In this episode, I speak with Zach Marks, co-founder and CEO of Jia, a fintech leveraging blockchain for receivables financing for businesses in Kenya and the Philippines. Zach has spent his career working in emerging markets, beginning with teaching English in India after college to development consulting in South Sudan. After building and selling…

In this episode, I speak with Chandrima Das, Co-Founder and CEO of Teleskop, a wealth tech that helps people track their family assets today and plan for their legacies in the future. Chandrima has had an illustrious career in asset management, working at Prudential, ING, and Bank of Singapore in several countries, where she had a front-row seat to…

In this episode, I speak with Sharon Paul, Co-founder of Headquarters (HQ.xyz), an on-chain business account. Sharon is a Singaporean entrepreneur and has spent many years advancing the Web3 and payments infrastructure space. She is a founding member of StraitsX, a leading stablecoin issuer and fiat-crypto ramp and now serves on the Singapore Finte…

In this episode, I speak with Hussain Elius, Founder and CEO of Wind, a fintech that is enabling instant cross-border payments built on blockchain rails. Elius has been a career entrepreneur, starting with building an event management business in university. Once he graduated, Elius took an experimental approach to developing the business model tha…

In this episode, I speak with Nuraizah Shamsul Baharin, Founder and Managing Director of MADCash, a fintech that drives financial inclusion through Shariah compliant microfinance and data analytics in Malaysia. Nuraizah, who goes by Aizah, started her career as an engineer, working for companies like Nokia and Motorola in the 1990s and 2000s. Aizah…

In this episode, I speak with Rachel Freeman, Chief Growth Officer of Tyme, a neobank that began operations in South Africa and has recently been making waves in the Philippines as GoTyme. Rachel has lived in every corner of the world and has been a pioneer of inclusive financial services. She speaks fluent Russian and spent her early career in Rus…

In this episode, I speak with Maria Hoyos, co-founder and CEO of GoNSave, a fintech focused on income smoothing for gig workers in Southeast Asia. Maria started her career in microfinance in Latin America. She brought her experience to Asia when she pursued her Master’ of Science in Innovation at Singapore Management University. We talked about the…

In this episode, I speak with Ritwik Ghosh, co-founder of Seedflex, a brand new embedded SME lending fintech. Ritwik started his career in banking but quickly moved into consulting at Oliver Wyman, where he focused on retail and SME financial services across South and Southeast Asia. For the last 5 years, Ritwik served as the Regional Head of Lendi…

Happy new year everyone, and welcome back to the Green Room! In this podcast, we go behind the scenes with fintech entrepreneurs and thought leaders in Asia about their careers, impact, and industry insights. I'm your host, Amrita Vir. This is now season 5 of the Green Room. This season we’re covering some fintech basics - income smoothing, SME len…

In this episode, I speak with Malini Kannan, CEO Office of Thunes, a global B2B cross-border payments infrastructure company. Malini grew up in India and started her career in Singapore, working in research and strategy across a diverse set of sectors. After her MBA from INSEAD, Malini focused more directly on the fintech space, working across the …

In this episode, I speak with with Aditi Sholapurkar, Co-Founder of SALT, a savings and investment fintech in India that puts women at the center of its product and strategy. Aditi grew up in India and began her career in banking and has spent time working at some of the most well known fintechs in India and Singapore, including Paytm and Nium. She…

In this episode, I speak with The Noe San, Founder and CEO of Modus Operandi, or MO, a digital financial solutions provider in Myanmar, offering services like wallet transfers, bill pay, earned wage access, cash withdrawal, and more. The Noe grew up in Myanmar and Australia and started her career in law. She moved back to Myanmar in 2020 and got in…

In this episode, I speak with Vikram Kotibhaskar, co-founder and CEO of Credlinq.AI, which provides embedded finance products to digital e-commerce players using alternative data. Vikram was born and raised in India, completed his Master’s in the US, and then spent many years working across diverse banking roles in Asia. Vikram made the jump to fin…

In this episode, I speak with Maha Shahzad, Founder and CEO of BusCaro, a mobility startup in Pakistan that is changing the way that commuters travel. Maha grew up between the US and Pakistan and has worked at many well-known startups in Pakistan inluding FoodPanda, Careem, and Swvl. Maha has seen first-hand the financial, accessibility, and securi…

In this episode, I speak with fintech pioneer, Diego Rojas. He has been at the cutting edge of fintech across the globe. Diego is from Argentina and started coding when he was 8 years old. He joined LendingClub in its very early days in 2011 and then moved to DianRong, another pioneer in fintech in China. He founded a fintech consulting firm called…

In this episode, I speak with Rebecca Kersch, Founder and CEO of TANGapp, a remittance and payments company that helps overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the US send money to the Philippines. Rebecca grew up in the US and the Netherlands, spent many summers visiting her family in the Philippines, and has studied and lived all over the world. Rebec…

Welcome back to season 4 to the Green Room, a podcast where we go behind the scenes with fintech entrepreneurs and thought leaders in Asia about their careers, impact, and industry insights. I'm your host, Amrita Vir. I’m excited to be back sharing my fintech conversations with you. This season, we’ll go back to some fintech basics like payments, l…

In the last episode of Sesason 3 of The Green Room, I speak with Sherry Jiang, Co-founder and CEO of Bluejay, a web3 startup that uses a decentralized stablecoin protocol to issue stablecoins pegged to non-US currencies. Sherry is from California, spent her early career in big tech and social impact, and moved to Singapore in 2018 with Google. She …

In this episode, I speak with Ankur Joshi, founder and CEO of Nuclei, a B2B SaaS fintech that helps banks deliver consumer-centric experiences to their customers. Ankur grew up in India, is an IIT grad, and has been a serial entrepreneur for more than 10 years. He’s worked in startups covering everything from e-commerce to quick serve restaurants t…

In this episode, I speak with Ananya Sinha, the founder of Brown Baddies, an NFT project focused on elevating South Asian women. Ananya was born in New Zealand, grew up in Australia, and is now telling the stories of South Asian women all over the world via NFTs. Ananya is relatively new to web3, but has been an entrepreneur since her uni days at t…

In this episode, I speak with Kunal Goel, co-founder of PowerCred, which provides alternative data APIs for the MSME market, giving third party lenders real-time access to MSME business data to improve underwriting. Alternative data has been common in consumer credit in emerging markets for years, but the ability to access SME and microSME data fro…

In this episode, I speak with Lan Doan, CEO of TAPTAP, which provides loyalty and rewards programs to consumers in Vietnam. Lan grew up in Hanoi and then studied and worked in the US, including getting her MBA from Harvard Business School. Seeing the economic potential of Vietnam after graduation, Lan decided to come back to Vietnam to actually be …

In this episode, I speak with Aaron Collett, Senior Credit Manager at Goldfinch, a decentralized credit protocol that connects investors and fintechs in emerging markets to provide stablecoin based credit. Aaron grew up in Indonesia but has worked all over the world, including Singapore, Hong Kong, London, and New York, on various areas of structur…

In this episode, I speak with Windy Natriavi, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of AwanTunai, which provides supply chain and financial services to micro-merchants in Indonesia. Windy is also the founder of WomenWorks, a “connectivity” marketplace that supports women’s network-building in Indonesia. Windy was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 for Finan…

In this episode, I speak with Luis Buenaventura, Philippines country manager for Yield Guild Games, or YGG, which is a play-to-earn gaming guild, giving metaverse players opportunities to earn in blockchain-based currency. Luis has also been a pioneer of web3 in the Philippines. He has founded several businesses, including syndeo media, Infinite.ly…

Welcome to the Green Room, a podcast where we go behind the scenes with fintech entrepreneurs and thought leaders about their careers, impact, and industry insights. I'm your host, Amrita Vir. In season 3 of the Green Room, we’ve expanded our scope beyond Southeast Asia to all of ASEAN and will spend some time going down the web3 rabbit hole with p…

In this final episode of Season 2 of The Green Room podcast, we’re going to be talking about green finance with those involved in this year’s Global Fintech Hackcelerator. For those not familiar, the Global Fintech Hackcelerator is a hackathon that happens in the lead up to Singapore Fintech Fest every year. If you listened to our episode with Pat …

In this episode, I speak with Nirali Zaveri, co-founder and CEO of Friz, a fintech for freelance workers. Nirali, who previously worked at Mastercard, talks about starting Friz after realizing that freelance workers are completely undserved by banks due to their project-based income. We talk about Friz’s word of mouth go-to-market strategy across S…

In this episode, I speak with Abhishek Chatterjee, Founder and CEO of Tookitaki, a regtech startup that is focused on delivering a full suite of machine learning-based compliance solutions to banks and fintechs who are vulnerable to financial crime and increasingly subject to strict compliance regulation. Abhishek talks about the fact that only 1% …

