Wharton FinTech Podcast Wharton Fintech Podcast

Joshua Benadiva hosts Oded Zehavi, co-founder of Mesh Payments, whose innovative approach to expense management is reshaping how companies handle their finances globally.

In this episode, they discuss:

- Oded's rich background with giants like PayPal and Payoneer and how it paved the way for founding Mesh Payments.
- The intricate challenges of launching fintech solutions in international markets and the strategies to overcome them.
- How Mesh Payments is revolutionizing cross-border B2B transactions through the use of card networks.
- The pivot of Mesh Payments during the COVID-19 pandemic to address the evolving needs of remote and distributed teams.
- The transformation from a payment-centric to an automation-centric company, enhancing the operations of the office of the CFO.

About Mesh Payments:
Mesh Payments enables robust automation and management for any spend category from procurement to T&E via a single platform and is built from the ground up for a modern work environment. Mesh makes it easy to manage and control global spending across multiple entities and currencies, from saving on FX with local currency cards to customizing policies, approvals, automations and integrations.

Today, more than 1,500 companies rely on Mesh to power global spend, automate manual accounting tasks, and optimize finance workflows.

About Oded Zahavi:
With a career that spans across major players like PayPal and Payoneer, Oded Zahavi brings a wealth of experience to the fintech industry. His journey from these companies to founding Mesh Payments showcases his deep understanding of financial technologies and market strategies. His insights are particularly keen on scaling operations internationally and navigating the complex global compliance landscape.

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Kailee Costello hosts Davi Strazza, the North America President at Adyen. Adyen is a global fintech platform for enterprise businesses, offering end-to-end payments, data, and financial management in a single solution.

Tune in to hear about:
- Adyen’s unique value proposition, and how Adyen runs their platform across the world under a single tech stack
- Why Adyen attained bank licenses and the opportunities this offers, such as short term loans, issuing and with FedNow
- What Adyen is doing to enable FedNow
- How Adyen partners with fintechs like BILL and Plaid
- How Adyen's offering and focus areas have evolved over the past few years
- Davi’s career path and motivation for joining Adyen
- Key differences between Davi’s previous role as President Latin America and current role as President North America
- Industry outlook and the future for Adyen

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Kailee’s Twitter: @KaileeCostello_
Kailee’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaileecostello/

Nate Gee hosts Eric Sager, COO of Plaid, whose technology links fintech apps and financial institutions in a network empowering the fintech solutions that millions of people use.

In this episode, they discuss:
- How Plaid has transformed the fintech landscape in the past decade
- Eric’s journey into fintech and becoming Plaid’s COO
- The role of APIs and open banking in modern financial services
- The growth of digital finance in recent years
- Instant payments and alternative payment rails
- Other fintech trends and how Plaid fits in
- And much more!
About Plaid
Founded in 2013, Plaid has become essential infrastructure in the fintech world, connecting over 100 million users to financial services and facilitating integration among more than 12,000 financial institutions and 8,000 fintech apps worldwide. Plaid’s technology enables simpler, faster, and more transparent financial services, making it a cornerstone in the ongoing evolution of digital finance.
About Eric Sager
With over 20 years of experience in financial services, Eric Sager joined Plaid as COO in 2019. Before joining Plaid, Eric held senior roles at BlueVine and Square. Originally from Germany, Eric worked at Bain & Company in Europe after graduating from Harvard Business School in 2006.
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Nate’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-c-gee/

Zoey Tang sat down with serial Investor, VC, Former Techstars Exec Jon Zanoff.

Previously featured on the Wharton Fintech Podcast before, Jon is the founder of Empire Startups, one of the the largest FinTech communities of entrepreneurs, investors, bank innovators, and operators.

As a fintech legend in New York, Jon is back on the show to share latest updates about Empire Startup and the New York Fintech Week on Apr. 8th - Apr. 12th.

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Zoey's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/zoeytang1007/

Previous episode with Jon: https://bit.ly/3VBahpY

In today's episode, Wesley Aster and Djavaneh Bierwirth host Graham Weaver, the founder and managing partner of Alpine Investors, a people-driven private equity firm that invests in software and services businesses.

Tune in to hear about:

- Graham's journey from starting Alpine in his Stanford dorm room to growing the firm to $16B in AUM
- Graham's personal growth and investment philosophies, as well as how he thinks about driving long-term impact
- Alpine's latest $4.5B fund 9, and Graham's experience fundraising in a challenging market

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.