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Fintech South 2025: Mark Frey with Corpay

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Atlanta Business Radio
Fintech South 2025: Mark Frey with Corpay
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Mark-Frey-Fintech-South-2025Mark Frey has established Corpay as a market leader in cross-border payments and currency risk management since being appointed Group President of Corpay Cross-Border Solutions in March 2022.

A proven leader with over 20 years’ experience in trading and treasury operations, Mark has been with us for over a decade. He led the successful acquisitions and integrations of AFEX and Global Reach in recent years.

Prior to Corpay, Mark was with Western Union.

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Live from Fintech South 2025. So excited to be talking to my next guest, Mark Frey with Corpay. Welcome.

Mark Frey: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Lee Kantor: For folks who aren’t familiar. Can you share a little bit about Corpay? How are you serving folks?

Mark Frey: So Corpay is effectively a business payments company. We help three key segments of customers, those who are tied to vehicle mobility payments in North America, Europe, Anzac Region and South America as well. We also provide lodging solutions, both workforce solutions as well as airline and distressed passenger solutions. And then I run our global cross-border payments business, which is really about moving money across borders and helping companies individuals manage foreign exchange risk.

Lee Kantor: So why is it important for Corpay to be involved with Fintech South and with Tag?

Mark Frey: So Fintech South is a very important organization for us. We’re an Atlanta based company. Our head office is here in Atlanta. This is a show that we take part in every year. I think it’s an important networking opportunity. We meet with customers, partners and and colleagues alike here, and it’s just a fantastic way to network and be a part of the ecosystem ultimately that we’re a contributor to.

Lee Kantor: So how do you communicate to the people at Core Pay to get involved with organizations like Tag and Fintech? Stuff like what’s your recommendation in order to kind of wring the most juice out of an out of an event like this?

Mark Frey: Yeah, we certainly try to encourage its much participation as we possibly can for our team, not just in events like this, but throughout the calendar year as well. We’ve got a strong contingent of core folks here that participate in sessions that are part of the panel interviews, speaking engagements, and also have a booth at the show to try and just meet as many people as we possibly can.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, how do you see, from what you’ve learned to today and what your experience is in, uh, in fintech? What kind of trends are you seeing when it comes to, uh, fintech, whether it’s technology, whether it’s, um, just payments. What are kind of what’s in the crystal ball for you guys?

Mark Frey: I think the key theme that we see in our market is the ability to move money fast, ubiquitously, and as cost and frictionless as we possibly can.

Lee Kantor: And safely.

Mark Frey: Yes, safely and secure is obviously a key part of it as well. So our customers are are are looking for solutions. They’re somewhat technology agnostic as to how. So whether that’s a real time payment network or it’s stablecoin or it’s a blockchain enabled payment or even more traditional means of payments that we’ve managed to find ways to to speed up and accelerate. Our customers are really just looking for a solution for their business. They don’t care what the technology is that underlines that.

Lee Kantor: Are they, um, looking forward to a day when, you know, physical checks go away?

Mark Frey: Well, I think everybody is looking forward to that. No, no, it’s the rest of the world is already at that stage. So. So as someone who, uh, I hail from Canada, uh, we run a global business. We don’t issue checks anywhere in the world like we do have a tendency to do so in the United States. So that is is something that I think is somewhat unique to this market and is still a tremendous business opportunity. If you can provide solutions that help businesses conduct their business in a way that is secure, they feel comfortable with and can move away from paper based payments, there’s a world of opportunity.

Lee Kantor: So how do you kind of rationalize why America is a leader in so many areas and places, but is a laggard when it comes to physical track?

Mark Frey: You know, I think it’s a it’s a function of the sort of the fractured banking system in the United States versus other markets. To a certain extent. Uh, I think there has been a focus It’s historically on card and and and as a solution. And that certainly is a viable solution in terms of making card based payments versus checks. But I don’t think there’s been the same ubiquitous adoption of real time payment rails in the United States that we’ve seen in other markets, and that is beginning to change now. We are certainly seeing more of a push in the marketplace and greater adoption and sort of a demand from customers to be able to move money more, more seamlessly than with old big paper based payments.

Lee Kantor: Because it seems like there is adoption from a consumer standpoint for digital.

Mark Frey: Well.

Lee Kantor: Like that’s already happened. Like no one is clamoring for me to write them a check. Like if I do a transaction with a friend of mine.

Mark Frey: It’s it’s a Venmo or it’s an accounting account.

Lee Kantor: We’re comfortable with that.

Mark Frey: It’s a crypto.

Lee Kantor: Payment. But for business, it seems like.

Mark Frey: We’re absolutely.

Lee Kantor: Five steps behind.

Mark Frey: Here. So this is a common recurring theme in the United States. I think that that the personal consumer market leads the business market. And we all, as business leaders and, and managers of our enterprises get used to that consumer like experience, and then that begins to become the de facto standard that we want to apply to our business organizations as well.

Lee Kantor: So how does your customer come to you? Like what is the first pane that that you all saw for your customers?

Mark Frey: So we do three key things for our customers. We exchange from one currency to another and in a seamless fashion, and provide risk management solutions to manage the risk of doing business internationally and multiple currencies. We can move money anywhere in the world without checks. Real time to to.

Lee Kantor: What a concept.

Mark Frey: To to Nigeria or Kenya or Malaysia, anywhere in the world. And then we also provide real time bank account solutions in many countries around the world so that if you’re a US based company and you want to expand to the UK or Germany or Canada, rather than having to establish local banking relationships in each of those markets, core pay can be your financial institution of choice everywhere.

Lee Kantor: So if I partner with Core Pay, that’s kind of that solution is built into the service that you’re offering.

Mark Frey: It’s all one tech stack, all the same piece of technology that deploys all of our solutions everywhere in the world.

Lee Kantor: And then what’s kind of the pain that your customer is having right before they hire you?

Mark Frey: So it it it is oftentimes someone who has, you know, doing business internationally. And foreign exchange rates have shifted, um, unfavorably for them. And then they’re looking to find a way to remediate that within their business, either their export market or their supplier that they’re importing from is no longer economic. And it sort of disrupted their business model. And they’re looking for a solution to manage that foreign exchange risk. The next ancillary solution is, well, how do you move that money? Either you’re getting paid from your foreign customers or you need to pay foreign vendors. How do you do that as efficiently as possible without a check? And then can can you actually receive those funds internationally with a foreign bank account?

Lee Kantor: And so then they come to you and you’re able to kind of create this holistic system that’s solving all those problems.

Mark Frey: Yeah. What we effectively do is we help US based businesses go global, ultimately to to find customers and vendors around the world and to move money and to establish bank accounts that allow it to be easier for them to sell in international markets and collect money in foreign currency from their customers and then remit back to the US.

Lee Kantor: So if there’s a US company listening that is thinking about kind of going international, they should contact you before doing it. So they put all the appropriate things in place in order to make that transition seamless.

Mark Frey: Couldn’t have said a better myself.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more about Corp, what’s the best way to connect Corp.

Mark Frey: Com. You always find me on social media on LinkedIn as well. Mark Frei uh, happy to have a conversation, engaging with anyone that we think we can help them grow their business globally.

Lee Kantor: Well, Mark, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Mark Frey: Thank you so much.

 

Fintech South 2025: Jonathan O’Connor with Synovus

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Atlanta Business Radio
Fintech South 2025: Jonathan O'Connor with Synovus
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Jonathan-OConnor-Fintech-South-2025Jonathan O’Connor, Fintech South 2025 Chair; Division President, Third-Party Payments, Synovus.

Jonathan is a results-oriented Executive, with 25+ years of experience leading sales teams, driving revenue, and identifying operational improvement strategies. Expert knowledge of global payment solutions, e-commerce, risk mitigation, digital currencies, merchant processing, mergers and acquisitions.

Adept at effective communication with internal executive leaders and external partners, building strategic relationships to drive corporate objectives and profit margin expectations. Forward thinker, with unique ability to collaborate with stakeholders driving innovative strategies and product offerings.

Dedicated team leader, with a passion for fostering an inclusive culture for teams and clients, prioritizing effective communication, team production, collaboration and respect. Unlocked staff potential with motivational mentoring and ownership techniques, leveraging inter-company resources to exceed project completion timelines.

Connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from ten Tech South 2025. So excited to be talking to my next guest, Jonathan O’Connor with Synovus.

Jonathan O’Connor: Welcome, Lee. Great to be here. And great to have you guys here. It’s such a great event.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. So we chatted a little bit before the conference started. Now that the conference is in is going full bore here, uh, what have you learned?

Jonathan O’Connor: Look, it’s been an amazing, you know, day and a half. I’ve been here as emcee as well. So trying to convince people I’m not from Dublin, Georgia, but from Dublin, Ireland has been an adventure. But it really has been a great, uh, you know, you know, building our team around the power of connection and the innovation of finance in the future. Ai has been central to everything, and it’s amazing to go around to all of our exhibitors and see the amount of Atlantic AI signs. You know, it really is the the power horse of change as we go through. And and we’ve had some amazing speakers as well, you know, as Sean Neville has been here, uh, you know, hoo hoo circle guy who’s now going to, you know, take on the financial, traditional financial institution banks and have an AI agent driven financial institution. So, you know, the innovation has been amazing. Uh, you know, having a lot of our students here as well to the Georgia Fintech Academy has been very beneficial to see the generation, you know, that’s going to come up after all of us, like the Pepsi ad, the next generation. And, uh, you know, we’ve had also some Hall of Fame inductees as well. And, you know, it’s generally been a great, great two days.

Lee Kantor: So now, uh, you you talk about the power of connection and community. Why is it important for Synovus this to be the kind of the lead sponsor of this event. And and and how is this, uh, fintech south and tag kind of really play into the Synovus mission?

