Wharton FinTech Podcast

In this content-rich episode, Ally McCloskey sits down with Stephany Kirkpatrick, Founder & CEO of Orum. Orum is building new and frictionless financial infrastructure to power smart, real-time, and fully-automated money movement across accounts, products, and financial institutions. Backed by Bain Capital Ventures, Inspired Capital, Homebrew, Acrew, Primary, Clocktower, Box Group, SVB Capital, AmEx Ventures, and an impressive angel network. Orum has 2 signature products in market: 1) Orum’s Foresight product is an ACH risk intelligence tool, which identifies and reduces ACH return risk and fraud before it occurs by pulling in extra data through partnerships with financial institutions. And 2) Orum’s Momentum product, which intelligently routes which payment rails a transaction should travel on given the financial institution’s preferences for speed and cost. Ally and Stephany discuss: - How Stephany’s background as a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM and years of working at LearnVest and Northwestern Mutual exposed to her a ubiquitous market challenge - Stephany’s earliest steps when taking the plunge into starting a company - Why Orum started in stealth - The history of payment rails and infrastructure and why there is so much friction in the system - How the burden of ACH risk ultimately lands on the end user via nonsufficient funds and overdraft fees - Stephany’s advice on looking for stage-specific and sector-specific investors, but most importantly screening for good humans - The great recommendation she got from Satya Patel at Homebrew on hiring a Head of People early - Her impressive Whoop record - And a WHOLE lot more Stephany Kirkpatrick Stephany Kirkpatrick is a digital executive and seasoned entrepreneur with over 15 years experience in companies across a variety of industries, from startups to Fortune 100 corporations. Stephany founded Orum in 2019 on the belief that consumers should have immediate access to their money. Stephany is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM who’s spent the last decade building technology to optimize financial outcomes for Americans – first at LearnVest where she helped design its financial planning software and now at Orum. Orum is building new financial infrastructure that allows money to move immediately and automatically across accounts, products, and financial institutions. Stephany leads with strong core values and believes in diversity of thought and people. She is a mother of two young girls and actively participates in building a future that empowers women through her mentorship work. About Orum Orum is building the infrastructure for a frictionless financial system, powering smart, real-time money movement with proprietary intelligence. Enterprises partnered with Orum can stop spending time thinking about how to move money and focus on the simple question: how fast. Learn more at https://orum.io, and check out Orum's inclusion in the 2021 Forbes FinTech 50 list here: https://www.forbes.com/companies/orum/?sh=49118a29712a. -- As always, for more Fintech insights, please follow us below: WFT Blog: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Ally's Twitter: twitter.com/AllyMcCloskey LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/

Tarang Gupta hosts David Yang, Partner at Activant Capital, a global investment firm that partners with high-growth companies that are transforming commerce. In this episode you will hear about - Escape velocity and hyper growth from an investor’s point of view - What David enjoys about his role as an investor - How Activant thinks about selecting companies to invest in - Segments within fintech are going to boom And much more! About David Yang David joined Activant in February 2021, and brings nearly fifteen years of tech investment experience across private and public markets. He helps lead the firm’s investment committee and focuses primarily on e-commerce, logistics, and B2C fintech. Prior to joining the firm, David built his investing career at TA Associates, Warburg Pincus, and Access Industries. He received his undergraduate degrees from Wharton and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. About Activant Capital Founded in 2015, Activant Capital is a global investment firm with offices in Greenwich, New York, Berlin, and Cape Town and $1.5 billion in assets under management. Activant believes in supporting relentless entrepreneurs who are transforming industries. For more FinTech insights, follow us on WFT Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech WFT Instagram: instagram.com/whartonfintech Tarang’s Twitter: twitter.com/tg_tarang Tarang’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/taranggupta100

Trevor Prince sits down with John Beccia, the Co-Founder and CEO of FS Vector, and Edin Trto, a Managing Director at Canaccord Genuity. FS Vector is a strategic consulting firm in the FinTech industry, focused on regulatory issues and other critical functions. In this episode, John and Edin discuss how their teams prepared FS Vector for its first institutional capital raise, how they navigated market volatility during their process, their outlook on the FinTech regulatory landscape, and much more.

In this podcast, Christian Rolon (MBA '19) interviews Garry Reeder, Vice President at the Center for Financial Services Innovation. This episode was recorded live at the Financial Inclusion Summit. Garry leads the Financial Solutions Lab at CFSI. In this podcast, Garry discusses CFSI's mission and investing activities, regulatory developments in fintech, and fintech and blockchain applications for the underbanked. Garry Reeder is the Vice President of Innovation and Policy at the Center for Financial Services Innovation. Garry also leads the Financial Solutions Lab at CFSI. The Financial Solutions Lab is a partnership between CFSI and J.P. Morgan Chase. The Financial Solutions Lab invests in entrepreneurs and startups that are working on improving the financial health of consumers around the world. Past startups that have gone through the program include: Dave, Digit, EarnUp, LendStreet, Nova, Scratch, and WiseBanyan. Prior to his current role at CFSI, Garry had an extensive background in the public and private sector. Within the private sector, Garry has a decade of asset management experience, spanning across Ziff Brothers Investments and Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Garry later went on to co-found Fenway Summer Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in Fintech firms. Garry has also advised a number of financial service institutions around the regulatory landscape, first at BlackRock, where Garry led the Consumer Financial Services Advisory Practice, and then at Chain Bridge Partners, where Garry was a Managing Director. Garry also spent time in the public sector, specifically at the U.S. Treasury. At Treasury, Garry worked on the Auto Team, overseeing TARP's investments in the auto sector, and the General Motors IPO. Garry went on to serve as the Chief of Staff for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, helping to develop Project Catalyst. Garry has his BA from Yale, and his MBA from Columbia Business School. The Financial Inclusion Summit was organized by Rex Salisbury, the founder of Fintech Devs and PMs Meetup. The community has roughly 2,000 members, hosting monthly events highlighting many exciting Fintech firms in the Bay Area. Past Meetups have featured speakers from: a16z, Affirm, Branch, EarnIn, Plaid, SoFi, Wealthfront, and many others. Learn more at: https://www.fintechdevsandpms.com/.

Kailee Costello hosts Jack Zhang, the CEO and co-founder of Airwallex. Airwallex is revolutionizing the way that businesses operate globally; their financial infrastructure provides a modern tech stack for businesses of all sizes to operate internationally without the challenges of the current global financial system. They discuss: - Airwallex’s growth story - How Airwallex built their global money movement infrastructure - AI opportunities Airwallex is pursuing, including using LLMs to improve KYC and onboarding processes - Why Jack does not expect crypto to play a significant role in cross-border payments For more FinTech insights from Wharton Fintech, follow us on: WFT Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech WFT Instagram: instagram.com/whartonfintech Kailee’s Twitter: @KaileeCostello_ Kailee’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaileecostello/