Latest / Leaders In Payments / Jon Lear, President & Co-Founder of Fintech Meetup | Episode 256

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Jon Lear, President & Co-Founder of Fintech Meetup | Episode 256 · Leaders In Payments

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast, where we talk to C-level leaders from across the payments landscape.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: We'll be discussing the products and services that impact the payment space today, as well as trends and predictions for the future of payments.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: We will also hear stories from our guests about their journeys to the top.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: What's interesting is that the fintech industry has changed dramatically over the last 10 years, beyond all recognition, but the events that serve the industry is still the events that were launched 10 plus years ago.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: So we came in with an entirely new proposition that put the attendee and the sponsor in the exhibit of right at the heart of the experience.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: So how do we do that?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: What we use is technology, and this is the crucial difference, but it's technology that creates incredible value for everybody.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: That was John Lear, the president and co-founder of fintech meetup, and he is my special guest on this episode, episode 256 of the leaders in payments podcast, and I'm your host, greg Myers.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: Fintech meetup is a groundbreaking event that will be held March 3rd through the 6th 2024 at the Venetian in Las Vegas.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: John and I talk about the powerful technology they leverage, the meetings program, the co-located event program and much, much more.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: We've got a great episode ahead, so let's get started.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Hi, john, thank you for being here and welcome to the leaders in payments podcast.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Thanks, greg, really looking forward to this and, yeah, great to be here.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: Great, so let's go ahead and dive in.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about you a little bit first.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: So tell the audience a little bit about yourself, maybe where you grew up, where you went to school, where you currently live, a few things like that.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, so originally I'm from the UK, as you can probably tell by the accent, although a lot of people think I'm Australian.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, originally born in the UK and then moved around a little bit, so started my career at PNG but then moved out actually to Geneva in Switzerland so spend about two, three years there and then moved to the US about 15 years ago where I kind of discovered this whole thing called FinTech, which was this really new emerging area that is obviously boomed and is so exciting and such a huge industry now.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: So moved out to the US.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: I lived in New York and recently my wife and Meredith and my son Henry, who's three and a half, we moved out to Connecticut.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: So living Connecticut and in the office in New York.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Great.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Well, tell us about your journey to your role there as president.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Maybe walk us through your professional journey and you know how you got to FinTech meet up and that'll get us started into the.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: To the meat of it, yeah.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: I guess the first thing to say is I never in a my wildest imagination ever thought I'd end up in the events business, but it's one of the most exciting industries particularly being in the FinTech events space that I've ever experienced.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: So I started off my career a proctor in gamble, as a, as a brand manager, and if fantastic organization really gives you some great insights around consumer understanding, how did market things?
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Thinking about strategy?
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: So my first brand was actually Pampers nappies or Pampers diapers, as we'd say, say over here Huge business in the UK, and then worked on a range of other different products and consumer products and then I thought I'd leave, moved out to Switzerland to run beverages business, which was things like Sunday lights and Folgers coffee Png.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Decided we're gonna get out of the beverage business.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: And then at the same time I came across this little company in the UK about 15 years ago.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: He was called earth port and it was doing this kind of incredible thing called cross-border payments and I had no background in payments, didn't really understand anything about it, but I was really really captivated by it.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: It seemed to have some great technology, some great relationships around the world and it kind of struck me that this whole thing of moving money cross-border around the world was really gonna start to hit a tipping point and three things kind of stood out for me.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: First was global migration people just moving around from country to country a lot more and therefore needed to move money a lot more.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: The second thing was the growth of e-commerce the ability to buy in one country shipped to another.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Again, how you move those funds.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: That was a huge, huge trend that I was seeing.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: And the third thing was just generally globalization and the whole cross-border commerce piece.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: So I looked at it and thought, wow, this is an amazing sector to be in and this is really interesting company.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: But the one problem was great, that they weren't in the us, which is obviously the world's biggest market by gdp, biggest cross-border market.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: So what I did was I packed a bag, bought a one-way ticket, move to a Not a great hotel in chelsea, new york, and basically just started to get really networked into the payment space and fin tech at that time, which is starting to get going.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: So I build a business up from, originally just me in the us, with about thirty people in the us, about two hundred people globally, and then we took the business from about a million dollars of revenue to forty million over the next decade, raise about a hundred and fifty million capital over subsequent rounds, successive rounds, and then we eventually exited that business to visa and the poor became effectively the engine behind what is now visa direct.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: That was great and I just had such a unique opportunity and inside into how to money transfer companies think about moving funds and making payments and what are we commerce platforms?
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: How do they think about distributing funds that accepted from one currency in one country to another.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: So it's just absolutely fascinating.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: And what are the big things that I got a lot of exposure to words how to banks move money, you know, thinking about some of the legacy in common ways of using correspondent banking and traditional wire mechanisms, we're able to come in with a whole new solution and I think we ended up signing about twelve out of the top fifteen global banks, which for a fin tech at the time was was was pretty incredible.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: So that exit that business to visa.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: And then I joined jp morgan chase and run the fin tech partnership investment network group there, which is really the other side of the transaction.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: So I've done the fin tech piece.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: How do you partner with other fin techs and banks and then, as a bank, how do you bring fin techs into the company to help, you know, enrich or meant products, services and solutions to deliver new and better capabilities to our customers.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: And that was terrific.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: I think we onboarded about twenty plus partners around the world and steps from acquiring capabilities in asia, lost a whole low value clearing solution globally and it was great just to get that you know, very regulated financial institution.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: And then the pandemic came and we just had my my now nearly four year old son, henry, and I always wanted to go back and do something a little bit entrepreneurial and I took a call from any.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Like all people probably know anil from many different things, but he's most well known for founding money twenty, twenty, about ten years ago, and we're both talking about the event space and fin tech and what was going on, and we both came to the conclusion that there was a really unique opportunity to create and launch a new fin tech event for the next decade.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: You know what's unique about anil and and simran, his partner and founder of fin tech, meet up Is that they're obviously got great relationships and experience and track record in fin tech, but also the incredible event entrepreneurs as well.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: So they found money twenty twenty.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: They then founded shop talk, which is the biggest retail events globally, and then other events as well, like grocery shop.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: So it's just really really unique set of circumstances and I think it came together really well.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Background in fin tech, the event entrepreneur angle as well.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: So we launched in tech meet up in twenty twenty one.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: We did two virtual shows and then we just have done our first in person show at the area in los vegas in the march just gone and great.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: It's been a phenomenal success.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Not sure get into the details of it, but it's been a really really exciting journey and I think one of the things that I'm really Really energized about is that, being in the event space, you get to see and have some great conversations with everybody across the whole ecosystem.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: You know I'm in fin tech meet up and it's fin techs in the name but we really service the banking, payments, fin tech and lending ecosystem, so it cuts across everything and you know, just having some conversations with some incredible organizations and incredible leaders, it's been one of the most exciting and biggest highlights of my career so far.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for sharing that.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: I didn't know all that background about, about you and how you got involved in the event side, so I appreciate you sharing that so for maybe the audience members who don't know much about fin tech meet up, give us sort of the fifty thousand foot level, the basics of what it is.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: The thing that we are so excited about with fin tech meet up is that it meets a massive need in the market that just isn't being met at the moment.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: And I think the testament to that great is that we came out of our in person show in march and we came out with an nps of fifty three.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: So what does that mean?
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: It's actually the highest rated Event that the team has ever launched ever in that track record on history, better than many twenty twenty better than any of the other events.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: And there's a real reason for that is that you know, when you step back in and we think about the fin tech industry, the industry has evolved so dramatically over the last decade.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: You know, when I got involved in fin tech, it was really about you know a bit about acquiring, card issuing.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: There was some cross border payments.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: How do you optimize for global remittances?
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: That was ten years ago.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: We did a piece of work as part of launching fin tech meet up to try and identify all the different categories of services and solutions.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: We came up with a hundred and thirty plus.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: They cover everything from remittance, from acquiring to issuing, to call banking technologies.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Then you've got things like data and analytics, I Channel solutions.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: You just covers everything, obviously more recently, includes things like that, artificial intelligence, which is incredibly exciting.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: So we step back and we said you know what's interesting is that the thing tech industry has changed dramatically over the last ten years, beyond recognition, but the events that serve the industry Still the events that were launched 10 plus years ago.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: So we came in with an entirely new proposition that put the attendee and the sponsor in the exhibit right at the heart of the experience.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: So how do we do that?
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Well, what we use is technology, and this is the crucial difference.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: But it's technology that creates incredible value for everybody.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: No, we kind of joke that, it's a.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: It seems strange that we're in the FinTech, financial technology space, but very few event organizers really use technology to really help attendees and sponsors and exhibitors deliver upon their objectives.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: So what we did is we step back and we said what is the number one thing people have for going to events?
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: What is all about connectivity and it's all about conversations and it's all about creating opportunities.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: So if you're a sea level individual, chief executive, chief product officer, you want to go and have Meetings with exactly the right people and exactly the right organizations that can help you meet your objectives, and they could cover everything from I want to go and meet the media.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: I want to go and get my story out there.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Maybe I want to go and talk to investors.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: As a chief product officer, I want to go meet other organizations, learn what products and services and solutions they've got.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: As a partnerships person, who should I be partnering with across the ecosystem?
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Who can help me achieve my objectives?
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: And obviously there's the sales, business development, relationship management.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: How do I create those opportunities to advance my commercial agenda?
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: So what we did was we said this is all about creating conversations and creating opportunities for people so that they get maximum ROI from attending events.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: So what we did was we build an incredible team 50 outstanding engineers and we built this platform that enables everybody to connect with everybody else at scale across every imaginable use case that I just described.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: So the meetings program that we do at FinTech meetup, which is a core part of our show, it enables, as I say, everybody to connect with everybody else.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: At the last event in March, we scheduled 30,000 meetings with everybody, and people would just completely blown away whether it's some of the world's biggest banks identifying new partners that they're already implementing into their solution Some of the smaller FinTechs getting investment from other VCs investors.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: It just blew everybody away to the extent that people came out of FinTech meetup going.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: This is the event that really understands our industry FinTech, banking, payments and lending and is really the one event that you're going to go to to achieve your objectives with incredible ROI.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: So it takes some imagination to think about 30,000 meetings taking place, but the energy in the room, the connectivity, is just incredible and will schedule about 50 to 60,000 meetings At the next FinTech meetup, march 3rd to the 6th 2024.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: But that's a key thing we help people achieve their objectives.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Okay, so let's talk about it first from an attendee perspective and then we'll talk from a sponsor or exhibitor perspective.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: So from an attendee perspective, what?
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: What do they get out of it?
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: What's the value in the attendee going?
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: I know you explained a little bit of it just then, but maybe go a little deeper on what the attendee really gets out of it.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: I talked about the meetings program and it is the world's largest FinTech meetings program.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: That's obviously a core part of what we do.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: We have three hours of meetings on the Monday, three hours of meetings on the Tuesday, all the meetings of 15 minutes.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: They're all what we call double opt in, so you want to meet with individual A and individual A wants to meet with you.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: So very, very high quality meetings.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: But you know, fintech meetup is not just about meetings.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: It's a full show and so full event experience, so takes place from Sunday through to Wednesday.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: We have 175 plus incredible speakers.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: We just started to announce some of our keynotes to include Zach Sierra of Plad, matt Harris from Bain Capital Ventures, probably the most well-known VC in the space.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: So we have a full agenda that covers all the latest topics and issues affecting and driving the industry.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: So that's one thing.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: We have a very, very high quality threshold when it comes to content and speakers, so we're really excited about that.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: So FinTech meetup is the place where you're going to learn Not just from people that you meet as part of our meetings program, but also as part of our content that we deliver as well.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: We also have, obviously, exhibit hall 350 plus sponsors is going to be so many different co located events and activities happening, and we'll talk about that in the second, because we think that's one of the most exciting things for the whole industry but really for attendees.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Fintech meetup is the one place that you'll go to To jumpstart and kickstart your whole year and achieve your objectives, that you'll then go and follow up and you'll execute on those meetings and those conversations and those opportunities you created.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: So it sets you up for success for the rest of the year.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: And, greg, that's one of the reasons that we deliberately chose quarter one and the spring because people want to get going in the year and March is the perfect timing to do that.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Create these opportunities, have these great conversations, then go execute on them for the rest of the year and then come back next year and we're going to do it all again.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love the timing for sure.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Well, let's now talk about it from the sponsor or exhibitor perspective.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: So what's the value they get from it?
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: I think, great.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: The word that you use there is so important, which is value.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: You know we are so focused to an extended drive that every decision that we make on how do we create and demonstrate return on investment for our sponsors, exhibitors, but also for attendees in fact, everybody who's involved in FinTech meetup we think that you know, obviously, where FinTech is at the moment in the industry generally.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: You know people are watching their budgets, their cost conscious, so the events that are gonna win long term are gonna be the events that can prove that they were actually able to deliver tangible results and meaningful ROI.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: So that's a big part of what we do.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: So how do we do that?
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Well, obviously, the meetings program that we do is just critical to that.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: No, the old way of going to a show, you try and get an attendee list.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: You figure out, okay, who do I want to meet on this attendee list probably old excel file that's gone around the industry.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Or you get a tiny piece of paper from somebody you meet in a bar restaurant.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: It just goes to demonstrate that events just haven't evolved so Obviously.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: With the meetings program, you get to see everybody who's coming to FinTech meetup.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: You can use the platform, then to interrogate search field, the tag across probably about a hundred eighty different data points.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: I want to identify all of the sea level individuals responsible for products that have bas solutions or whatever it might be.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: So you get very, very specific about who you're gonna meet and who you want to meet with.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: So that's one thing.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: It just is a much more efficient process.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: But really the promise of FinTech meetup is that before you even get on a plane to Las Vegas to go to an event, you're going to know exactly what your schedule is.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: You're going to have your calendar stacked with meetings with individuals who want to meet with you and you want to meet with them.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: That is.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: It sounds so basic, greg, but it's a massive, fundamental paradigm shift for the industry.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: We've had large teams from some of the biggest fintechs and banks in the world Even before they got on a plane to Vegas.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: They've got 300, 400 plus meetings across a team of 20, 30 people and coming out of fintech meetup they were able to say it was their single best, most successful event, and that one bank in particular said that the whole partnership pipeline is full for the next 12 months.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: They actually can't do anything more.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: They've got so many incredible fintechs and conversations and opportunities going.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: So that's just sounds incredibly simple and basic, but it's one way that we are really focused on delivering value for the industry and for sponsors and exhibitors.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Obviously, the other thing is that everything we do we can very, very competitively price.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: There should be no price-based reason why anybody shouldn't go to fintech meetup, because we do think that a lot of events that become very expensive and when you put that in the context of actually declining ROI, it becomes a real challenge.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: So we are really partnered very deeply with event organizers at the sponsoring and exhibiting companies.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: But the thing that I think what I'm most excited about is we're constantly thinking about what else can we do to serve the industry, how can we help sponsors, attendees, speakers achieve their objectives?
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: And the thing that I'm most excited about is the launch of what we call co-located events and activities at fintech meetup.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: I could probably talk about this great for hours and hours.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: So it's really really simple.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: But again, it's using technology to solve a decades-old problem that has affected the whole event space generally and but specifically in fintech.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: So, just to give you an example, most event organizers whether it's in fintech, banking and payments they don't want anybody else to do any other events around their show.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Their focus is on their show and that's just the way it's always historically been.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Our view is that we want to be this incredible partner to everybody in the ecosystem and we want to empower and enable them to achieve their objectives.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: So what we realized is that a lot of organizations they like to do their own events around the main fintech show.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: It might be a happy hour, it might be private networking dinner, maybe they want to go and do some activation or client appreciation.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: So the normal process that they go through to do this and event organizers will find this they'll probably be laughing when they listen to this is that again they try and get an attendee list.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: They'd say, look, now I've got to go get a venue.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Then I've got to go through and I've got to identify okay, who do I want to invite to my happy hour or my executive networking dinner?
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Then I've got to probably throw up an event-brite page.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: I've got to have somebody to manage that.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: I've got to send out invites.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: I've got to manage the RSVPs, I've got to manage the food and beverage, the venue.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: It becomes a huge project in and of itself.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: So we looked at it and said this is crazy.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: We want everybody across the industry to do whatever they want to do at Fintech Meetup and we're going to make it really simple by using technology.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: So, just like the meetings program, you'll be able to go into the platform as a sponsor or exhibitor.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: You'll be able to create and list your own event.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Again, we're going to open up the whole platform and then, let's say, you're a bank and you want to invite your top customers in a particular segment, you'll be able to go through and say, like, I want to identify all these C-level individuals, these kind of organizations with these kind of responsibilities, and then Fintech Meetup will take care of the rest.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: So the invites go out, manage the whole RSVP process.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: We'll even help lock down venues and locations for you.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: So really, the only choice that you need to do as an event organizer, as a sponsor or exhibitor, you need to decide really three things.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: The first is who do I want to invite, how many people do I want to invite, and then what do I want to be on my menu or food and beverage, and we'll take care of the rest.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: The feedback that we've had from the industry it is just mind-blowing.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Everybody says, wow, this solves such a huge issue.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: But what's more exciting, I think, for us is it's another way that we can help everybody in Fintech banking, payments and lending achieve their objectives, and how we can help be the glue that really brings the whole industry together.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Because the industry that we operate in it's changed so dramatically over the last 10 years.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: It's become ever more complex, ever more intricate.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: So, using technology, we just really simplifying and crystallizing just get people to achieve whatever goals and objectives they have from a sales, marketing, messaging strategies perspective.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: So we're really exciting about it and the feedback has been incredible so far.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: That's great.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: So you've talked about the use of technology.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: You've talked about the meeting program.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: You just talked about the Coley located events.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: All of those things make what Fintech Meetup does different from other events in our industry.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: What else is there that's different or makes you guys unique?
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously I've talked a lot about technology today.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: I think the one thing is you can have great technology, but if you don't have the right community that uses that technology, then it's all for nothing.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: That's one of the things, greg, that we really focus incredibly hard on, which is we are what we think is very flexible, entrepreneurial.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: We never say no.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: We want to be seen as the partner that will help you do whatever you want to do.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: So that's one thing.
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: It's just part of our kind of DNA and philosophical mindset, which is we never say no.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Tell us what you want to do, we're going to help you achieve it.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: So that's one thing.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: But the other thing that I think is really important is the whole founding team.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: We've all been owner operators, fintechers, bankers, combination of both, so we just have this incredible set of really supportive relationships right across the industry, so we're able to really curate and bring together the whole ecosystem.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: And that's where the magic happens.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: You get the right people together with this incredible technology and you can just make magic really happen.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: And then, finally, the one standout thing for me that I think again is mind blowing just like the meetings program, just like the co-located activities and events is what we call hosted program.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: So typically, or certainly my experience, when you go to a lot of events, if you go to think events you normally find it's been tech is talking to fin tech.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Is you go to banking events, it's bankers talking to bankers.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: The reason we started fintech meetup is one we think the industry needs a new event for the next decade.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: But to we believe that the next huge wave of innovation Is only gonna happen if we get bankers and fin tech is in the same room, at the same show, at the same venue together.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: So what we did is we launched a hosted program.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: I think it's absolutely incredible.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: So, basically, for any individual from any financial institution, irrespective of size, could be the smallest community bank, could be a credit union, could be one of the top ten global banks or super regionals, doesn't make any difference Any individual who is responsible for evaluating in tech technology solution services.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: What we do is we actually give them a free ticket to come to the event is valid north of three and a half thousand dollars, and will give them a seven hundred fifty dollar travel allowance to come to fintech meetup.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Now the quick pro quo of that is that they go into our meetings program so that they can get the opportunity to meet with other solution providers and Everybody else across the industry.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: The feedback we've had from the banks is wow, this is incredible.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Somebody's actually listen to us, because their challenges that there are so many different functions in these financial institutions that should be getting exposed to fintech solutions and services.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: You know people from regulatory and compliance, legal, every part imaginable payments, operations, technology.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: All of these individuals should be going to events, fintech events.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: The reason we created the hosted program is we want all those people to come because those are incredibly important stakeholders for the whole industry and we just said, look, what we're gonna do is we're going to lower the barriers for them coming.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: We're gonna make it a no brainer, because then the whole industry benefits the banks benefit, financial institutions benefit and the fintech benefit and, most importantly, the industry benefits because everybody's Talking, collaborating, connecting, creating opportunities.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: So we're really, really excited about that awesome.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: That's awesome program to.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: So where do you see fintech meetup heading and say the next three to five years?
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: yeah, I think with a show, great now that Just has so much buzz about it and everybody is so excited.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: You know, people, people really react incredibly well and people talk about it being the next big or the new big fintech events.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: So we got some really exciting plans.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: One of the announcement you might have seen a few few months ago is that one of the events that we have a long standing admiration for, fintech nexus.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: We struck a partnership with fintech nexus and for those of them, fintech nexus, great events founded about ten years ago.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: They're transitioning their sponsors and exhibitors and attendees to fintech meetup because of the very unique, incredible proposition the meetings, program, technology, the community.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: That was great.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: That happened really, really quickly.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: So we're building scale on that side.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: We have a great relationship with bow and peter from fintech nexus and doing lots of other things with them as well on the media side.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: So that's one thing and then I think, just generally, we're building new capabilities all the time.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: We're listening to people with, talking constantly to sponsors and exhibitors.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: So you know, big, doing a lot of products, enhancements, new services, new solutions to really constantly drive this are why benefit for everybody.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: And then we're looking at all sorts of other things as well.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: So you know, looking at different geographies, regions, this is a huge global demand, an opportunity for what we've created with fintech.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Meet up in north america and you know, this is really exciting regions that that would just benefit tremendously from what we're doing.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Well, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about you, so tell us some things you're passionate about, maybe a business related passion and personal passion I start with the personal passion which actually leads into business a little bit.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: I live, breeze, sleep.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Formula one, absolutely Formula one that.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: But I will say I started watching it with my father as a six year old and I think we've seen I think we've seen pretty much every race from the age of six and it was just part of a family tradition.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: You come back on a sunday, you have a roast dinner in england and then you go Every sunday one o'clock, the formula one racing would start you know the reason I'm so passionate about it is it's not just cars going around the track, it's just pure peak performance in every single part of the whole sport, right from designing and engineering, to know that the other manifestation of that is the pit stop.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: How are the people change tires in two point four second, get back out on the track.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: It's incredible.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: I think those lessons can be applied to business.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: You know precision, thinking through strategy and there's some great books around that, so you know what one of my big heroes as a driver was iet and center, who's a Brazilian multiple world champion.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: I remember as a fifteen year old at the european grand prune, donnington in england, where I live.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: It was torrential rain of course it was it's england but he went from seventh on the grid to first position on the first lap.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Never seen anything like it was sublime.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: It was like watching the best orchestra can conduct the most amazing music, the finest artist.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: It was just incredible and stuck with me to this day.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: And then on the business side I guide and I'm I've done a lot of reading about.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: I find hugely inspiring is total wolf, who's the chief executive and co-founder and co owner of the Mercedes Benz formula one team.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: You know his philosophy on life is just incredible.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: But how he applies the sporting insights of formula one to running a twelve hundred person organization that serves only to win races On twenty six tracks around the world, fifty two weeks a year, it's incredible.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: And that's why they won eight consecutive world championships most successful team, it's just incredible.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: So formula one is my thing, but we'll have to go to a race together one day great.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Oh, that would be, that would be amazing.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: So obviously you had a background for quite a while in this whole fintech payment space with the earthport, jp, morgan, and now, obviously, with what you're doing now.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: So if someone came to you and said, hey, this is, this is a hot industry, I want to get involved, maybe they're right coming right out of college or university, and they said, john, what, what would your advice be to me?
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: I wanna, I wanna, be successful in this industry.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: What would you tell me need to do to be successful?
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: yeah, I got the first grade.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: I just wanna pick up on one thing you said, which was hey, this is a hot industry.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: You know there's a bit of a narrative out there that you know fintech is done, all the innovation, there's not much more to do.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: You know some people have their heads down.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: You know, home low.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: I think you're right.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Great, I don't think we've even really started getting going getting fintech and Ed fintech made up twenty three.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: I interviewed on the main stage steve mclochland and steve's view is very similar to mine, which is we probably solve ten, fifteen, twenty percent of the challenges around payments, banking, lending.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: So I think fintech has this incredible opportunity and I think it's the most exciting industry that anybody could wanna go into.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Sure, it's got challenges.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: What work through them will come back out the other side in a much stronger position.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: So you know my advice would be firstly, you definitely entering the right industry, might?
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Advice would be go, have as many conversations with as many people she can.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: You know, come to events like ads if you want to, but you know you can network with people online, reach out to people on linkedin.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: One thing I found great is that FinTech is one of those rare industries where actually people really wanna help each other and it's very collaborative and it's very supportive and people are very generous with their time.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: So go out have those conversations, ask those naive questions, because what you think is naivety I actually nobody else is thought about asking that question.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: I remember when we first struck a partnership with stripe many, many years ago this is when stripe was a lot smaller there was a guy that is probably twenty three, twenty four great engineer and when we were presenting a solution at earthball, he just kept saying why do you do it like that?
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: What that?
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Why do you think like that?
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Why do you engineer it like that?
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: And that's the power of just asking and asking the questions that nobody else wants to ask or scared to ask.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I, joy, definitely get involved in fin tech.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Go talk to as many people as possible.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: There's incredible organizations out there.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: And also go talk to vcs.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Talk to your associates analysis to vcs and investors.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: They have their finger on the pulse, what's hot, which organizations are worth talking to.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: And, of course, you know I'd be more than happy if anybody ever wants to talk about fin tech or formula one.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Love to spend time on that with them awesome, awesome.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: Well, john, we've covered a lot of ground so far, obviously, about you and your background fin tech, meet up the industry.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: Think we've had a great session so far.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up the show?
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: no other than really two things.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: First, great, thank you so much for having me on here.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: You know big fans of what you do for the industry and for the community.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: You know the interviews.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: You do it terrific and I think it adds so much value and education substance to our community.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: So thank you to you.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: And then the second thing is Look, we'd love to see everybody at fin tech meet up.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: If you're in a bank, apply for a hosted program.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: If you want to have a conversation with us, feel free just to reach out.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: You can reach out to me on linkedin.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: We just love you to come and join us.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: It's gonna be an incredible event.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: Great.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: Well, john.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: Again, thank you so much for being on the show.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: I know your time is very valuable, so I really appreciate you being here.
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much really appreciate it.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: And to all you listeners out there.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: I thank you for your time as well, and until the next story.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us this week on the leaders in payments podcast.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: Make sure you visit our website at leaders in payments dot com where you can subscribe to the show and where you'll find our show notes.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed listening, please share on your social channels as well.