Jonathan O’Connor: Yeah. Look, you know, first of all, let’s talk about Georgia and Atlanta itself for fintech. You know, over 300 billion in transactions flowed through it through Atlanta, with 70% of all global payments flowing through the city. In that we’ve got about 260 fintechs and six out of ten of every international large processor as a presence here and as Synovus, we’re we’re you know, we’re glad to be part of the fintech ecosystem in Atlanta. You know, we’re our community is very important to us. And we play a great role there, helping not only the the fintechs, you know, established banking relationships, but also, you know, working with some larger processors as well as they look at their financial needs from a students perspective. You know, Synovus and the third party payments team were very engaged with mentoring some students. In fact, we have four students now from UGA who have launched a pay by bank product, and we’ve mentored those guys and are launching now second week of September in Athens, Georgia, with a coffee store. And we’re immensely proud of that because that’s what it’s all about. It’s all about community at the end of the day and passing back a little bit of knowledge. You know, the older folks in payments have to the next generation.

Lee Kantor: So how does you and your team encourage the Synovus folks, um, to get involved with organizations like Tag or conferences like Fintech South? Like, how is that kind of integrated into the DNA of your organizations?

Jonathan O’Connor: Yeah. Look, I’ve been very lucky from a from a leadership perspective to have our, our, our COO and CTO, both, uh, board members of Tag, uh, Zach Bishop and Vikram Ramani. So having those two great leaders in Tag and then giving me the opportunity to represent Synovus as headline sponsor at Fintech 2025. In addition to the MC has truly been great. In addition to that, Synovus has always supported not only Fintech Atlanta, uh, but also the ATC, where we’re we try to be influential from a policy perspective. You know, we’ve we’ve had representation for interchange, the interchange debates we’ve had we’ve also spoken and and also tried to influence around surcharges. So, you know, the bank itself is is always here to support and payments is is so critical to our relationship with our customers. You know, the bank will primarily drive loans and deposits. But you know it’s it’s like businesses like third party payments that we we drive merchant services and sponsorship. We drive non-interest revenue for the bank. And that’s a key component as well.

Lee Kantor: So what would you say to the folks out there, maybe the young people out there that are considering a career in finance, in fintech? Um, are you bullish about the opportunities for the next generation of, uh, you know, leaders?

Jonathan O’Connor: Absolutely. As I said, mentoring some some students recently was really an eye opener for me to to get involved. And I suppose the next generational turn in payments, we’re at a pivotal pivot point again, where a lot of the payment tools will reformat itself with AI, for example, the payment page, uh, you know, the the shopping carts and e-commerce, you know, we now see a gigantic AI. Ah, you know, we’re all blessed with these new terms, ambient commerce they’re also talking about. But we really feel that, you know, the new frontier of payments with AI will bring a new skill set. And I think an amazing challenge and opportunity for the next generation.

Lee Kantor: Now, what about the, you know, the slowness of some of the enterprise organizations and these, um, legacy companies to adopt digital payments and, uh, you know, move away from, you know, hard checks when their consumers have seemingly already pivoted towards a comfort with digital.

Jonathan O’Connor: Yeah. Look, I think people are people are happy and people are creatures of routine. So I think, you know, people who like checks will use checks. People who like ACH will use ACH. People who take out money from ATMs will take money out from ATMs. But as we think about payment acceptance, we think about everything moving to our phone, we carried around and unfortunately we look at it for so much during the day. You know, payment is now part of a digital wallet, and I really believe the future will see everything move to a digital wallet. It’ll move away from a plastic instrument or a paper instrument, and you’ll have everything through your digital wallet. So, you know, it always amazes me as well. When I used to watch my kids play video games and all they do is collect coins all the time. They’re they’re already trained for digital coins. And we have to mention stablecoin. We have to mention crypto Because as you marry at digital wallets with digital coins, you know that is the future. And I think we will see a huge uptake in digital wallet usage over the next, the next 2 to 4 years.

Lee Kantor: So do you. So you think that this is going to be kind of a a gradually then suddenly experience, or is this going to be just slow kind of drip until, uh, you know, I guess it just changes formally.

Jonathan O’Connor: Yeah. I think it’s already happening. If you, if you, you know, when you, when you go to to shop now or go to go to eat out, people are using contactless payments. So they’re already touching their phones. They’re trying to get over the terminals to make it connect. And that’s the first evolution here. The next will be, you know, the wallet will recognize you’re in the store and you’ll be able to connect things. And then we get into the scary side where the AI agent will be online, and we’ll do all the shopping for you, and we’ll select the best payment type to use in your wallet. And hopefully we’ll have some involvement there. And but I think it’s all happening. So you know. Certainly I think the train has left the station.

Lee Kantor: So now in, um, how does Synovus kind of, um, serve their different clientele? So you mentioned, like there’s obviously banking clients where you have people coming in and, and using banking services, but then you have these other kind of services in and around fintech. Are those customers kind of lead gen for the other services like, like which comes first, you know, the chicken or the egg when it comes to a Synovus customer?

Jonathan O’Connor: Absolutely. So, you know, we we primarily you know, our CEO is very passionate about people buying off people. And we lead with our commercial bankers. We lead with our branches. And, you know, we’re very much a community people driven bank. So by doing that the the relationship normally starts with a loan or a deposit or some type of, you know, commercial relationship. And then we’re probably what I position a value added service to that relationship. The banker will introduce the merchant services team and then we will We will hopefully earn the right for their business to enable their payment acceptance online, or even in a store or restaurant or shop.

Lee Kantor: So it starts with though the human to human interaction, maybe at a branch or a call from somebody from a branch.

Jonathan O’Connor: Absolutely. I’m a big believer in people buy off people. And I think if we if we stick to that simple mantra, you know, you earn the right for business and you you earn trust. And, you know, I also believe in the power of community. Since I’ve since I’ve started my career at Synovus.

Lee Kantor: So now you mentioned, um, stablecoin and crypto and things like that. Um, are you seeing an adoption and a comfort with that, or are we still at the beginning stages of that?

Jonathan O’Connor: I think we’re at early stages. You know, I what’s happened, probably the most positive elements is regulation. You know, we’ve had some large movements in regulation this year with the Unity Act and the Genius Act. So regulatory environments need to catch up with the technology. That’s the first thing that needs to happen. But I think there’s already snippets of where crypto or a stablecoin can be effective. We think international payments is one area you’ll be able to make payments a lot faster internationally with a particular coin and and around not only the coin or the stablecoin or the crypto. If you married out with a blockchain, you’ve got a lot stronger security. You’ve got a lot more, um, you know, control around the transaction and knowing where the funds are moving. What we need to happen now is in parallel that that the AML, BSA compliance regulatory environment kind of catches up with the technology because it’s not effective unless we can, particularly for for a financial institution, we need to minimize residual risk, operational risk and reputational risk.

Lee Kantor: Right. It’s one of these things where the consumer is just expecting speed, and then there’s so much you have to take care of when it comes to compliance and security.

Jonathan O’Connor: Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: And to marry that and balance that is tricky. I mean, the bad guys are paying attention to, right?

Jonathan O’Connor: They really are. As we evolve here, the bad guys are normally one step ahead. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: So if, um, when it comes to tag, what do you see kind of in the future of maybe this event or just in tag in general as, uh, tags looking to expand beyond just Georgia, but maybe be a leader within the the southeast region?

Jonathan O’Connor: Yeah. Look, I think there’s a couple of things. One is to, you know, continue supporting the next generation, our students. It was great to have such a great presence of our students here this year. I think they’re the they’re the DNA of what we all do for the future. Collaboration is key as well. We’ve we’ve had some, you know, representation here from the UK and Europe, which was great to see. And also for some other states. I met some people from Canada and, and also from, you know, out west. What really struck me as well was how do we glue the payment innovation in Silicon Valley with the traditional payment rails in Atlanta? And that’s something I’m going to have a good conversation with Larry about, because I think that’s something we should think about for next year. Is there you know, there’s so much great innovation on the West Coast around payments. How do we tag and fintech Marriott, maybe for some of our event next year now?

Lee Kantor: And also the opportunities kind of marrying some of the stuff that’s happening in Asia and internationally as well. I mean, it’s a big world out there.

Jonathan O’Connor: It really is. I agree. And, you know, from a regulatory standpoint. You know, Europe probably has they have their own AI act now and their crypto act has been in play. And there’s also some very interesting stuff happening here in Georgia. There’s the merchant acquiring limited charter uh license which the state issues. And that’s attracting a lot of fintechs into Atlanta. Fiserv was just granted that stripe was just granted that. And what that allows is it allows a company essentially process Visa and Mastercard without having a bank, but they can’t be a bank, so it gives them a lot more control on their payment ecosystem. I would I expect to see a lot more international inbound company setting up to avail of this license. So I think from an international perspective, we should see a lot of that movement over the next 12 months.

Lee Kantor: And then what do you see or hear from the folks you know internationally? How do they feel about Atlanta? Are they as bullish about Atlanta as the folks here in this room?

Jonathan O’Connor: Look, they love our airport. Number one. We can go anywhere. We can arrive anywhere. So that’s the first thing I love about Atlanta. Atlanta is a great transient city. And you know you’ve got a great mix of cultural people. In fact, my team, you know, if I look at the I’ve got four leaders and three of those are are not from Georgia. And sometimes I’ll be at a meeting said I work for snow was Bank and they’re saying is that the bank in Georgia. They’re confused. So you know I like that there’s such an internationalization feel here. Uh, you know, we’ve got good taxes, we’ve got great support systems. You know, we’ve got all of these great associations to help people get set up here. So I feel very confident. Only to see, you know, what’s going on recently with the amount of land purchased by Amazon for data centers. And, you know, some of the some of the larger companies setting up, um, headquarters here. You know, we we definitely are pivoting back into a leadership position here.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more about Synovus, uh, where should they go?

Jonathan O’Connor: Sure. You can go to our website, Synovus Comm, or you can also email me at Jonathan O’Connor at Synovus. Com.

Lee Kantor: Well, Jonathan, thank you so much for all you do for this event. And and your work with Tag and what you do in the community. It’s very important and we appreciate you.

Jonathan O’Connor: Thank you very much. And everyone have a great day.

 

Fintech South 2025: Monika Mueller with Softensity

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Atlanta Business Radio
Fintech South 2025: Monika Mueller with Softensity
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Monika-Mueller-Fintech-South-2025Monika Mueller has over 23 years of experience, bringing innovative solutions to her clients. Monika has focused on business and technology management at entrepreneurial, Fortune 500, and consulting companies.

She has a depth of experience in management consulting, information management, process optimization, and customer relationship management. Monika has served in leadership roles at Ernst & Young, PriceWaterHouseCoopers, OnStar, and Daugherty Business Solutions.

At her prior employer, Monika held P&L responsibility for the Atlanta Business Office, which included Sales Solutioning, Delivery, Recruiting and Operations for a team of over 200 consultants. During her 4 year tenure, the company doubled in size and created a team-based culture winning 12 awards and increased employee morale to its highest levels.

While at the Big 4, Monika was a Senior Leader helping to drive growth and innovation with exciting technology and telecom clients including Sprint, Global One, AstroLink, OnStar and many others Monika received her B.B.A. in Management from Cleveland State University and her Masters in Business Administration from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.

Monika sits on the Board of Women in Technology, the CIS Advisory Board and the Professional Services for the Technology Association of Georgia. Monika enjoys spending time with her two children in the outdoors, traveling and jogging.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025. So excited to be talking to my next guest, Monika Mueller with Softensity. Welcome.

Monika Mueller: Thank you. Happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Softensity. How are you serving folks?

Monika Mueller: We are a 27 year old management consulting organization, and over those 27 years, we’ve grown to about 25 geographical locations, about 3000 very smart consultants across the globe. And what we really do is bring data and software solutions to life for organizations, and use technology to help them solve their business problems.

Lee Kantor: Is there a niche when it comes down to your ideal client, or is it kind of industry agnostic.

Monika Mueller: Um, any companies that are having issues, I don’t know if you know any of them.

Lee Kantor: Issues?

Monika Mueller: No. Pain points? Challenges? Um, no. Our strengths are truly in sort of the fintech manufacturing, automotive space.

Lee Kantor: So, um, why was it important for you to be here at Fintech South? Is it Atlanta? One of the markets you’re in?

Monika Mueller: We are headquartered in Atlanta, so we are all about supporting the local communities, the local nonprofits, the local organizations. We have been a premier member of Tag for many years. I’m on the board of Tag myself a very passionate about this organization, and this is one of the premier events in Atlanta, bringing together not only thought leaders, but people that need to hear the thought leadership. And so it’s a great consolidation of our community in one space with the purpose of learning.

Lee Kantor: So how does soft density kind of recommend it’s people, uh, attack a conference like fintech. So.

Monika Mueller: Oh, by preparing for it, by really taking the opportunity to to understand the speakers, the presenters, the panels, the topics from our unique vantage point of working with a variety of customers. We’ve got a pretty good idea of what challenges our clients are dealing with, and we come to places like fintech and other conferences to help learn what is cutting edge as well, so we can bring that back to our clients. So we’re looking and planning and have chosen speakers that we want to be making sure we’re listening to. Right. We’re also on some panels ourselves. So it’s a really great opportunity for our team to be here.

Lee Kantor: So what are you seeing from a technology or trend standpoint that you’d like to share with our audience?

Monika Mueller: Well, I mean, I could say AI, but you probably have heard that all day. I never heard of I never heard of that. I think it’s spelled AI.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’ll write that down.

Monika Mueller: I would say that, um, the uniqueness of this particular session here, there’s a lot of talk around compliance, you know, cybersecurity and how does AI enable that. And one of the the unique perspectives that we have is that the cybersecurity compliance, all of that can not only be Enabled by AI, but AI in itself is a threat when it comes to those things. But from an organizational perspective, we really want our clients to start thinking about, um, compliance and security as a product, not something to to have to check a box on to something that we can actually use to differentiate clients, services, products in the marketplace by weaving compliance and security into a positive experience for customers. So that’s one of the the positions that we have is that we should look at this from a perspective of product, to enhance loyalty of customers to an organization and not have it be the four legged word that it’s become in terms of compliance requirements in an oracle.

Lee Kantor: So is a soft density customer typically coming to you because something bad happened? Or are they coming to you because they want to proactively grow?

Monika Mueller: I would say it’s probably a blend, right? A lot of organizations are are have a lot of smart people leading them and managing the day to day operations of them, and they’ve got roadmaps that we can come in and help them enable, right, with expertise that we have. And we’re not experts in everything, but where we are, we can help to provide sort of that proactive view of how solutions can be implemented, um, in the quickest fashion while, you know, meeting their vision, managing budgets, etc.. But then of course, there are situations that happen, right, where clients are experiencing imminent issues currently and they need extra capability and extra set of hands, uh, you know, group of people that have been there and done that to help them manage through situations that they’re in as well. So I would say it’s a blend of the both.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Monika Mueller: Um, I think continuing to bring awareness to topics like this, right, in terms of making sure that we’re getting knowledge out to as many people in our communities that will listen to it so they can benefit from it. They can take the knowledge at conferences that you guys do such a good job broadcasting, right. Bringing together leaders in this a community so that we can take that back not only to service clients organizations, but for those companies to service their clients. So continue to shine a light on the thought leadership. I think you guys do a great job.

Lee Kantor: Now, what about the kind of talent situation we have here in the metro Atlanta area? Where do you see opportunities when it comes to growing that talent base?

Monika Mueller: I think Atlanta has become a hub of talent attraction. Like I think we really rival, you know, San Francisco and all the the West Coast vibe where, you know, we’re a friendlier place to live. We’re a less expensive place to live. And we have an amazing infrastructure, not only professionally. We have, you know, a huge consolidation of fortune 1000 companies here, but we have the educational infrastructure with the Georgia Tech, Georgia State, other universities that really, um, that we can grab talent from. But families moving here can send their kids to. Right. So we’ve got I feel the whole package in terms of attracting talent, really great talent into the Atlanta marketplace. And I see that I see more people coming into Atlanta because I experienced the traffic every day. And if you guys have any issues with that, but I would like them to pace, uh, infrastructure, city infrastructure growth with the massive movement and migration to Atlanta. That would be nice.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, uh, where should they go? What’s the website? What’s the best way to connect with you or somebody on the.

Monika Mueller: Team’s o t e n t y or anybody can reach out to me and LinkedIn. Monika with a k. I don’t know why my parents did that. Made my life complicated. Uh, the last name is Mueller. M u e l l e r.

Lee Kantor: Well, Monika, thank you so much for sharing your story, doing important work and we appreciate you.

Monika Mueller: I appreciate you too as well. Thank you so much.

 

Fintech South 2025: Thomas Priore with Priority Commerce

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Thomas-Priore-Fintech-South-2025Tom Priore co-founded Priority in 2005, and has served as the company’s chairman and chief executive officer since 2018.

Under his direction, Priority has grown from a founder-financed technology startup to be the fifth largest non-bank merchant acquirer in the U.S. by volume.

Tom has steered Priority from an organization focused on payments processing to a solutions provider across payments and banking, operating at scale with nearly one million active customers across its SMB, B2B and Enterprise channels.

Priority processes $120 billion in annual transaction volume and provides administration for nearly $1 billion in deposits.

Tom has an MBA from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University.

Connect with Tom on LinkedIn.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025. So excited to be talking to my next guest Thomas Priore with Priority Commerce. Welcome.

Thomas Priore: Thanks, Lee. It’s good to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Priority Commerce. How are you serving folks?

Thomas Priore: Yeah, sure. Uh, you know, Lee, we’re a payments and banking fintech. Uh, we bring solutions that cover everything from small businesses to enterprise customers. Um, and we provide software solutions that, um, help them move money faster. Uh, collect, store, lend and send money, as we like to say, and make it as efficient as possible to accelerate it through their business and optimize their working capital.

Lee Kantor: So what was the genesis of the idea? Had this business get launched?

Thomas Priore: Well, it’s interesting timing, in fact. Yesterday was our 20th anniversary, and we first started the business really with the idea that software and payments would be something that businesses needed to operate in a single platform. Right. And we think that’s already happened.

Lee Kantor: Got feeling there?

Thomas Priore: Yeah. 20 years ago that was, believe it or not, a novel idea.

Lee Kantor: Was it a novel idea?

Thomas Priore: So, uh, so we really launched the business with that in mind, built technology to help resellers who were serving small merchants to do just that. And, uh, on the success of that, we’ve continued to evolve. Uh, now we’re, you know, just shy of $1 billion of run rate revenue, uh, 225 million of of EBITDA 1200 employees. So we operate at scale, and we’ve added a banking capability so that not only are we using software and payments in an integrated fashion, but software, payments and banking solutions that are all threaded together that help that accelerated cash flow experience. I referred to kind of a few minutes ago.

Lee Kantor: So is the small merchant still important to your firm?

Thomas Priore: Uh, very, very important. We’re a couple hundreds, uh, small businesses. Uh, we probably on board, uh, anywhere from 4 to 4000, 4500 a month. Uh, and we try and help them, you know, really, across the the key areas of operating their business. Uh, certainly payments at the point of sale, that’s that’s core to what we do. Uh, but not only, um, getting that money in, but as we do give them tools to invest our excess working capital and get better yield and then use our tools that are also embedded in our solutions to make payments to vendors, uh, so that they’re making best use of their working capital.

Lee Kantor: Now, are your merchants, are they? Uh, is it industry agnostic, or do you have niches that you’re in? Is it e-commerce or is it brick and mortar?

Thomas Priore: We definitely have some areas where we think we excel. Uh, but it would certainly represent the broader, um, uh, diversification of, of of the small business, um, population in the US. I would say we probably do less on the hospitality side that, you know, let’s say that’s 30% of 35% of small businesses, maybe a bit more. You know, our portfolio is probably down below 20, but we do very, very well with, uh, business services, law firms, accounting firms. Uh, also in the medical profession, doctors offices and other, uh, retail trade sectors, uh, small manufacturing, things like that, that we have some unique tools that that really help us excel in those areas. Um, and we’re probably a little bit overrepresented in those spots.

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for your firm to sponsor fintechs house?

Thomas Priore: Look, we you know, we think this is, uh, a very important venue for promoting business. And in the Atlanta area, uh, we’ve we formed here 20 years ago. We’ve been an important part of the evolving and growing business population in the US. Uh, excuse me, in Atlanta. Uh, I’m sure you’ve seen it in your lifetime. This this whole area has just really grown, especially from a fintech standpoint. And, look, we we consider ourselves a, uh, you know, no longer an emerging company, but but now really taking a thought leadership in, in fintech. And because of that, this is the right place to be to, uh, you know, to discuss the things that are important to, to businesses of all sizes as it relates to, to fintech.

Lee Kantor: So obviously getting involved with Tag and Fintech South, that, um, shows your dedication to immersing yourself in the community. Is there anything else that you all do in the Atlanta market.

Thomas Priore: Well, this has been our operating headquarters for those for those 20 years. So we we’ve really built around this. Um, and our, uh, our staff is, uh, you know, has a number of things that, you know, we, we devote ourselves to in the, in the Atlanta area, whether it’s, um, uh, mentoring programs for, for students, internships, uh, as well as, um, you know, volunteering at, at, uh, uh, food banks and elsewhere. We’ve got an incredibly generous population of employees that, um, support their communities. And in a host of regards. So, you know, for those that are out in the Atlanta area listening, be on the lookout for, uh, you know, for for folks on priority, um, because they, they bring their best.

Lee Kantor: Now, what are you looking ahead, looking ahead in the future? Are there trends or things that we should be paying attention to that have got your interest.

Thomas Priore: Well, you know, there’s a there’s a trend. I’m sure it’s it’s it’s going to be broadly spoken about here at Fintech South which is embedded finances. Uh, this whole nature of, of, um, financial tools being embedded into software. Um, and we think that that’s a slightly different narrative. We like to call it connected commerce. Um, it’s not just about embedded financial tools, but it’s connecting that payments and banking experience that really is, um, largely built on legacy technology where things are temporal. Right. When you get money into your bank account, like, you know, you may not see it for a couple of days. Um, you certainly won’t have access to it over the weekend. Well, for a small business, if you could unlock that value because you’re part of a a solution that not only accepts money in, but then gets it into an account where you have utility for it on a weekend or a holiday. That’s really valuable to a business and that’s that’s what we do. That is the underpinnings of embedded finance. And we think that aspect that’s going to be table stakes. And as you solve that money in problem, well hey, now you’ve got a lot of flexibility for how you move money out. So.

Thomas Priore: Areas that are that are difficult problems to solve like construction and paying contractors, which is probably the poster child for, you know, I’ll call it slow money. Well, if I’m a a large contractor and, you know, I’m getting money in from my lender or I’m getting money in from my equity holder, and I’m able to qualify all the liens that, that I need to to get money out to my contractors. Guess what? That’s going to keep them on the job, right? That’s going to keep them motivated. And when that contractor gets their money, if they could push it down to their subs or to their employees in a smooth way, that’s going to keep them motivated and that’s just going to speed up the rate of commerce, and it’s going to make it a better experience for everyone, all the stakeholders in that. Those are the kind of problems we’re looking to solve that in fact, that’s what we’re solving today. And that’s just one example. There’s a host of industries where that that same dynamic exists that could create a better employee experience, a better operator experience, a better investor experience. So that’s where we’re set to work on. And, and um, you know, we’re excited about it.

Lee Kantor: So if your firm is cashing your writing checks, that’s probably a sign that they should be talking to you or somebody on your team.

Thomas Priore: Oh, yeah. Give us a call. You know what? It’s it’s funny, people ask, what’s your biggest, you know, who’s your biggest competitor? What are you what are you competing against? Some checks. And anyway, there’s checks, right? Uh, because there’s, there’s a lot of embedded costs in, in, uh, processing checks. Um, not to mention some of them are nefarious fraud. Others, um, that, um, uh, that really increase the cost of operating in that way. And it makes, you know, as we continue to refine these tools of and bringing together that payment and banking experience to create lower costs, better opportunities to keep money invested, which is implicitly lower cost, right, because I’m making return on my money. Um, suddenly the differential between digital acceptance and that checks, they look very, very different. In fact, not only do they converge, I would submit that that digital experience actually is of greater value. Uh, so educating, uh, population about that, that that’s, that’s where spending a lot of time doing and which is another reason to be down here at Fintech South.

Lee Kantor: So what percentage of companies are still using checks. Is it. It’s surprisingly high, right?

Thomas Priore: Uh, you know, depending on the sector. But yeah, I mean, the way you, uh, I kind of noted it. It absolutely is. So, uh, to put it into context in the consumer to business payments, like, that’s that’s pretty much been digitized, uh, about 80% of all consumer payments are are digital. Think of all the things we do in app on our phone or, you know, certainly we just pull our card out when we’re in a store. Um, so that’s largely been, um, been digitized, but the big area and that’s about a $6 trillion market. But in the US, the B2B market is nearly 20 trillion, and over half of that still happened, or just about half. It still happens on a check. So that that’s probably the biggest population of opportunity is getting businesses to, you know, start to start to look at the utility of managing cash differently. Um, and that’s probably the most exciting spot.

Lee Kantor: And that’s where, like you said, that’s the opportunity. And it’s strange because if they’re in their own personal life, they’re not doing it. You know, why are they continuing to do it in their business?

Thomas Priore: Yeah. No doubt. Uh, it’s it’s interesting, though, I think one of the dynamics that is a catalyst. Is that generational shift, right? Folks that have, uh, long tenured in their job. But, you know, they came into a world that was less digital and they’re exiting a world that they think of less digitally, but they’re being replaced by folks that that’s that’s just how they live right there.

Lee Kantor: Natives.

Thomas Priore: Yeah. Of course, of course. So, um, so that’s a catalyst to change the other. That was a big one, which is somewhat ironic. Um, but you’ll appreciate the utility of this was Covid, right? People weren’t in the office. It’s really hard to sign checks from your home. And especially if you need two signatures.

Lee Kantor: Right.

Thomas Priore: Yeah. Banks closed. So, uh, there’s there’s been, um, some interesting momentum from unexpected sources. And in that arena, I would, I would submit, I think we are at an inflection point because of the recognition of these trends.

Lee Kantor: Now, you think it’ll happen kind of gradually, then suddenly, kind of. All of a sudden it’ll just be adopted. More and more are going to just flip the switch. Or is this something that’s going to exist over? It’s going to take years and years to get everybody to switch over.

Thomas Priore: You know, I’ve always liked to say that in payments we don’t have, um, it’s not a revolution. It’s an evolution. And so I do think it’ll continue to be an evolution. Now the rate of evolution may, may pick up, but but I do still think it’s, it’s, it’s got to be an evolution. And a big part of that is look there are systems that businesses have invested in intelligently. So in their their core accounting systems, their, you know, enterprise reporting systems that are relied on day to day. And they were not necessarily built for the experience that you and I are talking about. So to have them pivot to it, just take some nuance. It it takes some sophistication, elegance and, um, you know, that’s why we’ve built a tool called our Priority Commerce Engine that is designed to work in coordination and collaboration with systems that are already in place to create a digital experience, but not through wholesale change, where you have to make substantial investments or tear something down. So the reason I believe it’ll be an evolution, getting to the point here is because it needs to contemplate what’s already in place and then work in coordination with it, not displace it. And and that’s a process.

Lee Kantor: And then like, how long does that process take. If somebody says, okay, Tom, I’m all in. I believe in what you’re saying. And I think we should make that change. Like, is this something that happens over, you know, months or years? Like, how long does it take for an organization to make that shift? Well, depending.

Thomas Priore: On size and motivation, as you might expect, there’s you know, we’ve had people who have made the decision and been stood up in a month and others that, you know, it’s, uh, depending on how embedded they need to become in our systems, which require some, some technical development that, you know, needs to be architected and thought through. You know, that could take six months, but it’s not. It’s in weeks and months, not years. And then the evolution of their base of payments from non-digital to digital, that’s a process as well because it requires education. So, you know, it’s a journey. And then, um, as you’re getting what exists today in place, well, you have new procurement activities that are occurring. So you want to get on the front end of, of that procurement process. So all of those things are just they, they they point towards long term partnerships and managing a long term partnership. And this I’ll call it this evolutionary mindset. Um, so, uh, the nice thing is you see results really quickly, right? And then when you start seeing those results and it’s hitting the bottom line that accelerates and, uh, you know, through that, call it that 12 month evolution, a lot of change can take place. It’s pretty, pretty fun to see.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the best way to connect?

Thomas Priore: Just, uh, contact us. Yeah. Priority. Com. Um. And, uh. And connect. Um. We’re right. Uh, we’re right up in Alpharetta, and, um, we’ve got, you know, a a super motivated group of people, um, looking forward to to spreading the word, if you will.

