Fintech Leaders
Learn from today’s global leaders building the organizations that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.
Shift4 CEO on Building an $8B Empire
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Miguel Armaza interviews the CEO of Shift4. Shift4 has been at the forefront of the global payments industry for 26 years—and they’re only getting started. In this episode, CEO Taylor Lauber reveals the strategies that have kept the company ahead in a competitive, fast-moving market.
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From Zero to $120M: How Cashea Rebuilt Credit And Trust in Venezuela
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Miguel Armaza interviews the CEO of Cashea. In a country where credit vanished, Cashea built a new system from scratch. CEO Pedro Vallenilla shares how they scaled BNPL to 3% of Venezuela’s GDP, through trust-based lending, merchant financing, and a bold vision for national impact.
Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fint...
Steve Stagner on Building Crete's $500 Million AI Roll-up to Modernize Accounting
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Miguel Armaza interviews Steve Stagner, CEO of Crete, an AI-powered roll-up deploying $500+ million to modernize the accounting industry. Backed by Thrive Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and others, Crete is acquiring US accounting firms and transforming them with OpenAI-powered tools. Steve brings battle-tested insights from building Mattress Firm from a single $1,300 franchise to a $3.8 billion Fortune 500 giant.
In this episode, we discuss (1) Why "People, Process, Technology" - in that exact order - is the only formula that works for...
Jack Zhang, Airwallex CEO - A $6 Billion Powerhouse Solving Global Payments for Companies
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[Original air date, April 9, 2024] Miguel Armaza interviews Jack Zhang, CEO & Co-Founder of Airwallex, a global payments and treasury giant that moves $7 billion in monthly transaction volume and serves 100,000+ clients, including Brex, Rippling, and SHEIN.
Founded in Melbourne in 2015, Airwallex was last valued at $6.2 billion and has raised over a billion dollars from Sequoia, DST, Square Peg, Greenoaks, Mastercard, Tencent, Salesforce, and many more.
In this episode, we discuss:
Eynat Guez, Papaya Global CEO - From 1,000 Rejections to $34 Billion in Annual Payments
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Miguel Armaza interviews Eynat Guez, CEO and Founder of Papaya Global. She has built an HR and payroll platform that has transformed how companies manage and operate global teams across 180 countries. After having faced over 1,000 rejections from VCs, Papaya has now grown to process $34 billion in payments annually and they've raised significant funding from Insight Partners, Bessemer, Greenoaks Capital, and more.
We discuss why brutal honesty and direct leadership creates stronger companies, how founders need to learn "investor language" to sell the company vision rather...
Chen Amit, Tipalti CEO - A $100 Billion Opportunity, Why 'Once-in-a-Decade' Crises Now Happen Every 6 Months, Achieving 99% Revenue Retention
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Miguel Armaza interviews Chen Amit, CEO and Co-Founder of Tipalti, a global fintech platform processing billions in payments and serving over 4,000 mid-market companies worldwide. By focusing on the underserved mid-sized companies, Tipalti has achieved 99% gross revenue retention over 15 years and secured licenses across 50+ jurisdictions.
We discuss:
Navigating "once-in-a-decade" disruptions that now seem to happen every six monthsWhy customer intuition can override conflicting data pointsHow saying "no" to your customers or partners can sometimes be the right strategic...Anré Williams, American Express – From Intern to Bank CEO, a 35-Year Journey at a Global Powerhouse
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Miguel Armaza sits down in NYC with Anré Williams, Senior Executive Advisor at American Express. Anré has spent over 35 years at Amex, rising from summer intern to, most recently, CEO of American Express National Bank (which represents ~60% of the company's revenues). Under his leadership, Amex transformed its banking business into a top 25 US bank by assets.
Amex is one of the oldest financial services companies in the world. The company is 150 years old and in 2024, they reported record revenues of $66 billion dollars.
We di...
Eduardo Chedid, CEO of PicPay: 60M Users, $1B Revenue, From Brazil’s Digital Wallet to a Banking Giant
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Miguel Armaza travels to Sao Paulo for an interview with Eduardo Chedid, CEO of PicPay, a Brazilian fintech giant that has quietly become one of the most important financial companies in Latin America.
With 60 million customers and handling 11% of all Pix payments transactions in Brazil, PicPay has achieved profitability while maintaining hyper-growth—posting 61% revenue growth and 7× higher profits in 2024.
In this episode, we discuss:
How PicPay transformed from a digital wallet into a multi-product financial platformThe power of bus...Yoshi Yokokawa, CEO of Alpaca – 5 Million Accounts in 40 Countries, A Vision for Borderless Investing, Decision Frameworks & The API Sandwich Strategy
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Miguel Armaza stops by the New York Stock Exchange to interview Yoshi Yokokawa, CEO & Co-founder of Alpaca, an API-first brokerage infrastructure company that has raised over $100 million to serve more than 200 financial institutions across 40 countries, with 5 million brokerage accounts on their platform.
In this episode, we discuss:
Balancing data-driven decisions with entrepreneurial instinctWhy Alpaca's self-clearing model slashes dependencies, cuts costs, and accelerates innovationWhy API-first companies need a sandwich approach: bottom-up developer community and top-down enterprise sales<...Daniel Vogel, CEO of Bitso – Serving 12 Million Customers and Building a Crypto Giant Through Innovation, Transparency, and a Curious Mind
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Miguel Armaza interviews Daniel Vogel, CEO & Co-Founder of Bitso, one of Latin America's leading cryptocurrency platforms serving over 12 million customers across Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, and Brazil. Bitso processes over 10% of the remittances flowing from the US to Mexico ($6 - $7 Billion), and is pioneering the use of stablecoins for cross-border transactions throughout Latin America.
In this episode, we discuss:
Why rate of learning is one of his core principles for company culture and personal growthUsing transparency to drive company performance and...Bam Azizi, CEO of Mesh Connect - From Credit Card Debt to $130M, Building the Rails for a $37T Market, Executing a Wild Pivot
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Miguel Armaza interviews Bam Azizi, Co-Founder and CEO of Mesh Connect, a fintech infrastructure company that has transformed from a consumer-focus to a fast-growing B2B platform serving hundreds of corporate clients including Revolut, and Coinbase. After raising nearly $130 million, including a Series B closed in just one month, Mesh is now focusing on serving the stablecoin ecosystem.
We discuss:
The rollercoaster journey from B2C to B2B and the painful but necessary pivot decisionsWhy stablecoins represent a $37 trillion...Johnny Ayers, CEO of Socure - Building a Giant that Protects Billions of Identities, and How to Turn a Crisis into an Advantage
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Miguel Armaza interviews Johnny Ayers, CEO and Co-Founder of Socure, a leader in digital identity verification that has transformed the industry using machine learning and graph databases. From surviving a major risk event in 2014 to becoming a trusted partner for the largest financial institutions, consumer businesses, and government agencies, Socure now processes over 15 billion rows of data weekly and has verified more than 3 billion identities globally.
In this episode, we discuss:
How Socure rebuilt in 2014 and turned a near disaster into an advantage<...Shensi Ding, Merge Co-Founder - Lessons for First-Time Founders, $75M to build API Infrastructure in an AI World, The Truth About Fundraising
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Miguel Armaza interviews Shensi Ding, Co-Founder of Merge, an integrations infrastructure platform that has quickly grown from serving early-stage startups to powering integration layers for some of the largest financial services companies in the world including Revolut, Airwallex, Ramp, Brex and many more. They have raised a total of $75 million from great investors including NEA, Addition, and Accel.
