Searching for Mana with Lloyd Wahed The Fintech Times

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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!

Mana Search on Twitter: https://twitter.com/manasearchuk
Mana Search on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mana-talent/


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

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

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

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.

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

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

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