Lee Kantor: Well, Tom, thank you so much for sharing your story. Um, you’re doing important work, and we appreciate you.

Thomas Priore: Well, I appreciate the opportunity to talk.

 

Fintech South 2025: Stephen Walsh with Keeper Solutions

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Stephen-Walsh-Fintech-South-2025As Founder and CEO of Keeper Solutions for over 13 years, Stephen Walsh leads our team in developing products and platforms for fintech companies at all stages in the US, UK, and Ireland.

We support clients from their initial prototypes through significant growth by delivering tailored solutions that address real market needs.

Our AI Lab advances automation both internally and for clients, helping them identify, build, test and deploy valuable AI features specifically designed for financial technology applications.

Stephen’s core focus is helping founders build sustainable, valuable businesses.

Connect with Stephen on LinkedIn.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025. So excited to be talking to my next guest, Stephen Walsh with Keeper Solutions. Welcome.

Stephen Walsh: Thanks, Lee, and great to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well I’m excited to get caught up. Tell us about Keeper Solutions. How are you serving folks?

Stephen Walsh: Sure. Well, uh, we’re we’re a software services company. We work with fintechs. We’re 14 years old now, and we’ve been helping fintech founders to design, develop an AI, enable their platforms across payments, lending, wealth management, SaaS, P2P and more.

Lee Kantor: So you were involved with AI before was cool?

Stephen Walsh: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Machine learning and that kind of stuff. Yeah. And, uh, we’ve been leaning into the gen AI since, uh, that’s really hit the scene as well.

Lee Kantor: So, um, how do you help the folks that are maybe new to AI?

Stephen Walsh: Well, um, I think everybody is everybody’s grappling with AI and how to how to generate value out of it right now. We’re really working, I suppose, with, uh, with fintech startups, early stage startups, and also with scale ups. And I think that the challenges that those two communities face are slightly different. So what we’re seeing with, with the startups is that they need to be AI native. They need to be building out their platforms, you know, getting prototypes, getting MVP’s live, getting customers using them before they can really expect to get that that seed round. That’s what the investors are looking for. So they need to do more, faster, better to get that investment. And so we’ve got an AI lab, an AI lab workbench that really helps accelerate that journey. Uh, from from zero to, you know, working products out there and investable.

Lee Kantor: So what about the companies that maybe aren’t AI natives? How do you help them?

Stephen Walsh: Sure. Well great question. And we we work with a number of scale up fintech scale ups now. And they’re they’re really startups from a few years back that have been super successful. They’ve they’ve been able to get their product out into the market. They’ve got traction. They’ve got a you know, they’ve they’ve got a market share. And the challenge that they face is different to to the new ones because they’re technology by definition. If it’s pre the last couple of years has got some legacy in there. Um and they have the risk that their business model might be disrupted by new entrants that are AI native coming at their market share. So that doesn’t mean to say that they can’t, you know, that they can’t move forward into the next generation is just that they need help developing that strategy. Um, about transformation, getting, you know, AI transformation, but also getting the culture right, getting clear objectives and the message across the organization so that they’re driven by inspiration rather than fear. And, and then that we can help them find that strategy, implement it and get them into the into the next gen. Uh, so that’s, that’s what we’re doing there.

Lee Kantor: So, uh, how important is kind of the right talent fit? Um, when they’re making that kind of transformation?

Stephen Walsh: Yeah, it’s very important. Um, and I think that it’s worthwhile that organizations look at their existing skills and capabilities and their gaps, and that they go and actively make sure that their teams have their, you know, are trained up, have access to the right AI tools, um, and, you know, are filling those gaps. But at the leadership level, I think one of the one of the dynamics that we see is that the the leaders are very taken with their business as usual, with their day to day challenges, and that they need to get some time and some headspace to step back and to formulate their strategy. Um, and that’s a that’s another challenge for them. So it can be helpful to have an external mentor, uh, advisor to help them to develop that strategy and get their head out of the day to day.

Lee Kantor: So are they kind of leaning into it, or is this something that they’re going to just kick the can down the road and think that this is going to solve itself?

Stephen Walsh: Yeah. Well, it it varies. Uh, some of them are really leaning into it, and then I think others are not so much, um, that they, you know, they don’t don’t feel the imperative. And you can you can get that from speaking with them. And certainly we’re seeing we’re seeing some that are really actively looking at the impact of AI across different parts of their business, but also across the different parts of the software development lifecycle. Um, and I would encourage, um, scale ups, um, as well as fresh start ups really to, to, to lean into it because there’s a lot of value and there’s a lot of opportunity, but there’s a lot of risk out there too.

Lee Kantor: So where is kind of the low hanging opportunity for folks who aren’t kind of there yet?

Stephen Walsh: Well, I, I think, um, I think one thing is, um, getting the message right. Getting the culture right across the organization, but also getting just across the whole team, getting access to the right tools in a secure way. So like Innkeeper Solutions, we’ve created a, um, a multi-modal hub, which is a gateway for all the people in our company and with our clients. They can access whatever sets of LMS or private models, um, in a safe way. It’s not training other foundational models. Um, and, and that, that, that giving people the tools and the training so that they can, they can have, uh, you know, a space to develop how they can apply them to their particular areas.

Lee Kantor: So how are you attacking, uh, the, uh, conference today, uh, Fintech South and your relationship with tag?

Stephen Walsh: Well, you know, we’ve been we’ve been actually sponsors. This is our third consecutive year as sponsors of the innovation challenge. Uh, we, um, last year we we gave a prize to, uh, good agriculture. And we actually had them build out their design, their MVP, which they have deployed, uh, just, uh, Just earlier this summer. They’ve gone on to get $1 million seed round, so we’re going to help them with the next stage. And then we were delighted to to sponsor the uh, winner this year, uh, which is uh, thrift, uh, ship. And, um, we’re very excited to we can even do more now with AI tools to help them develop out, uh, segments of their product, um, uh, as part of the prize for the innovation challenge. But, uh, so I we’re really we’re we’re we’re here each year and we’re chatting to people. We kicked off the week, actually, we we we ran a, um, an AI fintech roundtable with some of the, some of our, uh, some of our colleagues here in Atlanta. And we had a super interesting, um, conversation, actually, we created a white paper, and I have a, um, a very interesting podcast that we’ve created from that. So maybe I can put a link to that also in your show notes, if that’d be okay.

Lee Kantor: Sure. Why don’t you just give it to us and we’ll make sure it’s posted.

Stephen Walsh: And it’s about trying to scrape back the hype. Like, there’s been a lot of hype out there. I think we’re hearing even the markets that a lot of the AI stocks have come back a lot because there’s irrational exuberance. So the topic of our of our roundtable was really how do you scrape back the hype and see what’s actually happening? Uh, that’s of use with AI right now, today. And people might find that interesting.

Lee Kantor: Now, regarding the integration challenge, are you seeing kind of more depth? Is it harder to pick the finalists than it has in previous years? Like how are you seeing kind of the quality?

Stephen Walsh: Yeah. Well like obviously, uh, the the winners last year, the winner last year, Alex and good uh, good agriculture super strong. And I think the the top three in their last year were very strong. I thought maybe that uh, some of the, some of the other, uh, you know, lower, lower ranked ones last year weren’t as strong. But what I see this year is very strong cohort in the last three, but also outside of that very strong. I see.

Lee Kantor: The depth.

Stephen Walsh: As the depth and strength is good. We’re seeing traction. I think they’re doing more. They’re leaning into it and they’re yeah, so I’m very impressed with it.

Lee Kantor: So do you think that AI contributes to that depth, that it’s allowing people to do more with less people?

Stephen Walsh: Yeah, I think so. For sure. People are doing so much more. Um, and they’re able to get further down, down the tracks with, uh, I think, I think, uh, companies are being smart, you know, they’re, they’re relying on human thought inspiration, uh, to be very focused. But that’s been supported by, uh, you know, AI tools, LMS, genetic frameworks and that kind of thing. When you combine the two of them together and keep real focus on on the human in the loop and on the customer, uh, we’re, we’re seeing startups getting further at that pre-seed stage, and, uh, it’s great to see it.

Lee Kantor: So who is the ideal client for you?

Stephen Walsh: Well, we’re you know, we’re working with early stage startups, companies like good agriculture and and pre-seed startups. But we actually work with a lot of, um, scaled up fintechs as well. Um, you know, we’re we’re working with moment. We’re working with other accounting and finance, mid-market, uh.

Lee Kantor: Primarily in fintech.

Stephen Walsh: It’s all in fintech. And, uh, actually, we estimate that we’ve helped fintech founders create nearly $2 billion worth of shareholder value over the life of our company. So we’re very focused on, on on helping our clients to succeed.

Lee Kantor: So what’s kind of the pain that your prospective client is having? You know, the day before they reach out and contact you or somebody on your team?

Stephen Walsh: Well, a lot of times it is that they’ve, um, you know, they need they they might have some vision and they need some help to, uh, to turn a vision into a designed product are they might have, um, you know, they might have some market opportunity and they need to they need to build out their product, or they need to scale up their product, and they need a trusted partner that can be a platform for their success right through their their life cycle. So our focus is not transactional, it’s relationship. And it goes right through the business cycle. And we’re very committed to the success of our clients.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Stephen Walsh: It’s uh WW solutions.com, or you can link out. Link up with me on on LinkedIn Stephen Walsh.

Lee Kantor: Well, Stephen, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Stephen Walsh: Thank you very much, Lee, and it’s a pleasure to get the message out with you. Thank you very much.

 

Fintech South 2025: Michelle Beyo with Finavator

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Michelle-BeyoInternationally recognized thought leader and speaker, Michelle Beyo has graced prestigious stages worldwide, including Santa Barbara TEDx, Money20/20, Fintech Meetup, and Open Banking Expo, sparking dialogue on finance’s future.

A dedicated mentor and Money20/20 RiseUp alum, she serves on the Advisory Boards of Tillo Rewards and VoPay.

As President and Board Member of Open Banking Network Canada (OFNC), she champions consumer data rights, transparency, and security in finance.
Her passion for leveraging technology to drive financial inclusion shapes global finance innovation and was the catalyst for Finavator.

Honored as one of Toronto’s Top 50 Women Leaders (2023) and Most Outstanding FinTech Executive Canada (2022), Michelle also earned a spot on the Women in FinTech Global Power List (2021) and contributed to the USA bestseller Habits of Success.

Connect with Michelle on LinkedIn.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025. So excited to be talking to my next guest Michelle Beyo with Finovator. Welcome.

Michelle Beyo: Thank you.

Lee Kantor: Well, for folks who aren’t familiar. Tell us a little bit about Finovator. How you serving folks.

Michelle Beyo: Yeah. Thank you for having me I’m really excited to be at Fintech South. Uh, started Finovator six years ago. It’s a future of finance consultancy largely focused on helping companies get to the future of finance by working with fintechs or enabling some type of technology that’s going to get them closer to the future of finance for their consumers.

Lee Kantor: So who is that ideal sales prospect for you? Who who should be using innovator?

Michelle Beyo: So definitely credit unions smaller banks corporations. Also helping some fintechs are. Our expertise is largely sitting in helping the product innovation, followed by marketing, followed by strategic sales, and have helped a couple companies come over from the UK into the US market and just drive out visibility, growth and their first clients.

Lee Kantor: So what is kind of the pain they’re having right before they contact you?

Michelle Beyo: They’re definitely trying to figure out where to spend their time and focus to try and expand their business lines. So if they’re sitting there and they see real time rails, open banking, digital identity and cross-border payments, and they don’t know where to focus or who to work with, that’s when it’s time to call for innovator.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Michelle Beyo: Yeah, so I spent six years in telco, eight years in online shopping, affiliate marketing, ran Alaska, Lufthansa, Delta, United online shopping mall platforms. And I did three years in prepaid. Actually spent a lot of time in Atlanta because I was working for income out of their international office in Toronto ran sales and marketing as well as their. Business development infrastructure for three years. I launched WeChat for them at 7-Eleven at its first ever test pilot in Vancouver, and that was the moment that I realized the future of finance was living elsewhere. It was coming out of Asia, and we were about ten years behind in North America. So I actually left, took the first Ivy course focused on blockchain, digital identity and fintech, and went off into a startup land. I went to go work for a company as a chief client officer focused at a blockchain, uh, working with digital identity consent on blockchain in 2018, and learned everything never to do at a startup, essentially. And then one month, 2020, and after being selected as one of 30 women selected out of 500 to come into money 2020 for an accelerant program in 2019. The next day I started innovator. I didn’t want to give the PR to the startup and thought it was a pretty good way to kick off company.

Lee Kantor: So how do you attack an event like fintech? So up.

Michelle Beyo: I do about 20 events a year and I’m usually speaking, so I was honored to be the emcee for the Open Finance Embedded Finance stage yesterday, and moderating a panel on embedded finance impact for consumers. So when I come into a conference, my plan is always to download the app as soon as it’s available. Find 1520 people that I want to potentially meet with, uh, try and book out those meetings, as well as make sure that there’s breakfasts, dinners, lunches, uh, of interaction and max out my 2 or 3 days in Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: So what do you think of the Atlanta kind of fintech ecosystem.

Michelle Beyo: Knowing that income comes from here? So many payment infrastructures come through the Atlanta infrastructure. So it’s a great hub to sit down and talk about payments in the future of finance, because there is so many organizations that are like head office here in Atlanta. And I think Fintech South is a good memory of bringing old businesses or structured businesses in with new fintechs and innovation, and see how they could work together to get to the future of finance.

Lee Kantor: So you spend most of your time, I guess, traveling and going to these conferences, speaking. That’s it’s almost once a week now, right?

Michelle Beyo: So yeah, I’m traveling quite a bit. That’s without question. Thankfully, I work for my phone often and most of my clients are at these events with me. So I try and bring my clients with me kind of on a road show so I never have to go to their offices. But they’re they’re always kind of beside me when I hit new conference. And it’s a good way to get them on stage usually, as well as interacting and getting them new potential clients.

Lee Kantor: So is there any trends or technology that you’re most excited about moving forward?

Michelle Beyo: I’m hugely passionate about open data, and I don’t think a lot of people talk about it. I think they talk about open banking, which is the first use case to an open data economy. I’d like consent to be the core infrastructure for everything we do, from our cell phone number being the first use case that I own that number, and I move telcos based on that. I come from that space. So I understand when telcos used to own us and own our phone number and the freedom it gave us to allow to choose what color telco to use at that same choice in banking, that same choice in healthcare in the future so that I can move my data can move with me, and I’m in control of where I want to live and who I want to work with instead of the banks or the like. Healthcare infrastructures owning my data. I would like to have that be a core infrastructure.

Lee Kantor: So how far along are we on that? Kind of. Is that a dream that’s going to come true or it will.

Michelle Beyo: There’s 98 countries in the world who’ve moved to open banking, 43 to open finance, and about two to open data, the UK and Australia. Um, Australia actually legislated consumer data right, for open banking, then open finance, open telco, open energy and moving to open data. So they’re the first in the world to have like a legislated consumer data. Right. And I’m hoping we we can get there. Denmark just actually announced an IP right for your face, your voice and your likeness, just like you owning a song. You actually own your identity. That’s where we need to get to. But we are kind of far from there right now.

Lee Kantor: So what’s a baby step?

Michelle Beyo: Oh 1033 is having some challenges. So I was excited about 1033 in the sense that it was going to ensure that all banks had an API to share their data in a structured way. But it does look like the CFPB is going to change that rule. And I don’t know what it’s going to look like. But let’s say this 100 million consumers in America are already using open banking. It’s allowing them to have choice. It’s allowing them to pick different service solutions, and it’s helping to personalize everything they do. I don’t think we can get away from open banking, open finance. Even if banks want to start charging for that data, it’s definitely going to change how that looks. But I think there should still be some baseline. Like I own my phone number, I should own my banking core data. But if the banks want to improve on that data and give me analytics and charge for premium API, I totally understand that, but charging me for my baseline access feels unethical.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I don’t think they’re kind of leading with, uh, generosity or, uh, openness. That’s not their first move.

Speaker4: No, I think, you know, when there’s.

Michelle Beyo: So many other countries that are sharing the example of how this infrastructure is working, consumer first infrastructure is definitely the trend of the world. And I think we’re going to get there regardless of how this path looks. And it’s going to be about consumer control and consumer empowerment.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Michelle Beyo: I, I’m looking to help more companies really, truly get into the future of finance. I’m really honored that Fintech South let me promote my masterclass, uh, gave a 25% discount called Fintech South on Innovators six hour masterclass. I spent about nine months last year putting this together. It’s 20 years of everything I’ve ever learned. On the future of finance, trying to get people to be less fearful of the future and start understanding digital identity, cybersecurity, Web3, blockchain, open finance, open data, embedded finance, fintech and base and ISO 2002. I definitely geeked out in this course, and I’m hoping some people can spend six hours to expand their knowledge and start getting excited about the future of finance.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, connect with you or somebody on your team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Michelle Beyo: Yeah. So com is the website. You can find me on LinkedIn Michelle Bayo happy to connect with you. Happy to connect for a call. I’ve definitely come in to credit unions to train their board in their executive team in a half day session, and then they pick up the master class for additional training. So hoping we can get to the future of finance in North America faster.

Lee Kantor: Well, Michelle, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Michelle Beyo: Thanks for having me. Have a great show.

 

Fintech South 2025: Mike Morris with Wipfli

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Atlanta Business Radio
Fintech South 2025: Mike Morris with Wipfli
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Mike-Morris-Fintech-South-2025Mike Morris, with Wipfli, oversees projects, including Service Organization and Control (SOC) reports (SOC 1 and SOC 2), Sarbanes Oxley IT 404 testing, network vulnerability and penetration testing and IT general control reviews for FinTech companies, banks, and insurance companies.

He is a member of the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) and is an active member of the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), serving the chair of the board of the FinTech Society.

Over the years, Mike has led a variety of seminars and webinars, as well as served on panels relating to internal fraud, preparation for an IT audit, vendor management and risk management.

Connect with Mike on LinkedIn.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here broadcasting live from ten Tech South. So excited to be talking to my next guest, Mike Morris with Wipfli. Welcome.

Mike Morris: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: Uh, for folks who aren’t familiar to share a little bit about Wipfli, how are you serving folks?

Mike Morris: Yeah, so we’re in a county advisory firm, and my area specifically focused on the financial technology companies and the financial institutions that put the fin in fintech. Uh, so helping them work together with third party risk management and, you know, all the other type of accounting needs that they could, could have.

Lee Kantor: So how do you attack a conference like fintech. So.

Mike Morris: Well, it’s always great networking. So catching up with your old friends and making new contacts is always exciting. And then it’s just a really good learning experience. We always have really, really strong content that’s up to date with what’s going on in the industry and, you know, great education opportunities.

Lee Kantor: So you’re coming in here to looking to learn and also to kind of connect with folks.

Mike Morris: Exactly, exactly. We have such a great ecosystem. And it’s such an open ecosystem with, you know, our our southern openness and friendliness. It’s it’s a lot of fun and everybody’s, you know, welcoming and and here to meet and talk.

Lee Kantor: So does Wipfli send just you or do you send a contingent, uh, to take advantage of this conference?

Mike Morris: Oh, we have a couple people here, and I’m a part of the, uh, fintech society. So, uh, you know, I’m pretty tied in with what’s going on, so, uh, you got pretty good coverage here, so.

Lee Kantor: So what? How are you? Um, what kind of trends are you looking at moving forward? Anything you learned here that you’ll be able to bring back to Wipfli?

Mike Morris: Well, definitely. I mean, AI is such a hot topic, and, you know, it’s such a nebulous or a huge, huge idea or thought of what’s going on out there, but really boiling it down to practical uses and how is it really impacting payments and the financial technology sector.

Lee Kantor: So how are you, uh, kind of dealing with, uh, crypto and stablecoins?

Mike Morris: Yeah. I mean, now that it’s kind of open back up, we were pretty heavily into it, uh, a couple of years ago. And obviously that got squashed for a while. But, you know, with the new administration, it has changed and opened up. And, uh, we’re definitely helping our financial institutions especially understand how they can get involved with stablecoin and what it’s going to mean for them in the future.

Lee Kantor: So what advice can you share? What information can you share when it comes to stablecoins and crypto? Uh, for folks who aren’t maybe as familiar as you.

Mike Morris: Well, yeah, just understanding the difference between, you know, what is backed by and and the difference between that and Bitcoin, uh, you know, that it is backed by the dollar and that we have, you know, the ability to use it in different ways. And it’s a little more palatable to the financial institutions, the banks that want to get involved because they have a better understanding of the like the you know, how it works. And uh, uh, what’s the right word here. Uh, you know how it works and how they’re going to be able to use it to help their customers.

Lee Kantor: So how would you recommend using it?

Mike Morris: Well, it’s looking at demand to your customer base. You know, who is interested in having that type of currency and using that on in a transaction basis. And then how can we use that in day to day transactions to make it, uh, you know, again, easy to use and as easy to use as a credit card or cash.

Lee Kantor: Now, are we there yet or is this something that’s kind of evolving?

Mike Morris: It’s definitely evolving, especially in the financial situations when you get more into the community banks, uh, really getting the board level understanding and education there and looking at use cases and again, understanding your customer base, understanding what they’re looking for and how how much of a demand is there.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you kind of leverage, uh, tag. Are you, uh, you mentioned being part of the fintech society. Uh, in what ways do you kind of lean on tag when it comes to your own personal education or networking? Is this something that’s an active part of your week or month?

Mike Morris: It is. I’m a part of the society, so we have regular meetings. We’re setting up regular content. We have an event coming up here in September. Uh, so we’re always looking to grow content, uh, and we’re kind of have our hands on the steering wheel. You know, being a part of the steering committee, uh, you know, be able to determine what the hot topics are, what we want to know, what our companies are, want to bring to the table. Uh, and putting that out there and getting people together. And we always make a big part of our events being the networking component. People love coming out and talking and meeting, but also getting that content throughout the year. So then the next one is going to be on open banking and embedded finance. Uh, so this could be exciting. So we can kind of give you the things that are still a hot topic. And especially with the the administration change. How is that how does that impact how how we’re going to move towards these, these areas.

Lee Kantor: So, um, what’s it like from a talent standpoint is willfully finding talent, the talent that they need?

Mike Morris: Yeah, definitely. And, you know, looking at the George ecosystem specifically, you know, if the Georgia Fintech Academy, that’s a part of the university system that is putting a lot of great education out there for preparing students to get into the fintech world, so we have a better labor pool of people able to come in and help immediately.

Lee Kantor: So when you’re onboarding folks, are you finding the people that you need that are they’re coming in prepared, or do you have to spend a lot of time kind of training them up to get them to the place that you need them?

Mike Morris: Well, I mean, they’re coming with a good baseline, but we definitely have to coach them up and train them and get them real world hands on experience and, you know, oversight.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Mike Morris: Uh, for here, it’s just making sure we’re getting the word out for, you know, who we are and what we do and able to, you know, make connections and, you know, grow our business. So obviously, getting the word out here through radio business radio X is great. And we love the opportunity to be here.

Lee Kantor: So who is your ideal client.

Mike Morris: So we usually work with financial institutions that are trying to be a little more progressive and understanding that they need to be relevant in the world and do more than what they’ve done in the past, and getting us getting involved and partnering with fintech partnerships and making sure they’re understanding how they can be more relevant to their customers and compete with with the nontraditional banks that are popping up and competing directly with them.

Lee Kantor: So what’s the pain they’re having right before they contact somebody who willfully?

Mike Morris: A lot of it is just the unknown. They they know they need to do something different, but they don’t quite know how to do it. So we’re able to come in and show them, hey, here’s hey, here’s how you build a foundation. You’re going to build a house. You got to build a good, solid foundation to get the right people, the right, uh, you know, attitude and mindset. And then obviously it’s a risk management issue, too. They need to make sure they understand the risks, and they can articulate that, especially to the regulatory bodies that oversee them.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more and connect with you or somebody on your team, what is the best way to do that? Is there a website?

Mike Morris: Yeah. Com and you can reach out to me directly and I’d love to have a conversation.

Lee Kantor: Well, Mike, thank you so much for sharing your story, doing important work. And we appreciate.

Mike Morris: You. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity here.

 

Fintech South 2025: Sabrina Lamb with Wekeza

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Atlanta Business Radio
Atlanta Business Radio
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Sabrina-Lamb-Fintech-South-2025Sabrina Lamb is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of WorldofMoney.org, a non-profit dedicated to providing 120 annual immersive hours of classroom and online youth financial education in the United States and Africa. She contributed to Ghana’s original Ministry of Finance Digital Financial Services Policy.

Sabrina is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Wekeza Holdings, Inc, a U.S.-based fintech that enables the African diaspora in the United States and abroad to invest in U.S. publicly traded companies. Wekeza is the Silicon Harlem C-Better Pitch Fest Competition Grand Prize winner.

Sabrina has appeared at Fintech Islands, Fintech Meetup Conference, Africa Diaspora Investment Forum, Africa Tech Summit, Silicon Harlem, Haiti Tech Summit, Harlem Tech Summit, and the Money 20/20 conference. She is a graduate of the Y Combinator Start-Up School, a former member of the Master Your Card African American Advisory Council, and a global advocate for financial inclusion.

A WBLS-FM commentator and former stand-up comic, Sabrina is also the best-selling author of the NAACP Image Awards nominated “Do I Look Like An ATM? A Parent’s Guide to Raising Financially Responsible Africa-American Children” (Chicago Review Press), the satirical “A Kettle of Vultures…Left Beak Marks On My Forehead” (Simon and Schuster), and more.

Sabrina was named 16th on the list of 50 Top Black Women in Entertainment in Black Noir magazine. She was a #NATPE television pitch finalist. She has written celebrity cover stories for Essence, Heart and Soul, and Black Elegance. She is a three-time finisher of the New York City Marathon.

Connect with Sabrina on LinkedIn.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here broadcasting live from Fintech South. So excited to be talking to my next guest Sabrina Lamb with Wekeza. Welcome.

Sabrina Lamb: Thank you. Honored to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what your app to tell us about Wekeza. How you serving folks.

Sabrina Lamb: So Wekeza means save and invest in Swahili. And our mission is to turn on the economic lights, where communities not only in the United States, but around the world, have zero access to multilingual financial education, as well as the ability to invest in U.S. stocks and ETFs.

Lee Kantor: So what was the genesis of the idea? Had the business get started.

Sabrina Lamb: So I’m also the founder of a long standing nonprofit called World of Money, the leading provider of immersive financial education for children from pre-K to college. We serve not only children in the United States, but for African countries. And so over the years, I’ve heard from adults saying, this is great for children, but adults need this opportunity as well for learning. And then I was speaking at a conference in Nairobi, Kenya, and meeting with regulators and educators and families and hearing what were their challenges to not only receive financial education, but not only to invest in their current in their equities in Kenya, but also in the United States, and thus Wakiso was born.

Lee Kantor: So when you’re building out a curriculum in Africa as opposed to America, how does it differ?

Sabrina Lamb: First, understand the culture. Every culture is unique. The language is unique. And that’s why we provide the curriculum. For example, in Kenya, it’s Kiswahili and it’s a different dialect than in Tanzania. In Nigeria, it’s Hausa and Yoruba, as well as Yoruba and Igbo. In Ghana, it’s Twi. And in certain francophone African countries it’s French. And so each but integrating that curriculum, it’s not just about teaching budgeting, but it’s also inter grading all the financial norms that exists or reflected in that unique culture and country.

Lee Kantor: So how kind of from a cultural standpoint, how does it differ when it comes to, like you mentioned, investing in equities. Is that something that people are risk tolerant or risk averse, like how do you kind of explain the opportunity and the risk because, uh, you know, it’s not for everybody.

Sabrina Lamb: It’s not for everyone. And that’s why we have a very low cost, low accessibility opportunity, a dollar a month, a dollar per trade. But we don’t want everyone just to run off and start investing without understanding what are their financial goals, what is their risk tolerance, how to research a company. And so you start there with the education and then encourage them to choose the company that meets their their ethics, their long term goals. It’s not a get rich quick. And that’s what we have to encourage and teach everyone to move beyond, because that’s not what investing is, right?

Lee Kantor: But there is the the benefit of compounding.

Sabrina Lamb: Absolutely. And that’s why we encourage a long term strategy. You’re investing. You’re not trading every day. You’re not in and out. It’s a long term strategy. So if you’re investing in any company, whether you have a fractional or a whole share, then you you’re investing because you’ve done the proper research to to hang on, to hang on to it over the long term.

Lee Kantor: So why was it important for you to be here at Fintech South?

Sabrina Lamb: So I love being inspired by so many innovators. They’re doing very important work in terms of, you know, creating not only inclusion but equity, not only here in the United States but in other countries. And so I learn and become friends and see how we can encourage and work together on particular initiatives.