This week, we have a special Green Room episode for you. We are going behind the scenes of this year's Singapore Fintech Festival with Pat Patel, General Manager of Elevandi, the Singapore Fintech Festival's new parent company. We also have a discount code for those of you who still haven't gotten your SFF tickets. Use The Green Room's promo code G…

In this episode, I speak with Pablo Alonso Caprile, CFO of iCare Benefits, which provides buy now pay later services to low-income factory workers, particularly women, in Cambodia and Laos. This isn't your typical point of sale BNPL model, but for iCare's customer base, this model makes a huge difference in their monthly purchasing power. Pablo tal…

In this episode, I speak with Gustaf Agartson, founder and CEO of BIMA, a microinsurance and healthcare provider. Gustaf talks about seeing the need for e-wallet enabled financial services, launching BIMA in Ghana 11 years ago, and leading the company's emerging market expansion across Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, as well as branching ou…

In this episode, I speak with Ketty Lie, co-founder of Erudifi, a student loan fintech that allows students to pay their tuition in installments to their schools. Ketty talks about moving back and forth between Southeast Asia and the U.S., her work in economic development and social impact, and her conviction that an educated workforce is critical …

In this episode, we speak with Tobias Fischer, co-founder and CEO of wagely, an earned wage access fintech that helps employees access their wages before payday. We hear about Toby's journey - as a student in Germany learning about Southeast Asia's opportunity for financial inclusion from afar to venturing to the region himself and paving the way f…

Welcome to the Green Room, a podcast where we talk to fintech entrepreneurs and thought leaders in Southeast Asia about their careers, impact, and industry insights. I'm your host, Amrita Vir. In season 2 of the Green Room, we are exploring even more fintech hot topics like buy now pay later, regtech, microinsurance, student loans, and alternative …

In this episode, we talked with Dave Rouse, co-founder and CEO of New Zealand-based CarbonClick. We hear about Dave's journey from pilot to green tech, joining CarbonClick after hearing the team's carbon offsetting pitch, and the convergence of fintech and green tech in ANZ and SEA. CarbonClick is a green fintech, and they raised their seed round i…

In honor of International Women's Day in March, we spoke with Debbie Watkins, CEO and Co-Founder of Lucy to share about her career beginning in the UK and shift to focus on financial institutions and startups in Southeast Asia. We talk about the unique challenges that women face in accessing financial services, especially in emerging markets and th…

In this episode, we speak with Payal Patel, Chief Compliance Officer of APAC at BitGo. At the time of this interview, Payal was Managing Director of FINTRAIL Asia, and we spoke about her series of career shifts, ultimately leading her to fintech compliance in Asia. Payal shares her experience starting her own financial crime consulting firm in Sing…

In this episode, we speak with Taejun Shin, Co-Founder, Representative Director & CEO at Gojo & Company, Inc. about his experiences growing up as an ethnic minority in Japan, starting Gojo and its strategies for supporting Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) in Asia, and the future of the microfinance industry globally, especially in light of Covid-19…

In this episode, we hear from Arun Pai, Chief Sales & Strategy Officer at Flow about Arun's career path in SEA, from options trading to joining early-stage startups, the value proposition for artificial intelligence (AI) in fintech, and how Flow uses AI to personalize debt collection. Flow uses AI to revolutionize the way financial service provider…

In this episode, we hear from Niki Luhur, CEO and Founder of VIDA and Chairman and Co-Founder of the Indonesia Fintech Association, or AFTECH. We learn about Niki's journey in Indonesia - from joining payments company Kartuku and its acquisition by GoJek to spotting digital identity needs and founding VIDA. Niki also shares the parallel story of th…

In this episode, we speak with Michele Ferrario, co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based wealth management fintech StashAway. Michele talks about how founding StashAway was a blend of his experience in the finance and online retail sectors, the impact of Covid-19 on saving and investment in Southeast Asia, and the importance of culture in a growing f…

In this episode, we hear from Arvie de Vera, SVP & Fintech Business Group Head of UnionBank, and Todd Schweitzer, CEO & Founder of Brankas about open banking in Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines. Arvie and Todd talk about key inflection points in their careers that have led them to their current work in fintech, opportunities for banks a…

Welcome to The Green Room, a podcast where we talk to fintech entrepreneurs and thought leaders in Southeast Asia about their careers and industry insights, hosted by Amrita Vir. Southeast Asia is an incredible theatre for fintech. It's huge, it's diverse, and there's a growing middle class where people are digitizing quickly. This dynamism and pot…