In this episode, we discuss:
Building credibility with engineers and product teamsUnique advantages of being a first-time founder. Plus some hard lessons...David Magerman, Differential Ventures - How to Fix the Internet, Risks of GenAI, Pioneering Quant Trading
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[Original air date, February 6, 2024] Miguel Armaza sits down with David Magerman, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Differential Ventures, an early-stage fund that invests in data-focused entrepreneurs building enterprise technology.
In a past life, he spent 22 years in leadership roles at Renaissance Technologies (RenTech), a legendary hedge fund with over $100 billion in AUM and probably the most successful fund in history.
David is also a contrarian thinker and a non-conformist, which made our conversation even more interesting.
Ryan Graciano, Credit Karma Co-Founder - Scaling to 140 Million Users, Turning Crisis into Opportunity, Leading Product Innovation From CTO to CPO
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Miguel Armaza interviews Ryan Graciano, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Credit Karma, one of the most successful fintech companies serving over 130 million customers. Credit Karma was bought by Intuit for $7.1bn in 2020, marking one of fintech’s largest acquisitions ever. Ryan began his journey as CTO after a brief stint at IBM and helped build Credit Karma from the ground up since 2007.
In this episode, we discuss:
Key technical decisions that shaped Credit Karma's successRyan's vision fo...Jackie Reses, Lead Bank CEO - Lessons from Tech Titans, Why Regulators Might Finally Be Ready for AI, Building Modern Financial Rails
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Miguel Armaza welcomes back Jackie Reses, CEO and Co-Founder of Lead Bank, a pioneering bank reimagining modern financial infrastructure and fintech partnerships. Jackie previously held leadership roles at Square and Yahoo, and served on the board of Alibaba, working alongside visionaries like Jack Dorsey and Jack Ma.
In this episode, we discuss:
How Lead Bank achieved instant product-market fit before even acquiring their bank charterWhy banking regulation needs a "first principles" rethinking approach and why the CFPB may need significant r...John Waldmann, CEO of Homebase - Serving 3.8M SMB Workers, Why AI Will Create More Small Business Owners, Importance of High-Velocity Decision Making
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Miguel Armaza interviews John Waldmann, Founder & CEO of Homebase, a company on a mission to help modernize local business teams in the US. Since launching in 2014, Homebase has grown to support over 150,000 businesses and 3.8 million workers, processing hundreds of millions of shifts annually.
In this episode, we discuss:
Why founders should have more courage and conviction in their early cultural choicesCreating a culture of ownership and high-velocity decision-makingThe dangers of consensus decision-making and the power of individual...Howard Lindzon: The Rise of the Degenerate Economy, Why Markets Are Rigged, Web2 Failed, and It’s still a Great Time to Invest
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Miguel Armaza interviews Howard Lindzon, a seasoned investor, entrepreneur, and founder of StockTwits, the largest social network for investors and traders. Howard is also the founder of Social Leverage, a venture capital firm that has backed great companies like Robinhood and eToro.
Often called "The Larry David of Finance" for his candid, no-nonsense takes on markets and investing, his newsletter and sharp social media commentary have earned him a loyal following among investors and entrepreneurs alike – not for sugar-coating reality, but for calling it...
Ali Hamed, Founder of Treville - From Cold Emails to $2B AUM, How Michael Ovitz Taught Ali to Move Mountains, Rejecting Work-Life Balance
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Miguel Armaza interviews Ali Hamed, Co-Founder of Treville (formerly CoVenture), a $2 Billion investment firm that's breaking traditional asset class boundaries. Hamed has built one of the most distinctive firms in the industry, combining venture capital, credit, and asset-backed strategies with a uniquely rigorous approach - all starting from cold emails during his college days.
In this episode, we discuss:
Savneet Singh, CEO of PAR Technology - The $3B Turnaround: Transforming a Failing Company into a Tech Leader
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Miguel Armaza interviews Savneet Singh, CEO of PAR Technology (NYSE: PAR), a company he helped transform from a struggling legacy hardware with a small market cap into a thriving restaurant technology leader now worth nearly $3 billion in the public markets.
When Savneet joined PAR's board in 2018, he found a company facing multiple crises - from DOJ investigations and activist investors to negative customer satisfaction scores and just $3.4 million in cash reserves. What started as a temporary CEO role to help sell the company...
Best of 2024 - From the Leaders of Kaspi, Xero, dLocal, Addepar, QED, Zip, and Airwallex
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We bring you a compilation of some of the best and most popular episodes of 2024. The guests of this episode have either founded or held key leadership roles in companies with a $200 Billion combined market cap, including Capital One, Kaspi, Mercado Libre, and Xero.
It was an amazing year for Fintech Leaders with 42 new guests from 13 countries. Our interviews were viewed almost 3 million times across all platforms and we reached people in 184 countries. Thank you for tuning for what was an amazing year and I’m excited to bring you a 2025 fu...
Adam Nash, CEO of Daffy – The Future of Charitable Giving, Lessons for CEOs, & Staying Bullish on Consumer Fintech
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[Original air date, March 21, 2023] For this Christmas Eve episode, I revisit my 2023 interview with Adam Nash, Co-Founder and CEO of Daffy, a special fintech platform that encourages charitable giving.
Giving to charity is a powerful way to create change; even a small contribution to the right cause can transform lives and it’s a chance to make a real difference. As the year comes to an end and you get a chance to reflect back, I encourage you to learn more about Daf...
Daragh Murphy, CEO of Imprint - $200M to Disrupt Co-Branded Credit Cards with a Customer-First Approach
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Miguel Armaza interviews Daragh Murphy, CEO & Co-Founder of Imprint, a fast-growing and leading fintech in the co-branded credit card space that has raised $200 million from Thrive Capital, Ribbit, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Stripe, and a many more great investors.
In this episode, we discuss:
Kamran Zaki, ICONIQ Growth Partner - From Building a $50Bn Global Payments Giant to Fintech Investor
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Miguel Armaza interviews Kamran Zaki, Partner at ICONIQ Growth and former COO of Adyen. ICONIQ growth is a multi-billion fund that has backed dozens of amazing companies, 27 of which have IPOd and together comprise a market cap of over $1.5T. Some of their fintech investments include Adyen, Chime, Ramp, Robinhood, Monzo and Bill.com.
In this episode, we discuss:
What it means to be a value-add investor and VCLessons from Adyen - the keys and challenges...Josh Reeves, CEO of Gusto – Building a $9.6 Billion Company to Serve Small Businesses
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[Original air date, October 10, 2023] Miguel Armaza sits down with Josh Reeves, CEO & Co-Founder of Gusto, one of the largest HR & Payroll companies in the US, focused on serving small and medium-sized businesses. In addition to HR, payroll, and benefits, Gusto is a strong player of embedded fintech solutions and in 2023 announced a very large partnership with JPM Chase.
Founded in 2011, Gusto now serves over 300,000 businesses in the US and in 2022 Gusto had revenues of more than $500 million dollars. They are backed b...
Alan Patricof – Tech & VC Legend. 90-Years-Old: Fit, Focused and Closing Deals
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Miguel Armaza interviews Alan Patricof, Co-Founder of Primetime Partners, Greycroft, and Apax Partners. It’s hard to explain just how important Alan has been for tech and VC. He’s one of the true pioneers in venture capital worldwide, having started his first VC firm in the 1970s, Alan Patricof and Associates, which later became Apax Partners and currently has over ~$80Bn AUM.
We sat down live on stage at Barclays Rise in NYC for the Gilgamesh Ventures Summit, an a...
Nigel Morris, QED and Capital One Co-Founder - Transforming Financial Services for a Billion People
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Miguel Armaza travels to Alexandria, Virginia for an in-person interview with a fintech legend: Nigel Morris, Co-Founder of QED and Capital One.
QED is a global fintech venture capital firm that has backed numerous amazing companies, including Credit Karma, Nubank, Avant, SoFi, and Klarna. They currently have over $4.0 billion in AUM.
Prior to QED, Nigel co-founded Capital One in 1994. The bank today is amongst the 10 largest banks in the US with almost $500 billion in assets. They are also one of the m...
Howard Morgan - From Ham Radio to GenAI: A Remarkable Journey in Tech
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Miguel Armaza interviews Howard Morgan, Chair at B Capital, and also co-founder of Renaissance Technologies and First Round Capital.
Howard and Miguel sat down live on stage at Barclays Rise in NYC for the Gilgamesh Ventures Summit, an annual meeting with over 150 Limited Partners, Founders, and Investors for a series of events and discussions about the future of tech and financial services.
In this inspiring conversation, Howard discussed:
Jouk Pleiter, CEO of Backbase – Bootstrapping to €2.5 Billion, Scaling Worldwide, Simplifying Banking Technology
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Miguel Armaza interviews Jouk Pleiter, CEO & Founder of Backbase, a global fintech that’s modernizing software and infrastructure for banks around the world.
Founded in 2003, Backbase was bootstrapped to €200M in annual revenue until they raised a single Private Equity round of €120M from Motive Partners in 2022, valuing the company at €2.5B. They have now grown to over €300M in ARR, work with 150 banks, and continue to expand across the world.
We discuss:
Benjamin Fernandes, CEO of NALA - From Africa to the World, The Power of Perseverance, From TV Host to Fintech Founder
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Miguel Armaza interviews Benjamin Fernandes, CEO & Founder of NALA, a global, cross-border payments company that helps customers send money in and out of Africa.
Founded in 2018, NALA today is profitable and has raised over $50 million from Accel, Acrew, Amplo, Bessemer, DST, and NYCA.
We discuss:
Richie Serna, CEO of Finix - The Key to Great Products, Fundraising Stories, Building a Payments Powerhouse
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Miguel Armaza interviews Richie Serna, CEO & Co-Founder of Finix, a US full-stack payment processor and infrastructure provider that processes billions of dollars a year for software platforms, marketplaces, retail, and e-commerce businesses.
Founded in 2015, Finix has raised over $135 million to date and is backed by ActOne Ventures, Homebrew, Bain Capital Ventures, Insight, Visa, AmEx, Inspired Capital, and many more.
In this episode, we discuss:
Pedro Arnt, CEO of dLocal – From MELI CFO to Leading a Multi-Billion Dollar Giant, Lessons from a Serial Builder
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Miguel Armaza interviews Pedro Arnt, CEO of dLocal (NASDAQ:DLO), a multi-billion dollar payments company that specializes in cross-border and local payments in emerging markets. Founded in Montevideo, Uruguay, dLocal today operates in 40 markets across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Pedro has an impressive background and you’ll learn a lot from him. Prior to his appointment as dLocal CEO, he spent 24 years at MELI and was the CFO of the company from 2011 to 2023. During his tenure as CFO, MELI had an amazing ru...
David Fortunato, CEO of Wealthfront - $70Bn AUM & Climbing, From Engineer to CEO, Relentless Focus on Automation, The Future of Wealth Management
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Miguel Armaza travels to San Francisco for an interview with David Fortunato, CEO of Wealthfront, an asset management giant with $70+ billion in assets under management and over a million clients.
Founded by Andy Rachleff almost 15 years ago, Wealthfront is now one of the most defining financial brands for millennials and Gen Zers. David joined the company in 2009 as a junior software engineer and became CEO almost four years ago.
In this episode, we discuss:
Abdon Nacif, Co-Founder of Nexu - Building a Profitable Fintech, The Power of Servant Leadership, Developing Mental Toughness
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Miguel Armaza interviews Abdon Nacif, Co-Founder of Nexu, the leading auto financing and dealership software platform in Mexico and one of the fastest-growing fintech companies in the Americas.
Nexu is growing fast, approaching $50 million in net annual revenue, and has been profitable for nearly two years. They have raised just over $30 million in equity and over $150 million in debt from Altos Ventures, Valor, HSBC, Wollef, Y Combinator, Fintech Collective, Clocktower, FJ Labs, and Gilgamesh Ventures.
I’m a big fan of Abdon and I...
Rujul Zaparde, CEO of Zip - Building a $1.5B SaaS, Velocity as a Core Value, How to Validate a Big Business Idea
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Miguel Armaza travels to SF for an interview with Rujul Zaparde, CEO & Co-Founder of Zip, a leading SaaS & Fintech platform recently valued at $1.5 Billion that’s focused on bringing smarter procurement and spending software for small and large enterprises.
Founded in 2020, Zip today serves hundreds of clients, including giants like Snowflake, Coinbase, Reddit, Canva, Databricks, and Discover. Zip has raised $180m in equity from CRV, Y Combinator, TwentyTwo VC, and Tiger Global.
We discuss:
Michael Tannenbaum, CEO of Figure - From SoFi to Brex to Figure: Lessons from a Fintech Leader Who Knows Founder Mode
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Miguel Armaza interviews Michael Tannenbaum, CEO of Figure, one of the largest US fintech platforms building infrastructure and embedded products. Founded in 2018 by Mike Cagney, also the founder of SoFi and past guest of the show, Figure is now the largest non-bank originator of Home Equity Lines of Credit in the US having done $11 billion in AAA securitizations.
Every time I talk to Michael I’m impressed by his clarity of thought and his skill in sharing valuable insights. He was previously COO of Brex an...
Diya Jolly, CPO & CTO of Xero - $22Bn and Growing. Leading Product and Tech for a Global Fintech Giant
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Miguel Armaza interviews Diya Jolly, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Xero (XRO.AX), a $22Bn tech giant that offers accounting and CFO management services for small businesses worldwide.
Xero is one of the largest fintechs in the world. Their latest total annual revenue was $1.6Bn and they’ve doubled in size over the last three years.
Prior to Xero, Diya was the Chief Product Officer at Okta and before that she held multiple leadership product roles at Google. She’s extr...
Raimundo Morales, CEO of Yape - The SuperApp for 16 Million Peruvians Redefining Financial Inclusion
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Miguel Armaza interviews Raimundo Morales, CEO of Yape, the dominant fintech app in Peru and certainly one of the biggest consumer fintechs in the world. Yape has 16 million users in Peru, which represents 80% of the country’s total population. On average, they process 550+ million payments a month and are doubling in volume on a yearly basis.
They are big and extremely important for the country. If Latin America runs on WhatsApp, it’s fair to say Peru runs on Yape.
In this episo...
Darian Shirazi from Gradient Ventures - Empathy, Curiosity, and the Immigrant Mindset
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Miguel Armaza interviews Darian Shirazi, General Partner at Gradient Ventures, an early-stage venture fund focused on AI and data-rich companies, with Google as its major LP.
Prior to Gradient, Darian founded and sold Radius, a B2B Customer Data Platform. He is also an early investor in companies including Lyft, Udemy, Carbon Health, Palantir, and Niva. Fun fact, he was Facebook’s first intern back when the company had only 10 people.
We discuss:
Dynasties in the Making: 15 Companies Cultivating Tomorrow’s Fintech Leaders
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In this episode, I sit down with Andrew Endicott, who’s my co-founder at Gilgamesh Ventures and who also previously built Petal, a New York fintech company.
Andrew and I discussed a research report we recently published in collaboration with the Wharton School of Business. We examined the incredible impact that 15 leading fintech companies are having on the broader fintech ecosystem by helping train the next generation of founders in fintech and tech in the Americas.
Some of our interesting findings, include:
