and Vaughn discuss how Vaughn joined Google without a computer science degree, the leadership skills he learned at Mountain View, and why restaurants are great models for innovation. Plus, Vaughn tells us what companies can learn from messenger RNA and how to embrace uncertainty when hiring.

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Check out Vaughn's new book, The Uncertainty Mindset

 

Episode Highlights:

05:24: The innovative way Google approached product

10:25: How to lead without institutional authority

14:20: How efficiency can be the enemy of success

19:00: Spurring creative collaboration in the age of remote working

23:15: Restaurants as biomes for innovation

27:24: The lessons FinTech companies can learn from kitchens

33:23: How to hire with an uncertainty mindset

40:36: The one trait that has helped Vaughn succeed

42:49: What's next for Vaughn

This is quite a story, listen to Zilch CEO and Co-Founder, Philip Belamant, British Entrepreneur of the year 2021, who has taken the business from series A to Unicorn faster than anyone else in Europe has managed with any other company. He and his team still have control of more than 50% of the equity, and their international expansion starts next year. Philip sat down with Lloyd Wahed CEO of Mana Search to discuss the journey that has seen Zilch achieve over 1 million users in 13 months.

Zilch grew their team from 40 to 200 people in a year, and Philip believes his superpower is building teams through finding the best people and binding them together with a vision.

Like many entrepreneurs on the Searching for Mana Podcast, Philip was a restless student, not impressed with his university education that seemed more about regurgitating data than anything more creative or problem-solving. He had the good fortune to have a father who was an entrepreneur and shared his passion for technology and building products.

Philip found out as a young man that active engagement is the best way to learn, there is nothing wrong with trial and error, and not being afraid to pivot if that produces a better result.

His attributes in his own words include, “perpetual dedication to the cause” and “I work at it all the time”  his firmly held belief is that “no-one is special” but “put in the time and surround yourself with the right people” to find success.

For Philip, his opportunity came from the democratisation of money and free credit was the way for him to make a difference. He argues that there is nothing new in “buy now pay later”, however for most companies in that niche the retailer is the customer, but going directly to the consumer and enabling them to use any retailer through Zilch is the key to their strategy.

Joining Dan and Danielle on this edition of The Missing Link is Dr. Sebastian Banescu, CEO of Chainproof and Managing Director of Quantstamp Germany. At Chainproof, security excellence means more than just providing insurance. Chainproof’s novel approach to smart contract security and insurance offers web3 companies unparalleled safety and protection from start to finish. Having recently worked with Chainproof to provide Nayms with an insurance policy to cover smart contracts against hacks. They discuss the hurdles faced when dealing with the traditional insurance industry and of course, what Sebastian believes is the missing link in mass crypto adoption. Don't miss out on this one!  Nayms: https://nayms.com Mana: https://searchingformana.com

It’s time to get innovative as Lloyd welcomes acclaimed writer and speaker Alf Rehn.

From becoming the youngest university chair in Finland to serving as a chairman to a Gold Lion-winning ad agency, Alf has led a vast and varied career. Today, he’s a professor of innovation, design and management at the University of Southern Denmark and the author of Innovation for the Fatigued: How to Build a Culture of Deep Creativity.

On this episode, Lloyd and Alf discuss what companies are getting wrong about innovation, why fatigue is set in and how to fix it. Alf also explains why the biggest icons are those who are free to take risks and outlines the three attributes of successful CEOs. Plus, hear about the big company Alf missed the boat on and hear what he learned from meeting GE magnate Jack Welch.

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Buy Alf’s book, Innovation for the Fatigued

 

Episode Highlights:

04:17: The surprising lesson Alf learned from meeting GE executive Jack Welch

09:00: The three attributes of successful CEOs

10:55: Innovation fatigue and how neobanks contribute to it

16:00: Why big companies aren’t necessarily bad innovators

22:17: Innovation as a balance of curiosity and perseverance

28:30: Why the most innovative companies lead by example

32:00: How the opportunity of a lifetime thrust Alf into an existential crisis

40:24: Why contrarians continue to fascinate Alf

46:41: Alf’s advice for climbing the career ladder

In the blink of an eye, Tink has gone from a B2C player in one country in Europe to a B2B solution in eighteen markets, giving them access to more than 250m customers in Europe.

Rafa Plantier, Head of UK & Ireland at Tink describes to Lloyd Wahed how Tink is product growth led and their innovation is driving a rapid development in networks and services to providing accessibility for millions of people to the trusted institutions that hold and manage our money. One institution with decades of “trust capital” is Visa, who recently announced to acquire Tink, that will further their “network of networks” concept faster than they could have hoped a few years ago, opening up a global opportunity. You can feel the excitement from Rafa when he describes the opportunities that are presenting themselves around the world as markets open up.

Rafe worked at Stripe prior to joining Tink and so he has seen twice recently how a company can “grow out of a crowded market” and in open banking he is able to be part of “optimising the foundations for growth” at enterprise level. In Europe there is work to be done with the EU over regulation as the “currency of open banking is trust” and that needs suppliers, enterprises and states to be aligned.

Tink has nearly doubled it’s headcount in two years and because most of that time has been in the pandemic there are a significant number of staff who have not worked from a Tink office or met their colleagues face to face. Tink managers prioritise understanding the individual challenges of each staff member and this is also key to helping the integration of acquired teams. The nature of open banking is collaboration so one cultural pillar comes from the market, but there is no room for complacency, as the changes in work induced by the pandemic are unprecedented.

Treating customers as equals, in simple terms, without talking down to them, is the vital communication strategy that is helping Bux offer it’s affordable and accessible broking services to a new generation of investors across Europe, and it’s going well explains Yorick Naeff (CEO of Bux) in conversation with Lloyd Wahed of Mana Search, so well that they recently raised $80m to take their service into more European countries.

Bux has nearly 200 staff and more than half a million customers already through understanding the mindset of next gen investors who want simple and mobile solutions. Bux has created their own solutions where they needed to so that the customer journey is simple, and charges are kept to a minimum.

Investment carries risk, that’s a basic for opportunity, but the company tries to reduce risk through easy-to-read explanations of key terminology that de-mystify jargon, and they encourage investors to talk to each other through a platform while they provide alerts if it looks like an investor might be stretching their investments too far.

Bux has focused on investors in six European countries so far, which until the pandemic had been a tradition of low risk investment through savings accounts, but with negative interest rates a new generation of investors has demanded more from their money. Yorick explains that with such low returns from traditional banking and so much uncertainty about how to pay for the future, people are being “pushed to invest” and this is a driver to the growth of Bux particularly from younger, and often, first time investors. It will make its own revenues from scale, not from an expensive business model, so they are targeting growth in the number of “active fund clients”, who are engaged users investing and trading regularly. Breakeven is a couple of years off, but BUX are ambitious, and they want to be the No1 provider in their market.

Yorick’s own journey took a turn to entrepreneurialism in his early 30’s after a career in more traditional banking and was driven by a passion for making banking more affordable and accessible, and a great team that shares the same vision. He became CEO during a time of remote working and the biggest challenge was to hold onto and develop the culture, but as a tech company based in the cloud the “new normal” means that he expects people to meet more than they did during pandemic but not full-time office based for all. Yorick has a global ambition to become a sustainable company and market leader. Their timing is good and the demand for “affordable and accessible” looks set for the long term. 

This episode of "Searching For Mana" features an enlightening conversation with Daniel Seifert, Coinbase's VP and Regional Managing Director. Stepping into his role just a fortnight before the infamous crypto-exchange FTX crash, Seifert's introduction to the volatile world of cryptocurrency was certainly a baptism by fire. Despite the initial turbulence, he remained undeterred, ready to take on the inherent challenges of the industry and skillfully steer his team through the uncertainties. A subsequent part of Seiffert's responsibility at Coinbase involves managing business operations within the fledgeling regional markets, regarded as some of the most vital for Coinbase after the United States. His role encapsulates the task of bolting strategies, collaborating with teams, and mingling with some intriguing personalities in the fintech sector. While navigating through unpredictable market activities and large financial trembles, he has remained steadfast in ensuring Coinbase's growth and compliance with regulatory guidelines. ❓Curious about Daniel Seifert and Coinbase? Dive deep into their ideas here: https://www.coinbase.com/pt/ Follow Searching For Mana to stay tuned into our latest episodes. Website: https://manasearch.co.uk/browse-jobs/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mana.search/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana1 ✍️ We'd love to hear your thoughts! Drop us a comment with your opinion, experiences, and questions – we would love to bring them to our future episodes! 👍 Like this episode and subscribe to this channel if our content helped and inspired you! See you in our next episode!

From discussing the meaning of life, to the cruciality of atomic habits, to genuinely aiming to change the world, this week’s guest, Michael Gronager - CEO of crypto behemoth Chainalysis - shares fascinating insights.

With a valuation of upwards of $8 Billion, following their latest funding round in May this year, Chainalysis is providing critical financial data to enable governments, banks and blockchain companies to understand how people are using cryptocurrency.

Drawing comparisons to Google - by indexing the blockchain industry, Bloomberg - through their creation of financial data, and Reuters through their leading content arm, Chainalysis is at the forefront of blockchain companies, already a market leader, with the potential to scale to astronomic levels.

Michael dives into his journey, from growing up in Denmark and developing a close early interest in computers, to his academic research, to an epiphanic moment stuck in a typhoon in South-East Asia and all the way to founding Chainalysis. His mentality, fascination with Wabi Sabi and seeking beauty in everything, as well as creating achievable routine habits provide amazing insight into the minds of a true modern tech leader.

[ 0:00 - 4:29] Chainalysis & how every company could become a crypto company

[ 4:29 - 10:51 ] Timeframe on crypto adoption

[ 10:51 - 16:01 ] Chainalysis user cases

[ 16:01 - 18:32 ] Bridging law enforcement and the unregulated world of crypto

[ 18:32 - 21:39 ] Size and scale of Chainalysis

[ 21:39 - 25:19] Raising money in a bear market

[ 25:19 - 27:43] Taking inspiration from Google and Reuters

[ 27:43 - 32:17 ] Remaining calm and maintaining perspective 

[ 32:17 - 37:32 ] 2 miles runs every morning and home-made cortados 

[ 37:32 - 40:23 ] Finding beauty in everything

[ 40:23 - 43:01 ] Michael’s Mana

[ 43:01 - 46:17 ] An early fascination with computers and building things

[ 46:17 - 52:07 ] Wanting to change the world

[ 52:07 - 54:43 ] Finding the meaning of life at Bangkok airport 

[ 54:43 - 56:01 ] Who is Satoshi?

[ 56:01 - 1:00:04 ] The Chainalysis Founding Story

[ 1:00:04 - 1:05:47 ] Turning Chainalysis from an idea into an empire

[ 1:04:41 - 1:07:58] Principles around culture

[ 1:07:58 - 1:13:03 ] Winning talent, mentality as king and furthering careers

[ 1:13:03 - 1:18:09 ] The Hollywood scenario for Chainalysis

[ 1:18:09 - 1:23:13 ] Considering Space & Michael’s approach to problem-solving

[ 1:23:13 - 1:26:04 ] Advice for a bear market

On the first episode of 2024, Dan and Danielle reflect on ONE WHOLE YEAR of The Missing Link! With so many epic guests in 2023, we've had some wonderful conversations with industry leaders. They look back on all the "missing links" in the industry and how we can start to make some progress to promote mass adoption. There are several themes throughout the episode, and they even share what they think is the missing link (besides insurance!). Don't miss this episode with your favorite podcast hosts, it's a good one! This episode is a can't-miss! This podcast does not contain any financial or legal advice and you should not seek to rely on it as such. Opinions are the personal opinions of the speaker. The Missing Link is a podcast produced by Nayms, our partner in the Searching for Mana podcast. Nayms: https://nayms.com Mana: https://searchingformana.com Like this episode and subscribe to this channel if our content helped and inspired you! See you in our next episode! ___________________________________________ Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/2Hhg4gB​​ Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3kKZQKl Searching for Mana is a UK-based podcast which focuses on tech innovation in finance, and features interviews with influencers, leaders and founders in the fintech space, from unicorn companies to financial disruptors. Previous guests have included the Director of Growth at Oaknorth, the CEO of BCB Group (the UK’s first licensed crypto bank), the CEO of Innovate Finance (the industry body for UK fintech) and Ed Vaizey, the UK’s longest serving Minister for Technology. Each hour-long episode gains insight into how the guest got into fintech, what they’re currently focused on, what their companies are all about, as well as some of the important trends within the wider fintech sector. The show is presented by Lloyd Wahed, a London-born tech entrepreneur who has founded two recruiting firms, Athelstan Search and Mana Search and has successfully helped scale a number of unicorn technology companies. Follow Mana Search on Twitter: https://twitter.com/manasearchuk​​ Follow Mana Search on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana-talent/

Being paid to get fit may sound too good to be true, but it’s exactly what this week’s Searching for Mana guest Ole Fomenko is doing for his app’s more than 70 milllion users.  Sweatcoin tracks a user’s steps and this summer will covert them into free crypto currency.  Watching a movie with his children was the inspiration for the app; his motivation for driving it lies in repenting for previous professional sins.  It’s a great episode, enjoy…

Oleg Fomenko, founder of health currency app Sweatcoin, is this episode’s guest on the Searching for Mana show.  Oleg has an eclectic CV: born in the Soviet Union, he started his career working for global corporate brands such as Coca-Cola and Mars, before coming to the UK and working at Boston Consulting Group, where he learned from other entrepreneurs’ failures.  He decided to create Sweatcoin after realising his own fitness, which once enabled him to climb Kilimanjaro three times, had declined to the point he could no longer run 5k.  And after watching a movie with his children about robots and obese humans…

In this episode Oleg talks about the importance of sticking to your vision and not being swayed by others’ opinions or ambitions.  He also discusses how Sweatcoin’s success lies in nature’s failure to award an orgasm for exercise - as well as choosing NEAR foundation as the protocol.

This is a wide-ranging interview with great insights into an entrepreneur’s mindset and journey to success.

 

2:00 The User case – how Sweatcoin came about

6:20 Nature’s failure to give humans an orgasm for exercise

13:44 Making the business case for Sweatcoin

17:00 Stopping the scammers

20:20: How Sweatcoin is bringing about behavioural change

24:15: Starting his career in corporate life – and how his values have changed

27 Becoming an entrepreneur…

28:50 Why Boston Consulting Group was an unhelpful experience

32 Build a business on a problem rather than an idea

37 The importance of staying focused and not getting distracted

40 The impact of Covid

42:25 The rational for choosing NEAR protocol

53:13 Encouraging people to keep moving

58 Oleg’s mana….

Myles Stephenson (Founder & CEO, Modulr) sits down with Lloyd to talk about how his company provides payments infrastructure to the likes of Revolut, Sage, Liberis, iwoca or Salary Finance, enabling them to efficiently automate and embed payments transactions.

After receiving a biochemistry degree at the University of Oxford, Myles developed his expertise in finance and retail building up the charge and credit facility for Marks and Spences in London and Ireland. In the midst of the financial crisis in 2008, he founded CorporatePay offering pre-paid card programs for corporates, turned into supplier payments and supplier disbursement platform. Fast forward to 2016, Myles founded Modulr, backed by Blenheim Chalcot that powers leading Fintech companies with API payments infrastructure. To date, an excess of over 70 billion pounds worth of value has been transacted on the Modulr platform.

In this episode, Lloyd and Myles discuss the ways Modulr support other fintechs to build out new products, lend to SMEs, or access multiple payment methods before outlining the benefits of automated B2B payment flows. Later they delve into Myles’s entrepreneurial experience and learn about his Mana!

Episode Highlights:

03:22: How Modulr enables access for businesses into the payment systems?

15:31: Journey to Profit

17:47: Processing 4 billion GBP monthly

19:03: Journey to entrepreneurship

30:11: Setting up a fintech company  in 2008

37:39: More than open finance

43:38: Universities and fintech partnerships

58:15: Myles Mana

On our last episode of 2023, we welcome Erik Voorhees! If you're a crypto believer, there's no doubt you have heard of Erik. His origins in the crypto space can be traced back to 2011 when he discovered Bitcoin from a Facebook post, and then to 2012 when he joined BitInstant LLC as Head of Marketing. Voorhees co-founded the Bitcoin company Coinapult and founded SatoshiDICE, which he later sold for 126,000 Bitcoin. 

Just months after the Mt. Gox hack in 2014, Erik launched the first non-custodial crypto exchange, ShapeShift. As Founder and CEO of ShapeShift, he led that to a successful exit for shareholders while also turning ShapeShift into a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) governed by its FOX token holders. He has been an outspoken libertarian and advocate for Bitcoin, talking openly about his concerns surrounding traditional monetary systems and taxation. 

He has been known to work with regulators on better understanding the decentralized financial system and improving the future of both TradFi and DeFi. He has been featured in the book Digital Gold and the Netflix documentary Banking on Bitcoin. He has publicly debated Peter Schiff, and Sam Bankman-Fried, and has been featured on Bloomberg, Fox Business, and numerous industry conferences. He has been interviewed by many crypto publications and podcasts - The Missing Link being one. This episode is a can't-miss! 

This podcast does not contain any financial or legal advice and you should not seek to rely on it as such. Opinions are the personal opinions of the speaker.

The Missing Link is a podcast produced by Nayms, our partner in the Searching for Mana podcast.

Nayms: https://nayms.com 

Mana: https://searchingformana.com

 Like this episode and subscribe to this channel if our content helped and inspired you! See you in our next episode!

The future of money is here as Dawn Capital General Partner Josh Bell sits down with Lloyd to discuss how he finds tomorrow’s behemoths, leading the fund’s Fintech investments.

Josh graduated Oxford University in Mathematics, was subsequently a Research Fellow at Harvard University in Economics and Game Theory before his MPhil in Statistics at Cambridge University.

After starting his career with strategic consultancy McKinsey, Josh moved into the venture capital sphere with Dawn Capital, which offers B2B Series A/ Series B companies’ funding. In this in-depth conversation, Josh tells us what he looks for when investing in a company, his investment in iZettle that led to a 2.2 Billion deal with PayPal, and why headhunting will become a bespoke, very tailored solution, which requires human knowledge and understanding.

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Episode Highlights

2:59 Dawn Capital’s thesis

11:30 Who does Dawn Capital invest in?

19:40 The future of headhunting

26:10 How management consulting equips future leaders

30:45 Reflections on the formation of a VC fund

44:00 Where are the next Fintech hubs?

A new series brought to you by Searching for Mana. This is Searching for Mana FinTech. Searching for Mana FinTech is going to look at some of the most intriguing, important, and industry-changing businesses in the financial and technology world right now, and how they are tackling the challenges of markets, culture, teams, and much more. With a brilliant guest to kick off our very special Episode 0 introduction to the new series, please join us as Lloyd speaks to Tom McGillycuddy, Co-Founder & CEO of Circa5000. For those unaware, Circa5000 is an investment impact specialist that facilitates investment into companies who are generating positive social or environmental impact through their operations and products. Tom speaks to us about what Circa5000 have been doing recently, including the very special launch of their own ETFs on the London Stock Exchange. Find out more about Circa5000 here: https://circa5000.com/?utm_source=google-ads&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=brand_pure_exact&utm_keyword=circa5000&matchtype=e&utm_device=c&gclid=CjwKCAjwp6CkBhB_EiwAlQVyxbeVgg1VyeohYizM7LKxvmgzG1r5HvXx4Y9e5gfCx2ZBR1n9s8yHrBoCkJUQAvD_BwE

On this month's episode of The Missing Link, we're joined by Sidney Powell. Sid is the CEO & Co-Founder of Maple, and with his Co-Founder Joe Flanagan, launched Maple in 2021. Maple is transforming capital markets through technology having facilitated over $3b in loans since launch in 2021. During Sid's career in traditional finance, he participated in $3BN+ of corporate bond issuance, established and ran a $200M+ bond funding program, and managed Treasury at a commercial lending FinTech company. During the episode, Sid breaks down the web2 finance space as a tax on global gdp, the past and future of Maple, AI underwriting, and his opinion on a two-tiered missing link. Check it out! This podcast does not contain any financial or legal advice and you should not seek to rely on it as such. Opinions are the personal opinions of the speaker. The Missing Link is a podcast produced by Nayms, our partner in the Searching for Mana podcast. Nayms: https://nayms.com Mana: https://searchingformana.com Like this episode and subscribe to this channel if our content helped and inspired you! See you in our next episode! ___________________________________________ Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/2Hhg4gB​​ Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3kKZQKl Searching for Mana is a UK-based podcast which focuses on tech innovation in finance, and features interviews with influencers, leaders and founders in the fintech space, from unicorn companies to financial disruptors. Previous guests have included the Director of Growth at Oaknorth, the CEO of BCB Group (the UK’s first licensed crypto bank), the CEO of Innovate Finance (the industry body for UK fintech) and Ed Vaizey, the UK’s longest serving Minister for Technology. Each hour-long episode gains insight into how the guest got into fintech, what they’re currently focused on, what their companies are all about, as well as some of the important trends within the wider fintech sector. The show is presented by Lloyd Wahed, a London-born tech entrepreneur who has founded two recruiting firms, Athelstan Search and Mana Search and has successfully helped scale a number of unicorn technology companies. Follow Mana Search on Twitter: https://twitter.com/manasearchuk​​ Follow Mana Search on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana-talent/

This episode of Searching for Mana takes you on a journey, exploring the transformation of Ecospend from a fledgling startup to an industry powerhouse, illustrating how fintech companies are evolving and impacting a rapidly changing financial landscape. Our hosts Dan O'Riordan and Sachin Doshi welcome James Hickman, CCO of Ecospend, and share a vivid chat about the company's growth, innovative approaches and the challenges encountered on the road to achieving a strategic vision. Major focal points of the episode include the scaling-up process of Ecospend, the resulting cultural and operational shifts, and the uncharted possibilities hinged on open banking. Our speakers delve deep into discussions about the seismic changes happening within the realms of open banking, the innovative use of account information and transaction data to create value, and how these trends are reshaping the broader financial sector. Whether you're a fintech enthusiast, industry insider, or just curious about the future of finance, this episode will intrigue, inform and inspire. Follow Searching For Mana to stay tuned into our latest episodes. Website: https://manasearch.co.uk/browse-jobs/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mana.search/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana1

This week’s guest on the Searching for Mana show is Head of Plaid Europe, Ripsy Bandourian. A journey from Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Apple and Booking.com has led Ripsy to her most recent role at Plaid, helping to strengthen a Trans-Atlantic bridge for the open-banking leader.

 

How does open-banking enable the goal of accessible fiscal liberty for everyone, and what are Plaid doing to achieve that?

 

One of the tropes this podcast has covered across episodes is culture, and with Ripsy we explore how culture changes within a business as it scales, and what specific changes are necessary.

 

Lloyd also speaks with Ripsy on her background, with pivotal elements such as learning English through school and the freedom of choice in studies at university helping to shape a fantastic career.

 

Subscribe for more content, and please visit our website for other episodes.

 

[ 0:00 - 4:12 ] Trans-Atlantic Bridge, connecting US and Europe

[ 4:13 - 6:12 ] Humans make business happen

[ 6:13 - 14:33 ] Culture and change

[ 14:34 - 18:55 ] Plaid elevator pitch

[ 18:56 - 23:56 ] Value and potential in open banking

[ 23:57 - 26:12 ] Competition and collaboration

[ 26:13 - 32:38 ] Origin story

[ 32:39 - 38:06 ] Belief in optionality

[ 38:07 - 43:25 ] Goldman and McKinsey

[ 43:26 - 49:09 ] Apple in its early stages

[ 49:10 - 54:58 ] Family and perseverance

[ 54:59 - 1:04:17 ] Quick-fire round

[ 1:04:18 - 1:06:06 ] Hollywood outcome for Plaid

Outlier Ventures are a market leading Web3 accelerator. With 185 investments last year and a steady dose of bullish sentiment towards crypto, Outlier CEO and Founder Jamie Burke is well positioned to talk about where Web3 and Crypto in 2023 is going to go. Jamie sat down with Lloyd Wahed a few weeks ago to speak about the market from 2022 up to now, and then beyond. We wanted to share this highly topical show with you in accordance with the release of Jamie's 2023 thesis for the market. The discussion moves from crypto to AI, AR/VR to gaming, DeFi to tokens. It's a fantastic resource for all those who want to learn about some of the intricacies the 2023 markets will be throwing up. Jamie and Lloyd speak about what it takes to seize the opportunities that are presented to you in your career, and how much we can do to have an effect on the circumstances that created our personal paths. An episode that's highly significant due to its wealth of insights - at a crucial point in the history of Web3, Crypto, AI, and Blockchain. -- Website - https://manasearch.co.uk LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana-talent/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/manasearchuk?s=20 Telegram - https://t.me/c/1615563449/1 Searching for Mana - https://manasearch.co.uk/searching-for-mana-with-lloyd-wahed/ The Metaverse Podcast, Jamie Burke & Outlier Ventures - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-metaverse-podcast/id1511782129

This week’s podcast episode guest is Bolt Financial CEO Maju Kuruvilla. A former executive at Amazon, where he helped launch Amazon Fresh, Maju has taken over at Bolt to help build the future of e-commerce.  

 

Searching for Mana is about finding future category leading tech firms in real-time. Almost every business goes through ups and downs, and the path to the top is never completely smooth.

 

Bolt has scaled to great heights already, but also faced challenges, competing against the likes of Amazon, Shopify and Alibaba to create the future of e-commerce.

 

Lloyd dives into Maju’s background, from helping the family business during his childhood in India, how this gave him perspective and shaped his leadership style, to becoming CEO at a leading FinTech player.

 

Inspired by the Ride of a Lifetime, by Bob Iger, evening walks, and with a love of building, Lloyd dives into Maju’s psychology.

 

Please subscribe for more content and check out our website for other episodes.

 

[ 0:00 - 4:37 ] Size and Scale of Bolt 

[ 4:38 - 10:09 ] Commerce 3.0: Taking on Amazon, Shopify

[ 10:10 - 13:46 ] Decentralised commerce & crypto 

[ 13:47 - 21:43 ] Bolt: seamlessly managing the checkout experience 

[ 21:44 - 25:57 ] Quick-fire round 

[ 25:58 - 32:58 ] Walking, walking and more walking & Maju’s Mana

[ 32:59 - 39:10 ] Maju’s background and family shop 

[ 39:11 - 47:45 ] Competitiveness, Maju’s winning mentality and causing fundamental change

[ 47:46 - 54:58 ] Helping merchants and providing solutions for the modern consumer 

[ 54:59 - 59:18 ] The Hollywood outcome for Bolt

PensionBee Founder and CEO Romina Savova joins Lloyd to examine a sector that’s ripe for disruption: pensions.

That’s the idea behind PensionBee, which Romina founded after working at behemoths like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. When she tried to consolidate her pensions in one place, she found the task impossible and received little to no help from financial advisors or her provider. That led her to found PensionBee, which has partnered with some of the sector’s biggest money managers, including Legal & General and BlackRock.

In a far-reaching chat with Lloyd, Romina tells us about the advice gap in pensions, the rising demand for responsible investments and why sustainability and strong ROI aren’t mutually exclusive. Then she lays out her career trajectory from law to finance, outlines which types of businesses should pursue venture capital, and tells us how to build a purpose-driven culture.

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Join us in this fascinating episode of Searching For Mana where we delve into the nuances of Web3 technologies and their impact on the gaming landscape, featuring our speakers Lloyd Wahed and Robby Yung. Yung takes the listeners on a riveting journey charting the rising influence of Web3 and how companies, like Animoca Brands, are pioneering games that utilise blockchain technology to democratise digital asset ownership. The digital currency and asset principles of Web3 seamlessly synergise with the gaming industry's established model of using virtual currency for in-game purchases. The transformative potential of Web3 extends beyond the gaming niche, aiming to revolutionise the broader digital ecosystem and significantly empowering the creator economy. ❓Curious about Robby Yung and Animoca Brands? Dive deep into their ideas here: Robby's Linkedin's page https://www.linkedin.com/in/robyung/?originalSubdomain=uk Animoca website: https://www.animocabrands.com Follow Searching For Mana to stay tuned into our latest episodes. Website: https://manasearch.co.uk/browse-jobs/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mana.search/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana1 ✍️ We'd love to hear your thoughts! Drop us a comment with your opinion, experiences, and questions – we would love to bring them to our future episodes! 👍 Like this episode and subscribe to this channel if our content helped and inspired you! See you in our next episode!

This week, Mana Labs co-founder Mimi Nguyen speaks with Lukasz Marczyk from Accenture's Warsaw office.  As an innovation leader and part of Accenture's leadership team in Poland, Lukasz discusses his experience within innovation management and his journey towards becoming Managing Director and Partner at Accenture.  This episode also does a deep dive into the rise of insurtech and the current innovative trends of the industry. 

Lukasz tells Mimi about the company’s game-changing work on cloud, automation and robotics, why management consulting needs to incorporate design thinking and why talent is the main asset of any company. Plus, he fills us in on why excelling in leadership skills at Stanford University can help senior-level managers advance faster and collaborate better on innovation ideas.

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Episode Highlights:

01:30: The Rise of insurtech

05:50: Design thinking in management consulting

13:20: Skillsets and the job market

18:15: Startups and their competitive advantage

22:38: Stanford University experience

35:29: Journey to becoming Managing Director at Accenture

37:45: Lukasz's Mana - the human side of a leader

Meniga Co-Founder and CEO Georg Ludviksson sits down with Lloyd to outline how to found a successful FinTech.

That’s a topic Georg has plenty of first-hand experience with. After developing one of Iceland’s most popular video games, Georg moved into tech, partnering with Nokia on an early mobile internet venture. That led him on to Harvard Business School before he founded Meniga, a digital banking company that boasts over 40 implementations with some of the world’s premiere retail banks.

In his chat with Lloyd, Georg tells us why incumbents are actually making open banking possible and how the lines between banks and fintechs are blurring. Plus, he lays out how to have difficult conversations about founding equity, striking a balance between personal and business development, and how to maintain virtual relationships in a post-pandemic world.

Follow Mana Search on Twitter: https://twitter.com/manasearchuk

Follow Mana Search on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana-talent/

Episode Highlights:

06:34: How Meniga is so much more than a core banking solution

09:20: Why financial literacy is the key to career advancement

14:12: Why have incumbents been hesitant to embrace open banking?

20:30: Maintaining sustainable growth at Meniga

26:13: How Georg created one of Iceland’s most popular video games

31:53: Georg’s biggest tip for nw founders

36:55: How Georg deals with leadership stress

43:55: The best ways to balance work and personal life

47:47: The trait that helped Georg succeed

51:30: How to maintain virtual relationships

56:20: Teasing Europe’s next up-and-coming tech hotspot

Luck is on your side this week as NYU and LSE faculty member Christian Busch joins Lloyd to discuss his new book, The Serendipity Mindset.

The Director of NYU’s Global Economy Program, Christian has extensive experience with social entrepreneurship. He co-founded the Sandbox Network, a global hub for young innovators, and has advised companies like TED and Haier. And with The Serendipity Mindset, he’s exploring how the world’s best CEOs cultivate luck to gain a competitive edge.

During their conversation, Christian tells Lloyd about the differences between smart and dumb luck, how to turn rejection into an opportunity, and why saying “no” can still leave you open to serendipity. Plus, they delve into the incident that sent Christian on an intense search for meeting and tackle unconscious bias in tech.

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Buy Christian’s book: The Serendipity Mindset

Episode Highlights:

03:29: The Serendipity Mindset: how to attract smart luck

09:07: How to say “no” and still be open to opportunity

14:04: How to allow serendipitous connections to happen

20:28: Reframing: how to turn rejection into an opportunity

27:03: Why staying true to your north star ultimately helps you get ahead

31:18: The event that spurred Christian’s search for meaning

35:41: How can people network healthily online?

40:17: Combating unconscious biases in tech.

44:00: What’s next for Christian

Shachar Bialick (Founder and CEO of Curve) joins Lloyd to discuss how Curve helps its users consolidate multiple cards, and even allowing them to switch pre-COVID-19 purchases back onto a different card in 2020, and what it takes to build one of the UK’s fastest-growing FinTech firms.

And he should know. With his background in computer science and special forces in the military, Shachar has co-founded innovative digital challengers since 2001. He later took on an MBA at INSEAD, and joined a then-10-person startup Checkout.com as Head of Product in London. In 2015, he founded Curve, which simplifies personal finances with a single bank card for multiple accounts from different providers. In 2019, Curve has smashed Crowdcube - the world’s leading equity crowdfunding platform - records after raising £4M within 42 minutes. Almost 10,000 people backed Curve, reaching the highest number of investors in a raise on Crowdcube.

In this episode, Shachar and Lloyd talk about Shachar’s path from a military soldier to founder at Europe’s fastest growing fintech, as well as the importance of patience and the right employee culture.

Pre Register for Curve’s second 2021 crowdfund

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Episode Highlights:

02:37: Curve is going crowdfunding again

08:32: Explaining the convergence and rebundling

13:05: What Formula 1 car do you need to build for fintech?

20:06: From a soldier to an entrepreneur

28:28: Is it worth taking an MBA?

39:12: Growing the team of 400 employees

52:10: Shooting for the stars

1:00:00: Bonus Story: How Curve successfully migrated away from Wirecard after the outage in less than 60 hours and over the weekend.

Rodolphe Ardant, CEO of French unicorn Spendesk, is this week’s guest on the Searching for Mana podcast.  

Rodolphe enjoyed a peripatetic childhood moving around the world every three years due to his father’s career, and says this instilled in him a ‘sense of curiosity’.  

Combined with the ‘autistic boredom’ he felt growing up, Rodolphe had a desire to create and build things from an early age, skills he honed at engineering school.

It's clear in this episode that Rodolphe maintains the restlessness that characterized his younger years.  After founding and selling his first company (and learning from the mistakes), he joined the car-sharing platform Drivy as Chief Operating Officer before realising he was best suited to the agile, fast-paced start-up environment.  Spendesk was born and was built on two key values: freedom and trust.

This is a great episode with insights into how Rodolphe used his highly technical, entrepreneurial mindset to build one of France’s tech start-up success stories.

Watch & Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3sSnmMa

 

1:10 Spendesk’s mission

4:00 Lessons learned while COO at Drivy

5:55 Understanding the problem to create the solution

8:30 Money is about emotion and having control

11:17 Thinking deeply about becoming an entrepreneur again

15:50 Spendesk is built on two key values

19:25 – Rodolphe’s childhood and how it influenced his career

20:22 The joy of solving problems, and autistic boredom

23:09 What makes an entrepreneur mindset?

24’56 Getting over mistakes

27:04 What motivates him in the face of continued success

On a pathway to hiring Apple CEO Tim Cook? Pascal Gauthier is the CEO and co-founder of Ledger, a global leader in security and infrastructure solutions for cryptocurrencies and blockchain applications.

 

Now one of the most respected, outspoken and well-known leaders in web3, Lloyd walks us through Pascal’s founding journey and how he has scaled Ledger from zero to over 1000 employees. 

 

Pascal discusses the importance of Ledger’s hardware and software security, which offers complete protection for web3 digital assets. From psychology, to hiring, to thought leadership and entrepreneurship, Pascal offers insight for all those founding, looking to get into or curious about the blockchain space.

 

[ 0:00 - 9:45 ] Ledger’s product 

[ 9:46 - 17:47 ] UX and 100% web3 security  

[ 17:48 - 28:18 ] Size & Scale of Ledger, Apple inspiration & Ian Rogers 

[ 28:19 - 35:09 ] Pascal’s masterclass in hiring

[ 35:10 - 48:54 ] The origin story and Pascal’s career journey 

[ 48:55 - 57:00 ] The Mana Round 

[ 57:01 - 1:05:09 ] Future projections for Ledger and Web3

The consumer is driving up economic growth at an unprecedented rate around the world, and Claire Gates discussed with Lloyd Wahed in this week’s Searching for Mana podcast how the ease of paying for what you want to buy is a key part of that. Claire is the Chief Commercial Officer at the $1B+ valued PPRO a global provider of payments infrastructure that facilitates responsible credit transactions, making its own revenue from the merchant with the consumer protected and hassle free.

Claire exudes energy and enthusiasm and talks animatedly about her own journey which has been opportunistic and focused as she started out with a degree in chemical engineering but through an early exposure to sales and a passion for international travel and business, has taken her to a prominent position driving the commercial success of this market leader. She is a strong advocate of the need for leaders to have a vision for their businesses and their teams and being able to help everyone understand where they fit in. Claire is customer facing and coaching her people with a clarity of purpose and dynamism. “Find what you enjoy” is vital advice for career development, and she describes her appreciation for effective salespeople and culture, and in particular listening as a key skill in commerce.

Balancing an international commercial career, an infectious enthusiasm for making the most out of opportunities, being a mother and staying fit is an inspiring combination.

It was a big year for Searching for Mana, and that means one best-of show wasn’t enough. That’s right: we’re back with another edition of amazing clips from some of the most interesting people in FinTech and entrepreneurship.

This week, we have tidbits from an additional roster of amazing guests: Romi Savova, (PensionBee), Zihao Xu (Octopus Ventures), Alf Rehn (University of Southern Denmark) and Christian Busch (NYU & World Economic Forum). Plus, Lloyd gives us the key take-aways from each chat and shares the most interesting things he learned from our guests.

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https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana-talent/

 

Episode Highlights:

01:14: Romina Savova, PensionBee

05:41: Zihao Xu, Octopus Ventures

14:11: Alf Rehn, University of Southern Denmark

19:27: Christian Busch, Author of Serendipity Mindset, NYU & World Economic Forum
 

On this episode of Searching for Mana FinTech, joining Lloyd Wahed is Michael Whitehead, Chief Banking and Product Officer of Freemarket. Join Michael as he shares how Freemarket’s technology-driven approach has led to its consistent growth over the past years. Michael presents an intriguing perspective on this pioneering entity that is disrupting traditional banking norms, especially in the cross-border payments and foreign exchange domains. Including insights on their digitisation, automation, and compliance as they continue to scale and refine their customer experience. It's an episode that shines a light on the potential of fintech companies to reshape the banking industry of the future. Check out Freemarket here: https://www.wearefreemarket.com/

Welcome to a thrilling episode of Searching for Mana, brought to you by our series host, Lloyd Wahed, CEO and Co-founder of Mana Group. In this episode, we have in store an exceptional conversation with Carsten Lebtig, one of the minds behind WorkMotion. Born from a desire to crack open the globe for employers hunting for talent, WorkMotion is a startup that's scaling incredible heights in the world of work today. Committed to revolutionizing talent acquisition, WorkMotion is taking giant strides in helping companies transcend geographical boundaries to uncover the best talent globally. Beyond his corporate life, Carsten shares his intriguing personal journey, unearthing the drive and passion that fuels his success in business and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. ❓Curious about Carsten and WorkMotion? Dive deep into their ideas here: https://workmotion.com Follow Searching For Mana to stay tuned into our latest episodes of the most exciting topics in Future Of Work. Website: https://manasearch.co.uk/browse-jobs/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mana.search/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana1 ✍️ We'd love to hear your thoughts! Drop us a comment with your opinion, experiences, and questions – we would love to bring them to our future episodes! 👍 Like this episode and subscribe to this channel if our content helped and inspired you! See you in our next episode!

The inaugural Future of Work episode by Searching for Mana. And what an episode it is. Founder and CEO of Oyster, Tony Jamous, speaks to Lloyd Wahed and Antonietta Pugliese about the future of work. From the essence of what challenges our future workplaces are facing, to how remote work is not a failure and the Blue Zone, to AI and tooling's impact in the journey ahead. This is an absolutely fascinating edition to kick off our new series with, as Tony gives us some expert insight and brilliant opinions on some of the most pressing matters of our current time. Even bringing sustainability and the future of our planet into the conversation, this episode is guaranteed to open your eyes to some absolutely intriguing ways to think about the future of work. Let us know who you'd like to see next, and subscribe so you never miss an update. Want to transform your business and be part of a better future of work? Find Oyster's special 20% off discount here: http://bit.ly/oysterdiscount

Metaverse, blockchain, ChatGPT, NFT marketplaces and more! Discover the journey of Mo Shaikh, the innovative mind behind Aptos Labs, as he dives into his entrepreneurial roots and the inspiration behind his groundbreaking platform. From discussing ecosystem tools to emphasizing the power of empathy, Mo shares insights into his daily routine and strategic approaches to success. Join host Lloyd Wahed, CEO and founder of Mana Group, as he unravels the fascinating story that drives Mo's vision, in an episode that encapsulates passion, business acumen, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. Tune in for a captivating exploration of creativity, dedication, and the intersection of technology and humanity. Website: https://manasearch.co.uk/browse-jobs/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mana.search/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana1

This week, Lloyd chats with Dr Karen Elliott, a Senior Lecturer in Enterprise/Innovation at Newcastle University. Karen was voted one of Innovate Finance’s #Standout 35 Women in FinTech, and in 2018, she and her colleagues earned a £1.2-million grant to help Atom Bank elevate its FinTech services. In this interview, Lloyd and Karen discuss the future of work, why a strong sense of purpose is the best incentive in the FinTech space, and the unexpected challenges facing emotionally intelligent bots. Plus: how can we stop the next Wirecard before it happens, breaking down the divide between academia and business, and so much more.

If you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave us a review! And don’t forget to follow Mana Search on Twitter and LinkedIn.

To learn more about the study Lloyd discusses at 21:45, click here: https://hbr.org/2011/05/the-power-of-small-wins

Show Notes:

[02:10] Karen walks us through her experience and credentials.

[13:40] Explaining the theory of trust.

[23:40] Why working collectively makes leaders better.

[31:25] AI’s blackbox issue: if complex machine learning systems can’t be explained, how do we get consumers to trust them?

[35:45] Why consumers don’t always want emotionally intelligent bots.

[53:32] Karen tells us why we don’t see more collaboration between academia and business.

[01:05:16] Which courses can help students get ahead in FinTech?

David Shriver, Head of Communications at Ocado Group, knows how to formulate and tell a story.

Exceptionally eloquent and adept at forming narratives within high-growth tech businesses,  David joins Lloyd to walk through the cruciality of telling consistent and coherent stories.

With over 35 years of experience in communications, this episode represents an absolute  masterclass in storytelling, so critical to the success of entrepreneurs, both internally and externally, as David elucidates.

Lloyd guides us through David’s journey, how he was inspired from and incentivized by his  father from a young age into reading, his Master’s in Anglosaxon Language, and his rise to the  top, as a key leader within the Ocado Group.

With so many critical takeaways for all entrepreneurs and those who formulate narratives, this  episode provides fascinating insight into how to tell a story, as David describes humanity’s  intrinsic desire to tell stories, harking back to medieval times and before, and relating this into the modern tech world.

 

[ 0:00 - 4:14 ] Telling the story of The Ocado Group

[ 4:15 - 7:11 ] The size and scale of Ocado

[ 7:11 - 11:07 ] The USP of the Ocado Smart Platform & outdoing Amazon

[ 11:08 - 16:15 ] Ocado’s Hollywood scenario

[ 16:15 - 22:15 ] Future of the High Street

[ 22:15 - 26:04 ] The cruciality of storytelling for tech entrepreneurs

[ 26:04 - 33:42 ] How technology has affected Communications

[ 33:42 - 39:18 ] Frameworking narratives and articulating purpose

[ 39:18 - 44:18 ] David’s background and rise to the top

[ 44:18 - 51:42 ] Reading, reading and reading more

[ 51:42 - 56:05 ] Quick-fire round & David’s Mana

[ 56:05 - 59:58 ] The Mana narrative

[ 59:58 - 1:06:41 ] Critical analysis of the word, and the future of education

In this episode of Searching for Mana, we're sitting down with Piotr Pisarz, founder and CEO of Uncapped, a leading alternative finance provider empowering companies to turbocharge growth through non-dilutive capital. Piotrz shares the trailblazing path charted by Uncapped in the realm of entrepreneurial finance: from the initial tremors of rejection to the eventual seismic paradigm shift in the financing landscape. Join us as we unearth insights about the company's early years, insights on the hiring process from a founder's perspective and the exciting future that lies ahead. ❓Curious about Piotr Pisarz and Uncapped? Dive deep into their ideas here: Piotr Pisarz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/piotrpisarz/ Uncapped: https://www.weareuncapped.com Follow Searching For Mana to stay tuned into our latest episodes. Website: https://manasearch.co.uk/browse-jobs/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mana.search/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana1 ✍️ We'd love to hear your thoughts! Drop us a comment with your opinion, experiences, and questions – we would love to bring them to our future episodes! 👍 Like this episode and subscribe to this channel if our content helped and inspired you! See you in our next episode!

On this episode of Searching for Mana, we sit down with Ruth Hancock, CEO of Octopus Money, a pioneer in the FinTech space dedicated to redefining personal finance. Ruth offers listeners an insider's view of her journey from her humble beginnings to becoming an influential figure in the finance world. From her upbringing in the Midlands to navigating the complexities of the finance industry, Ruth shares her unique insights into what it takes to disrupt an industry and pave the way for financial wellbeing. Delve into Ruth’s rich and varied experiences, from her transformative years in higher education to her adventurous stints working in conflict-affected countries. With her eye always on the mission, Ruth’s career epitomises adaptability and the power of investing in human connection and relationships. Listen in as she explains how Octopus Money is championing a new era of financial wellness inspired by the lessons learned from her past and her vision of a future featuring a hybrid working model. Find out more about Octopus Money here: https://octopusmoney.com Searching for Mana: https://searchingformana.com

As 2020 draws to a close, we look back on some of the brightest moments from Searching for Mana over the past year.

And what a line-up it is! Listen through for amazing conversations with FinTech luminaries such as Conrad Ford (Funding Options, Allica Bank), Joe Parkin (BlackRock), Ned Phillips (Bambu), Adam French (Scalable Capital) and Romi Savova (PensionBee). Plus, Lloyd discusses each guest and the unique insights they brought to the show.

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Episode Highlights:

01:21: Conrad Ford, Founder of Funding Options

06:15: Joe Parkin, MD at BlackRock

11:53: Ned Phillips, Founder and CEO of Bambu

19:25: Adam French, Founder and CEO of Scalable Capital

We’ve got blockchain on the brain this week as serial founder Alex Mashinsky sits down with Lloyd to talk DeFi, crypto and so much more.

As Founder and CEO of Arbinet, Alex made his name in the ‘90s as a pioneer of VOIP. From there, he went on to found eight more companies that raised a total of $1 billion in funds. Today, he runs Celsius Network, a P2P crypto lender that boasts more than $1 billion in deposits.

In their wide-ranging conversation, Alex tells Lloyd why traditional finance is ripe for disruption and why he believes crypto will bring about that change. They also discuss why COVID will be a driver of new career opportunities, how Alex creates unusually successful companies and the forces that motivate Alex to constantly shake up established industries.

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Episode Highlights:

02:11: The reason Alex wants to share Celsius’s yield with his customer base

11:00: The reasons traditional finance is ripe for disruption

16:34: Why Alex left a successful public company to start Celsius

21:37: How job creation will accelerate in the wake of COVID

24:33: The promising future of crypto

29:40: How Alex creates unusually successful start-ups

34:09: Why Alex feels so responsible to the Celsius community

39:44: How the best patents tell a story

44:25: Big predictions on the future of finance

This week, Bitstamp CEO Julian Sawyer comes back to Searching for Mana to join Lloyd for an enlightening chat about fintech, crypto, altcoins and so much more! A financial veteran with over 20 years’ experience, who previously co-founded Starling Bank in 2015, or later served as UK MD at Gemini, Julian offers incredible insight into both blockchain and financial services in general.

Bitstamp is the world's longest-standing crypto exchange, continuously supporting the Bitcoin economy since 2011. With a proven track record and mature approach to the industry, it provides a secure and transparent venue to over four million customers and enables partners to access emerging crypto markets through time-proven infrastructure. The platform allows companies and individuals from all around the world to buy and sell over 30 available cryptos.

On this week’s Searching for Mana podcast, Jason Trost CEO of Smarkets and Lloyd Wahed discussed the evolution of Smarkets and how it is disrupting an old fashioned market in betting, and Jason’s own journey to create and lead this London based business from his early years growing up in the US.

Smarkets is on a mission to make betting online easier and less expensive “to get out of the way” of the consumer, and simplify what has become over-complicated, and to many inaccessible. Sport dominates online betting but he is a “politics junky” and his passion for politics and trying to understand political outcomes is clear and an important part of the Smarkets product range. The company has been steadily growing for 13 years, and Jason explains how his appreciation of how quickly time passes has changed as he has learnt and matured himself. He is a fearless optimist and was always ambitious to do something big but wasn’t sure what it should be, in fact, he went to university without knowing what he would do, but once in the world of work he looked at the betting industry could see how technology could solve the problem of complexity and user experience and his focus crystallised.

On that journey, he has found that people rather than technology have been his biggest area of interest. Understanding the people he works with and how they work with each other is interesting. He is fully appreciative of how a diversity of interests and abilities can exist together successfully in a thriving business, but he sees a weakness in how people are so often not good at the hard conversations that are necessary to move a project on. He wants to “get the most out of people and help them be the best they can be” and his role is to facilitate that, but he sees a weakness in our societal inability to engage in “respectful good faith conflict”. Jason’s view is that our society is at the teenager stage where we are uncomfortable sharing our own views and vulnerabilities, and as a result businesses can be slow to develop. Not everyone is driven in the way that an entrepreneur is but everyone can make the most of their opportunities with more frank and non-judgemental interaction, bound together through transparent targets for the future.

Nick Mills, CircleCI GM EMEA, joins Lloyd to discuss the future of tech and software engineering. The company, which is a software delivery platform automating development workflows and IT operations, has just reached a $1.7 billion valuation, after the recent $100 million Series F.

And Nick has a unique perspective on the subject. Since 2008, he joined the tech giants like Microsoft or Facebook (pre-IPO stage), and later worked at Stripe closely with their founders Patrick and John. Since then, he's become an early-stage investor, non-exec director and board advisor in Fintech companies and the mini-CEO for CircleCI EMEA region.

Lloyd and Nick discuss how Nick joined tech from a law degree, the VC and investment landscape in Europe, and differences between leading at large tech organisations versus early-stage startups. Plus, Nick tells us how software can be a catalyst for innovation and how investing can affect social impact with high leverage.

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Books:

Accelerate

Outliers

Bounce

Episode Highlights:

01:32: How can we optimise software development?

06:59: Global expansion with regionalisation and localisation

12:47: Trends in software engineering

18:52: Early-career and joining the tech industry

25:36: DIfference between launching and scaling a fintech in the US vs Europe

30:34: Lessons from working with Facebook engineers

34:39: Working at early-stage startups and large organisation

42:34: Nick’s Mana

51:44: CircleCI’s growth plans and the future of software development hiring

The Searching for Mana show with Lloyd Wahed has featured several ‘one of a kind’ guests – and this show is no exception.  Wei Lei is not only a global leader for one of the biggest companies on the planet, she is also a two-time mathematical Olympiad who enjoys karaoke sessions, ran a marathon without training for it and overcame her fear of public speaking by taking part in an open mic comedy night.  

Clearly not one for half measures, Wei also says she is obsessive to the point of it being ‘clinically inappropriate’ – but also credits this with her ability to dive deep into matters of personal and professional importance.  But this intensity is balanced by Wei’s humility, compassion and a mindset anchored in gratitude and collaboration.  Music also plays an important role in Wei’s life and in this episode Wei and Lloyd discuss why it seems to be a common thread among founders and pioneers.

As Chief Investment Strategist at BlackRock, Wei is aware of the weight her role carries and discusses Blackrock’s approach to net zero as well as her view on the current market volatility.  It’s a great episode – inspiring and entertaining, and not to be missed.

Episode highlights:

7.32 – Wei Li’s role at BlackRock

14.52 – What’s the skillset needed to do her job?

15.35 – The importance of building a diverse team

20.10 – The impact of having a rich cultural tapestry for Wei personally and at work

21.55 – The power of introverts

24.20 – BlackRock’s approach to NetZero and ‘disorderly volatility’

30.10 – EFTs and the importance of compounding

36.10 – Wei Li’s life – in the beginning

37.20 – Winning the gold Olympic medal for maths

38.20 – Being a ‘dragony’ parent

40.43 – Becoming a karaoke monster

42.15 – The universal language of music – and the link to maths and entrepreneurship

45.24 – Life at Cambridge University

47.41 – Leaning in to capabilities

49.30 – Lucky to have great mentors

53.45 – Wei Li’s life advice

58.07 – Overcoming a fear of public speaking via an open mic night at the comedy club

1.00.40 – What does Wei Li do to relax (it includes running a marathon without training)

1.05 – Will she follow Larry Fink to the White House?

1.10.20 – What does the future of work, finance and tech look like to her?

1.18.50 – Being borderline clinically inappropriate obsessive

The Missing Link is the show that uncovers the vital connection between insurance and crypto. Dan and Danielle of Nayms sit down with Alex Thorn, Head of Firmwide Research at Galaxy Digital. At Galaxy, Alex leads a team of researchers dedicated to understanding and unpacking developments in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, producing insights for internal and external audiences. With over 15+ years of experience in blockchain research, crypto ventures, and exploring the intersection of traditional finance and digital assets, he really breaks things down brilliantly. He advises where venture capital money is going and if VCs need a different knowledge set to invest in protocol level start-ups, talks about his passion for wanting to move away from speculation to fundamentals to dive in and use the protocol, what the most important things being built on layer 2s right now are, and so much more.

There's few challenges greater when scaling a successful FinTech company than retaining a strong culture. Laura Spiekerman, Co-Founder & President of Alloy, speaks to host Lloyd Wahed about her story from childhood through to her founding one of the most successful stories in FinTech over the last decade. Alloy are an identity decisioning platform for FinTechs and Banks. They tackle risk and compliance for some of the largest institutions in the world. It's likely they've ensured your profile is safe before setting up a card at whichever bank you are with. With over 300 people, $200 million raised, and a unicorn (billion) valuation - they're providing real benefit to our everyday lives without us even noticing. However, this episode is about Laura and her journey from law to the entrepreneurial world. Being surrounded by female figures as a young kid meant that she became aware of the desperate need for increased diversity and inclusivity. Seeing a real life impact of technology whilst working in East Africa, speaking to startup founders whilst working in a corporate environment, even a bad boss - all contributed to where she is now. It's a really open look into the past of a brilliantly entrepreneurial leader, as well as a chance for us to learn more about the crucial impact Risk, KYC, AML, and Compliance, have on all of us whether we realise it or not.

Ben Chemla CEO of Shares and Lloyd Wahed of Mana Search met to discuss how Shares is making share dealing a social activity and how Ben has learnt how to grow a company fast in a new market.

The idea for Shares came from social investing, seeing friends chatting about their ideas and sharing views, having fun and learning from each other. He saw the opportunity to enable communities around making a safe space to explore opportunities with friends, sharing portfolio activity in real time.

Ben uses a comparison with Strava, which informs the community you connect with about the route you took and what you found, but you choose what you share and with whom, and for those that share that interest it’s compelling and often inspiring. Like many entrepreneurs Ben studied law but didn’t want to make it his career, however his creative spark surfaced at university as he created the student association at Le Sorbonne. Creativity has driven Ben to want to build things, he has surrounded himself with the best people to learn from and he is interested in all parts of the business. Solving problems is a creative act and seeing how the whole organic structure functions allows him to use that talent.

It’s vital to keep learning and Ben learnt very early on about the type of investors who could support him in the best way, and he clearly thrives in the company of those who can give him the benefit of their experience. The result is that Shares is only 8 months old, they have achieved their first raise, they have 60 employees, and the ambition, vision and belief come from Ben and everyone they hire. Each member of staff needs to demonstrate Ambition, the ability to Impact, the ability to take Ownership and think globally. They want to do business across the EU from March next year, they will add the UK imminently, and they expect to raise every 6 months.

Ben uses a chess analogy of thinking 5 steps ahead all the time, and part of making that work is building a strong community as a foundation to rapid growth. Every opportunity to publicise and play their part in the democratising of finance will be taken. He wants his people to have strong views, to be able to express them, but also to be able to listen to each other and understand their contribution and to be happy with the result of an exchange if it is the best way forward. No obstructive ego, learning is about being open to the ideas of others. Ben talks about what he learnt of the intensity of the US tech and scale up scene, and how taking a global view from day one works so well there. This company is very ambitious and Ben is leading the team at a fast rate to a prestigious position in a market they are helping to create.

In this episode of Searching for Mana Fintech, co-hosts Dan and Sachin engage in a compelling conversation with Robin Gilthorpe, CEO of Earnix, a pioneering company providing AI-driven SaaS solutions for the financial and insurance sectors. 

Since its founding in 2001, Earnix has led innovation with dynamic tools that transform insurer operations, from risk evaluation to real-time pricing.

The discussion explores strategies that have positioned Earnix as a key player in this evolving industry, covering global market expansion and complex regulatory environments.

Robin shares insights on how Earnix’s technology enables insurers to launch products faster, make smarter pricing decisions, and stay competitive. He also addresses the challenges of global scaling and navigating diverse regulations.

Tune in to discover the strategies positioning companies like Earnix at the forefront of industry advancements.

Earnix website: https://earnix.com/

Robin Gilthorpe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robingilthorpe/

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Building anything that is going to survive and prosper requires a solid foundation and that is what Sean Lee CEO of the Algo Foundation described when he met Lloyd Wahed in this week’s Searching for Mana Podcast.  The Algo is the native token of the Algorand blockchain, and the Algo foundation helps users solve real-world problems using the Algo ecosystem which is based on four basic principles:

• Speed, as it sends money anywhere in 4 seconds
• Scale, to support billions of users without slowing down
• Security, to operate without any forks, and
• Transparency, as anyone can see how many Algo are in use

To add to that compelling mix of benefits the Algo takes no mining to use, so this is a green, carbon-neutral technology using consensus as an alternative. Here is a different type of platform to solve the blockchain trilemma of being fast, scalable and secure together.

Currently, there are 2m Algo transactions a day and Sean sees their role as part of a new generation of technologists with a vast array of opportunities in front of them and a “rising sea to lift all our boats”. Sean studied computer science before working through what he defines as a series of technology-driven waves that have transformed the way life and business work. The first wave was the internet driving new business models, and then social networks changed the way we communicate with each other, which was followed by the “sharing economy” enabled by the cloud and here we are now on a rising tide of transaction innovations increasing efficiency, transparency and security.

The Algo foundation invite applications from institutions around the world who want to use the Algorand blockchain, and Sean describes a project with the University of Cape Town, which they will be funding for some years to create a centre of excellence to apply blockchain solutions to digital currency and identity issues across Africa. This is part of the foundation's belief in education and helping the tokenisation of assets release the benefits of ownership and provide equitable financial assets to those that don’t have them. For Sean crypto assets create an economic model by engaging with communities wanting to leverage the blockchain to empower them through better owner models and frictionless ways to transact.

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This week, Lord Holmes, MBE joins Lloyd in this special episode, within the Fintech Week London 2021, for an enlightening chat about fintech, financial inclusion, crypto and so much more! Lord Holmes is the Vice-Chair of the Parliamentary Groups on Fintech, AI, Blockchain and 4IR. He is a member of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology and has co-authored Lords Select Committee reports on: Digital Skills, Social Mobility, Financial Inclusion, AI, Intergenerational Fairness and Democracy and Digital Technologies. He has also authored a report on ‘Distributed Ledger Technology for public good: leadership, collaboration, innovation.’

A ex-Paralympic swimmer, Chris won nine gold, five silvers and one bronze Olympic medal across four Games, including a record haul of six golds at Barcelona 1992.

Touching on everything from the importance of community building in fintech, UK financial landscape potential, Chris and Lloyd talk everything fintech and crypto has to offer. Then they dig into Chris’ career to provide inspiring advice: how to win gold medals, how to take feedback effectively, the importance of teamwork and other valuable lessons!

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Episode Highlights:

02:15: Passing financial services bills 

09:35: Why should fintech IPO in the UK?

13:38: The UK fintech talent pipeline

16:36: Chris’ passion for tech

20:08: Winning Olympic gold medals

33:59: Predictions for the crypto space

48:50: Chris’ Mana

Veronica Wong, CEO & Co-Founder of SafePal, joins host Lloyd Wahed to speak on building a company right from the ICO boom of 2017, across two bull/bear market cycles, and into the bumpy start of 2023. Despite the macroeconomic challenges in their way, Veronica and SafePal have worked to put themselves in a position to achieve their long-term goal of onboarding a billion users into Web3. This is truly an eye-opening episode, with much to learn from an inspiring leader. From an environment surrounded by people who taught her to ask questions throughout childhood, a windy winter dinner that was the catalyst to building a successful scale-up over the last five years, to the balance of responsibility when being seen as a leader in the community - there are countless lessons in this discussion.

This week, Lloyd delves into entrepreneurship and mental health as he welcomes Talis Capital's Matus Maar.

As Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Talis, Matus has overseen early-stage investments in such FinTech giants as Onfido, iwoca, PriceFX and many more. Talis is also a leader in mental health amongst VCs. Recently, the firm announced a new initiative that offers mental health support to founders at its portfolio companies.

On this episode, Matus tells Lloyd why Talis is such an unconventional fund, why the company has focused largely on infrastructure investments, and why he avoids investments in consumer P2P lenders. Then they discuss the mental health burdens of founding a company, why support networks are critical and how the pandemic has affected employers' mental health.

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Learn more about Talis Capital's mental health initiative

 

Episode Highlights:

08:11: How Talis finds cutting edge infrastructure companies

16:12: Why Talis is an unconventional fund

19:15: What Matus loves about venture capital

25:12: Why Talis doesn't invest in consumer P2P lenders

31:46: The mental health burdens of starting a company

38:32: COVID-19 and mental health

46:40: Why success and unhealthy behaviour are not synonymous

50:09: Lloyd's advice for founders

54:10: The importance of self-care for founders

What is the next frontier in the Future of Work? Is it AI? Is it remote work? Ben Wright of Velocity Global joins Lloyd Wahed on the newest episode of Searching for Mana Future of Work to discuss what his take on this is - the ability to enable people everywhere to access fair employment and opportunities that will become life-changing. Ben is the Founder of Velocity Global, and has just moved from CEO to Executive Chairman. Speaking about the future of work, as well as his past experiences, this is a fantastic episode looking at a very tangible next step for Velocity and the world in terms of "lifting people up everywhere". Find out more about Velocity Global here: https://velocityglobal.com

Joining Lloyd this week is Solana Founder and CEO Anatoly Yakovenko, in this fascinating, candid and eye-opening episode.

 

Solana really needs no introduction.

 

One of the most prominent and popular blockchain platforms, particularly amongst developers, Solana is able to run over 6,000 transactions per second and 30 million app transactions per day. For context, that’s more than all other blockchains combined!

 

Diving into the rise of Solana, as well as speaking honestly on the struggles along the way, Anatoly sheds amazing light into his founding journey, and the future of a platform at the forefront of the web3 charge.

 

From launching their new phone, to seeking to emulate the likes of Linux across web2, the sky truly is the limit with regard to where Solana can go.

 

A superb podcast, Anatoly’s self-belief and belief in the potential of blockchain is incredible.

 

[ 0:00 - 7:23 ] The power, potential and scale of Solana

[ 7:24 - 15:54 ] NFTs, Solana outages and redundancy

[ 15:55 - 20:39 ] Serum, SBF and increasing decentralisation

[ 20:40 - 27:22 ] Quick-fire Mana round

[ 27:23 - 33:28 ] Anatoly’s background, Qualcomm and encouragement from his wife

[ 33:29 - 39:38 ] Water Hockey, Anatoly’s Eureka moment and founding Solana

[ 39:39 - 44:44 ] The future of Social Media

[ 44:45 - 51:16 ] Solana’s Mobile Phone - Saga

[ 51:16 - 59:13 ] Venture Capital and the future of Solana

The Missing Link's first guest is Steven Becker, CEO of UDHC and former President & COO of MakerDAO. From early beginnings in derivatives and trading, the initial stages of MakerDAO, early pioneering of on-chain auditing and smart contracts, to the future of DeFi - it's a corker.

The future of money is here as Octopus Ventures Partner Zihao Xu sits down with Lloyd to discuss how he finds tomorrow’s fintech behemoths.

After starting his career with renowned strategic consultancy Roland Berger, Zihao moved into the venture capital sphere with Octopus, which identifies “unusually talented entrepreneurs” and offers early-stage funding. In this in-depth conversation, Zihao tells us what he looks for in an entrepreneur, how he determines the potential of products that haven’t even been built yet, and why effective staffing is the most important thing in building a successful enterprise. 

Plus, Zihao lets us in on what the next decade of fintech has in store and whether the shift to fully digital currencies is inevitable. 

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Episode Highlights:

05:55: What constitutes unusual talent and how does Zihao identify it?

08:52: How Octopus prioritises product in early-stage investments

17:48: The importance of staffing effectively in early-stage businesses.

21:52: How the internet is spurring major changes in finance

29:30: What does the next decade of finance have in store?

35:35: Why Octopus is investing in crypto derivatives

39:40: Zihao’s path into (and out of) consulting

43:29: How Bitcoin spurred Zihao to follow his passion

49:45: What Zi does to be the best venture capitalist possible.

39:10: How to increase executive diversity in FinTech

41:05: How to build a purpose-driven culture

Richard Davies (CEO of Allica Bank, Non-Executive Director at Revolut) joins Lloyd to discuss the state of SME lending post-COVID and what it takes to succeed at the UK’s biggest fintechs.

And he should know. Throughout his career, Richard has moved seamlessly between major incumbent banks and innovative digital challengers. He served as a Managing Director at Barclays and as COO at HSBC, but he has also thrived as a banking CEO at both OakNorth and Revolut. Recently, Richard took the first step on the next bold phase in his career: launching Allica Bank, a digital challenger that hopes to disrupt the underserved world of SME lending.

In this episode, Richard and Lloyd talk about Richard’s path from tree surgeon to executive at Europe’s fastest growing fintech, as well as the importance of achieving both scale and profitability. Plus, they tackle the big question: are salary deposits the best sign of success amongst digital challengers? 

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Episode Highlights:

02:20: Explaining SME lending and the issues incumbents face in this sector

10:22: From tree surgery to KPMG: how Richard got into banking

21:50: Do you have to drive a Jaguar to succeed in banking?

29:22: Richard's experience with Revolut

32:05: Why profitability has become catnip for investors

37:26: The traits you need to thrive at the UK’s biggest fintechs

40:15: Revolut as super app: why getting salary payments is no longer objective number one.

52:48: Fixing the UK post-COVID and Brexit: what Richard wants to do with Allica.

This episode of 'Searching For Mana' with Lloyd Wahed brings you deep insights into the world of disruptive innovation as we chat with Cathie Wood, CEO and founder of Ark Invest, a firm dedicated to fostering the technologies that continue to transform our global economy. Cathie and her team concentrate exclusively on disruptive innovation, an approach more than an investment strategy—it's a philosophy intended to navigate an uncertain yet undeniably exhilarating future era. Acquaint yourself with the five key technologies integral to today’s historical shift. Delve into the intricacies of the relationship and convergence between domains as diverse as robotics, energy storage, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and gene sequencing in life sciences. Tune in to understand the rapid growth these tenets are experiencing, mapped on the S-curve that signposts disruptive innovation at scale. https://www.ark-invest.com/ Follow Searching For Mana to stay tuned into our latest episodes. Website: https://manasearch.co.uk/browse-jobs/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mana.search/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana1 👍 Like this episode and subscribe to this channel if our content helped and inspired you!

On this episode, Lloyd sits down with Joseph George, Managing Director and Partner at Dufrain. In his work with both Dufrain and Deloitte, Joseph has worked with major financial institutions such as Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays, JPMorgan and more. Earlier this year, DataIQ named him one of the UK’s most influential people in data and analytics.

In a wide ranging discussion, Lloyd and Joseph talk about the role education plays in career advancement, why mechanical engineering is a great specialty for future managers, and why FinTech companies are so exciting right now. Plus, Joseph shares his best advice for young professionals and tells us why the consultancies of the future will need to prioritise culture.

If you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave us a review! And don’t forget to follow us on social media:

Mana Search on Twitter

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Joseph George on LinkedIn

 

Episode Highlights:

[08:11] Joseph outlines how his cultural background instilled the importance of education from an early age.

[18:38] How mechanical engineering preps professionals for management roles.

[26:30] Why Joseph came to study in the UK rather than the US.

[33:30] The best advice Joseph ever got in university.

[44:10] Why experience is more important than education in the UK.

[54:25] How the significance of data caused Joseph to jump from Deloitte to Dufrain.

[01:02:15] Why culture is the future for financial consultancies.

[01:14:50] How the financial services industry embraced data, and why SMEs are just catching up.

[01:25:25] Why FinTech companies are so exciting for Joseph right now.

[01:28:30] Joseph’s tips for young professionals.

The future of finance is here as Airwallex’ Jed Rose sits down with Lloyd to discuss how he plans to expand the UK operations of this $2.6B valued fintech unicorn.

After starting his career in product at Microsoft in the 2000s, Jed moved into finance leading Paymentsense, and into the venture capital sphere with Antler. Since 2020, he joined Airwallex as EMEA GM with huge ambitions to grow the company’s London presence this year - aiming to double the headcount in just a few months and grow the team by over 500% by the end of the year. Following the recent $100M at its Series D funding round, raising a total of $500M in capital from investors including Seqouia Capital, Salesforce Ventures, and Horizons Ventures, Airwallex is now valued at $2.6B. In 2018, it has knocked back $1B offer from Stripe.

In this in-depth conversation, Jed tells us all insights and experience Jed has gained as an investor and former CEO, currently serving as a Venture Partner for Antler, and how this has provided him with key insights into startup lessons, failures and how to approach growth; what are the challenges of building Airwallex’s infrastructure in a market at a different stage of growth compared to its presence in Australia and China, and what lessons can be learnt from this.

Plus, Jed lets us in on how is it to study the BA major at Stanford, which produced the likes of Reid Hoffman, Marissa Mayer or Mike Krieger, and training for improv theatre that led to performing at the Fringe Edinburgh Festival.
 

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Books recommended by Jed:

Truth in Comedy: The Manual of Improvisation: AmazonSmile: Halpern: Books

Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up eBook: Madson, Patricia Ryan: AmazonSmile: Kindle Store
 

Episode Highlights:

02:10: Airwallex raising $100m reaching a $2.6B valuation

13:45: How to leverage the global team and remote hiring

19:00: Techie at heart, and experience at Stanford University BA Symbolic Systems

25:00: How to apply agile thinking mindset in other processes?

28:00: Product at Microsoft in the mid-2000, and Bill Gates’ writing team experience

30:50: Cambridge University and fintech experience

33:25: Venture Capitalist experience and career with impact

36:16: Improv theatre as 🧠 muscle training

39:00: What the future of finance looks like as lockdown measures start to ease and why the market is more prime than ever for disruption

42:25: Jed’s mana

This week, Kraken’s Managing Director Jakub Zakrzewski joins Lloyd for an enlightening chat about crypto, fintech, angel investment, career progression and so much more! A Forbes 30 under 30 superstar, with experience at companies like Rocket Internet and Revolut, Jakub offers incredible insight into both blockchain and fintech.

Kraken is one of the world's largest and oldest cryptocurrency exchanges, with more than $1 billion worth of cryptocurrencies stoked to date. Touching on everything from the importance of the centralised side of DeFI, Jakub and Lloyd talk everything crypto has to offer. Then they dig into Jakub’s career to provide crucial advice: how to improve your own career algorithm, how hardworking is the core of many successful stories, how to cold email Revolut’s CEO for a job and other valuable lessons!

Mana Search on Twitter

Mana Search on LinkedIn

 

Episode Highlights:

02:30: Kraken’s strategic development in APAC

11:55: Should we regulate DeFi and digital assets industry?

17:59: The cyclical nature of the cryptocurrencies’ market

21:08: Building own career’s algorithm and the next-day flight ticket to Malaysia

26:40 Working with Nik’s from Revolut

28:28: Building a company from scratch in Hong Kong

36:46: Angel investing, the traits of best founders and future of fintech

43:44 Jakub’s Mana

Illia Polosukhin, Founder & CEO of NEAR Protocol, is this week’s guest on Searching for Mana. Following on from the brilliant earlier episode with Marieke Flamant, Lloyd gets to the bottom of building a company sitting at the forefront of this potential paradigm shift to web3.

 

Lloyd and Illia guide us through the technical intricacies of the platform, the wider NEAR ecosystem, building a leading developer community and bringing mass user adoption to blockchain, impacting the future of work, and Illia’s own journey from Ukraine to Silicon Valley and now to Lisbon.

 

Developing a fascination with programming from a young age and becoming one of the top coders in Ukraine, Illia represents one of the most informed individuals on AI, having worked closely on Tensorflow prior to pivoting from one of the Big 4, and into his own entrepreneurial journey with NEAR.

 

In an enthralling conversation that spans the deeply technical discussion of DAOs, the NEAR platform and its similarities with Linux, with ideas around entrepreneurship, thought leadership and psychology, this episode is not to be missed.

 

On top of all of this, Illia is also at the forefront of Unchain Fund - an initiative leveraging blockchain and crypto to get money into the hands of those who desperately need it in the ongoing Ukraine war, which raised over $1 million within 24 hours. Links to Illia’s charity pages are below:

 

Donate: https://unchain.fund/#donate

Instagram with stories: https://www.instagram.com/unchain_fund/

 

[ 0:00 - 3:50 ] An intro to NEAR

[ 3:50 - 10:10 ] Running a Layer 1 blockchain platform

[ 10:10 - 16:04 ] How many winners will there be in web3

[ 16:04 - 19:54 ] Incentivising cross-chain communication

[ 19:54 - 24:07 ] Sweatcoin and onboarding users onto NEAR

[ 24:07 - 25:39 ] Illia’s Mana

[ 25:39 - 30:19 ] A winning mentality and the cruciality of communication

[ 30:19 - 34:39 ] Artificial Intelligence - friend or foe?

[ 34:39 - 39:07 ] Illia’s origin story and SciFi writings

[ 39:07 - 44:28 ] Diving deeper into code

[ 44:28 - 49:22 ] The future of education & universities

[ 49:22 - 58:21 ] Working at Google and Entrepreneurship

[ 58:21 - 1:02:41 ] Key skill-sets in web3

[ 1:02:41 - 1:09:18 ] DAOs and the future of NEAR

[ 1:09:18 - 1:16:05 ] The Ukraine war and the future of disaster relief

Searching for Mana is back with Sardine CEO and Co-Founder Soups Ranjan. Join host Lloyd Wahed and we dive into why fraud, AI, machine learning, payments, and crypto are inextricably linked and crucial to financial infrastructure in the future. Soups has had a brilliant career, from one of the very first employees at Coinbase, to a fintech giant such as Revolut, before embarking on a personal journey as a founder of Sardine. The project is attempting to battle the ongoing issue of fraud within the fintech and Web3 world, which has phenomenal consequences on not only your wallet's safety, but the price of anything you pay for. Listen to Soups explain how this is an issue that affects all of us, especially in a time where crypto and AI are in need of defence against fraud and scams.

In the first episode of season 4 of the Searching for Mana podcast, Brett Harrison, US president of leading crypto exchange platform FTX, talks to presenter Lloyd Wahed about the importance of regulation but also the need to take more risks; how staying small has helped FTX to play big; how he balances being a father and an enthusiastic pet owner (six dogs and five cats) with running one of the most talked about companies of the moment. And, of course, what it’s like working with Sam Bankman-Fried.

We're excited to bring you a second Searching for Mana guest from Chainalysis, the world's leading intelligence and risk management entity in blockchain. Pratima Arora, Chief Product Officer, joins Lloyd Wahed in an episode sponsored by Freemarket. Having been previously joined by Michael Gronager, Founder & CEO, this marks a special continuation of the highly pressing topics of consumer trust and fraud within Web3. From the fact that less than 1% of all activity on blockchain is illicit activity, to what a weekly workflow might look like in an absolute rocketship of a company - this is a superb episode with insights at every turn. This episode is brought to you by Freemarket, a leading platform for corporate currency exchange and cross-border payments. They empower businesses with seamless international money transfers and competitive exchange rates. With tailored solutions, market access, and expertise in technology and banking infrastructure, Freemarket simplifies the complexities of international payments. Check out Freemarket here: http://www.wearefreemarket.com/?utm_campaign=Searching%20for%20Mana&utm_source=Mana-group&utm_medium=chainalysis%20podcast&utm_content=fm-homepage

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsCfKLN1u1cL_luwY5qR4Yw

Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/2Hhg4gB​​

 Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3kKZQKl

Searching for Mana is a UK-based podcast which focuses on tech innovation in finance, and features interviews with influencers, leaders and founders in the fintech space, from unicorn companies to financial disruptors. 

Previous guests have included the Director of Growth at Oaknorth, the CEO of BCB Group (the UK’s first licensed crypto bank), the CEO of Innovate Finance (the industry body for UK fintech) and Ed Vaizey, the UK’s longest serving Minister for Technology. 

Each hour-long episode gains insight into how the guest got into fintech, what they’re currently focused on, what their companies are all about, as well as some of the important trends within the wider fintech sector. The show is presented by Lloyd Wahed, a London-born tech entrepreneur who has founded two recruiting firms, Athelstan Search and Mana Search and has successfully helped scale a number of unicorn technology companies. 

Follow Mana Search on Twitter: https://twitter.com/manasearchuk​​ 

Follow Mana Search on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana-talent/

Ben Pollard, co-founder and CEO at Cushon, sits down with Lloyd to talk about how his company became the world’s first net zero pension fintech.

After entering the industry as an actuarial consultant, Ben leads now a UK-based fintech company offering workplace ISAs with 87,000 customers and £300m of assets under management. The company is on a mission to bring innovation to workplace savings, launching a pension that is net zero from today.

In this episode, Lloyd and Ben discuss the motivations behind his journey to revolutionise the investment sector, the importance to consider climate emergency now, not later, and how climate-aware funds work. Later they delve into Ben’s journey as an entrepreneur juggling family life with leading a rocket-ship.

Follow Mana Search on Twitter: https://twitter.com/manasearchuk

Follow Mana Search on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana-talent/

Episodes Highlights:

03:58: Launching a world’s first net zero pension

06:09: How current retirement funds contribute to global warming through carbon emissions

11:38: Capital markets benign a potential agent of change

17:25: How do climate-aware funds work

20:08: Ben’s journey as an entrepreneur

26:51: Family life of an entrepreneur

38:45: Cushon’s vision

What a great way to kick-off the podcast!

For our first episode I'm joined by Valentina Kristensen, Director of Growth & Communications at Oaknorth.

Valentina was one of those lucky few who found themselves at university amidst the global financial crisis in 2007/2008, trying to figure out what path she could take after graduating. After witnessing the effect of the financial downturn she decided that she wanted to bring the trust back into banking - she has been a resounding success in the pursuit of that goal. From being a modest start-up when she joined Oaknorth, they are now a business of over 600 staff globally and are set for continued stellar success!

I'm delighted to have shared the mic with Valentina, who shared some great insight into her career, the success of Oaknorth and how she sees the sector evolving.

The Head of Banks at Flux, Roisin Levine, comes on to discuss her journey since she graduated in History at the University of Bristol several years ago.

Since then, Roisin has been awarded:
- 'Rising Star' in the Women in Fintech Powerlist 2018 by Innovate Finance.
- Nominated for 2019's Transformation of the Year award by Women in Credit.

Flux are aiming to kill the paper receipt and automatically send them to customer's phones! They're through series A and have partnerships with the likes of Barclays, Starling & Monzo. Flux and Roisin are at such an interesting phase in their journeys, it's great to catch the story at this point, where a new global standard in receipt management could be around the corner, not to mention how great for the environment this will be!

Fresh off the press - Dora Ziambra comes on to Searching for Mana to announce her promotion to Chief Operating Officer at Azimo!
For anyone considering the merits of taking an MBA, this episode is for you. With a background in Co-Founding and trading high-frequency algorithmic equity/index products, Dora took the long view in 2013 to attend INSEAD MBA course. This is where Dora met the future to be founders of Azimo, Michael Kent and Ricky Knox and the rest is History....
Azimo
founded 2012
$66M funding to date and now operating in profit
is an online international money transfer company that challenges the old fashioned, expensive ways of moving your money around the world. They are all about lower costs, excellent exchange rates and a brilliant service.

Azimo is created with the explicit mission of cutting the costs of sending money home. Its international money transfer platform allows to send money either to a bank account or to over 270,000 cash pick-up points around the world and is accessible via mobile devices.

I'm really excited to share the next podcast with you all, as I was joined by David Keene, Chief Marketing Officer at Funding Options.

David had been a key figure in businesses like Google, Oracle, Salesforce, and SAP before joining Funding Options. We have a really open and insightful conversation around David's journey (some of the challenges and successes of his career); how his new(ish) role in a growing series A FinTech is evolving; and what he expects to see happening in the FinTech sector's near future.

Enjoy listening and as always, please give it a rating once you've finished up.

Episode 5 is a juicy one as I was joined in conversation with Sasha Yanshin, Founder and MD at Strategy Desk.

Sasha has helped industry leading businesses build and grow successful products by developing astute commercial strategies, combined with digital innovation. Companies like MasterCard, Tesco, Barclays, HSBC, RBS, and Bank of America. Now he's helping banks innovate and grow by creating transformative products for their customers.

We have a fantastic conversation where we discuss his journey to doing 'marketing on steroids', his vision for the future, as well as his frank and insightful analysis of what's happening in the FinTech space right now.

You don't want to miss this.