Lee Kantor: So are you coming here primarily to for education, for the networking aspect or looking for partners like, are you kind of shopping for people who kind of can buy into the mission and who would like to financially support this type of curriculum?

Sabrina Lamb: So. So all of the above, because what Casa are business model is not just B2C, it’s B2B and B2C. So we also partner with schools as well as governments and cities. And so therefore we welcome all of those opportunities in fintech. South is one of those places to meet them.

Lee Kantor: So, um, are you here just kind of walking around meeting people, or are you, um, are you speaking and explaining the opportunity to folks?

Sabrina Lamb: Yes. Had the great opportunity to speak during, uh, the Democratizing Access to Financial Services yesterday with other, uh, founders yesterday on the main stage.

Lee Kantor: And then so for folks who didn’t hear the speech, what were some of the things you covered?

Sabrina Lamb: Well, one of the things is that, I mean, even though all the other panelists was about five of us on the stage is the commonalities, even though we have different services in terms of, you know, how we how we fund our our business, what is our mission, how to keep going. And so but what we told the audience is that we must or we encourage the audience, rather we understand the building and you have your own vision, but make sure the customer, the user that you want to build your company for is front and center as opposed to building. To build with. By listening to their concerns and their pain points.

Lee Kantor: So, um, what kind of trends are you seeing when it comes to this type of education? Or is are you kind of leveraging online learning or digital? Uh, you know, kind of maybe micro learning, like like how how is it changing for you?

Sabrina Lamb: What’s happening? And it’s it’s very encouraging when I receive an email from, you know, a customer from Tanzania that they have the exact same seeking spirit for economically empowering their life as someone here in Atlanta. And so what we do is we provide not only ongoing online financial education, but introductions to licensed lawyers and financial planners that they want to extend their communication and share their financial goals with a licensed professional. We also have digital online town halls for all of our members as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share maybe that illustrates the impact that it’s making?

Sabrina Lamb: Well, I will say that because as I, I shared before, I also found it a nonprofit called World of Money that’s been around for decades. And many of those young people are now adults, and they have, you know, their parents and how they’re taking the learnings that they learn early in life and applying it to what Kisa because now they have a platform coming from a trusted entity, which was World of Money. Now they can actually use their financial education to actually invest.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you with love?

Sabrina Lamb: Introductions to financial institutions. We’ve already partnered with Mastercard. I created the curriculum for Mastercard to serve millions of their customers. Would love to partner with other fintechs who not only need investing services, but know multilingual financial education services. And that’s what I welcome.

Lee Kantor: And if somebody wants to learn more, connect with you or somebody on the team, what’s the best way to do that.

Sabrina Lamb: Sabrina at Waukesha. Com that’s Sabrina at Waukesha. Com and also I am on LinkedIn.

Lee Kantor: And then is there a website for wikis.

Sabrina Lamb: W e k e a.com. That’s w e k e e a. Com.

Lee Kantor: Well Sabrina, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Sabrina Lamb: Thank you. Leigh appreciate you.

 

Fintech South 2025: Natalie Hogg with Method Q

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Atlanta Business Radio
Fintech South 2025: Natalie Hogg with Method Q
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Natalie-Hogg-Fintech-South-2025Innovation runs in Natalie Hogg’s family. Her grandfather is credited with inventing direct deposit, and she carries that same drive to transform established systems.

At Method Q, we have developed a proprietary framework that applies scientific principles to marketing strategy and execution. This methodology enables our clients to achieve predictable growth through evidence-based decision making rather than guesswork.

Natalie’s expertise spans demand generation, growth marketing, and fractional CMO services across multiple industries including fintech, SaaS, and technology. She regularly speaks at conferences and moderate panels, focusing on creating valuable conversations and elevating the insights of industry leaders.

Her passion lies in building platforms that showcase executive expertise and drives meaningful business discussions. When not working with clients, Natalie enjoys playing piano, guitar, and banjo.

Beyond Method Q, Natalie serves on the National Board for StandUp for Kids as Marketing Chair, where she contributes to strategic initiatives supporting youth experiencing homelessness.

Connect with Natalie on LinkedIn.

Transcript-iconThis transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025. So excited to be talking to my next guest, Natalie Hogg with Method Q. Welcome.

Natalie Hogg: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Method Q.

Natalie Hogg: So Method Q is a marketing agency here in Atlanta that specializes in fintech and cybersecurity. We apply the scientific method to marketing, and which is a fun little background that I have on putting the creativity and analytics together to make a very practical business case for your investments.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in this line of work?

Natalie Hogg: Um, so my granddad actually is credited with inventing direct deposit. So I think I was a summit.

Lee Kantor: Born into.

Natalie Hogg: The into fintech. Yeah, whether I knew it or not at the time. Um, and, uh, my, my father owned a business growing up. So I think I just come from a group of entrepreneurs. So I always wanted to start my own business, um, and have the option to solve problems and travel the world. And that’s what I get to do today.

Lee Kantor: So tell us about kind of the scientific method when it comes to marketing, which has some people think is is part art and part science.

Natalie Hogg: It definitely is a combination of the both. So, you know, you’ve got seven steps in the scientific method. We start with a hypothesis. So, you know, in order to reach a hypothesis you need to know the business value. So what’s your revenue goal. What are you trying to achieve. Um, both from the founder or the CEO perspective and also the revenue perspective of the CFO. And it’s backwards math all the way. So then you understand where the specific parts of that roadmap and the buying journey that you can take a bet on, put the hypothesis together and, um, run it as a marketing campaign, knowing that those leading and lagging indicators are whether you you continue or pivot along the way. So very data driven.

Lee Kantor: So how does that kind of drill down to the tactics?

Natalie Hogg: Yeah. So the tactics would be I mean if you think about a leading indicator, it’d be, you know, something as simple as website impressions or clicks on your LinkedIn posts and all of those things drive to buying behavior these days. What’s really driving by driving buying behavior is AI use. So if you think about, you know, the ChatGPT conversation someone’s having before they even land on your website. Um, so all of these things are driven by content and, and really interesting problem focused content. Um, there’s a lot of noise out there with AI. At the same time, people are using AI to do all their research. So you have to find the balance between what’s really, really valuable, what’s driving decisions, and how are you being relevant to someone at the time when they actually need to make a change out of the status quo?

Lee Kantor: And who is the ideal client for method two?

Natalie Hogg: Uh, we work with companies between, uh, pre revenue all the way to $50 million in revenue. The sweet spot is really 10 to 50 million. Usually companies that either have not yet built their marketing engine and need support building it. We can also help place talent as they need and grow and expand beyond outsourcing. But then also we are a great augmented team to help. And I love mentoring, so I love to see marketing teams and marketing team members get promotions after working with us by setting them up for success with the right infrastructure to scale.

Lee Kantor: So when you’re, um, like, what’s a challenge that one of your companies has?

Natalie Hogg: Uh, typically they’ve invested in marketing with the different tactics. They’re being told what they should be doing. They’re frustrated because it’s not working and they don’t even know how to measure it. So we come in with that hypothesis really clearly articulating very logical steps. Usually engineers like us because we have that engineer mindset when it comes to marketing. Um, but we still have that creativity to push through that is, is a little less tangible. Um, and so we usually solve that frustration in the beginning with a clear path and then clear, clearly articulating the leading and lagging indicators on whether we continue to do something, what we’re testing, why it’s working, why it’s not working, what we’re going to do about it.

Lee Kantor: So there is there consumer like, would one of your clients be a bank and their their target is more consumers or I need more business clients. Like like what is it like you know, you know where the rubber hits the road.

Natalie Hogg: Great question. So we have several clients here at fintechs. Al tag is actually one of them. Um, so we’re grateful to to be part of their marketing journey. Um, we also work with mostly B2B, uh, financial technology SaaS companies or services companies in the cybersecurity space. Um, so usually it’s a long sales cycle cycle, enterprise driven. Um, and then tag is, you know, the unique exception where we know the industry really well. Um, but we’re trying to drive community.

Lee Kantor: And then how do you define community?

Natalie Hogg: Um, for me, it’s an interactive community. Um, that there’s value on both sides of the chain. So, um, fintech, in Atlanta has a history that is really awesome. We drive most of the transactions in the world and we have for quite a long time. And so the more that we we drive, innovation in Atlanta and Atlanta in itself is attracting more and more talent from all over the world. Revenue of businesses is increasing. And the mayor, as he said yesterday, Atlanta is a group project. I believe fintech is part of that.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re working with a tag, are you just counting the number of new members, like what is the metric that matters? Because a lot of times people kind of we call them cos metrics in our business where the number sounds good, but it may not really be connected to what the outcome they desire is.

Natalie Hogg: Yeah, I’d say and there’s two different ways to measure success with working with Tag. It would be obviously members and ongoing members. We want to retain members and then to get value out of it over years worth of time on our journey to 2030. Um, because you should attend the gala coming up soon. You’ll learn a lot more about 2030. And there’s some videos circulating right now about the the vision there and otherwise. It’s obviously attendees at events. Tag puts on several events a year, both their societies and their, um, their main work of business. And so, um, getting people to attend and participate and great speakers on stage is another measure of success.

Lee Kantor: So then I’m just confused and in terms of, okay, uh, the metric that matters is, is kind of nebulous to me. I’m not understanding it clearly about what is the like. Do you have a kind of, um, KPI that you’re saying, okay, this is how we’re judging whether this is working or not? Or is it kind of is this where the art comes in, where it’s kind of a gray area and it seems like it’s working?

Natalie Hogg: No, I’d say there’s always, unfortunately, a little bit of gray area in marketing because people don’t tell you how they intend to buy or participate. Um, but with Tag, it’s specifically the amount of people that have registered for an event, the amount of people that actually attend. The amount of people that open or return to an email or social post. Those indicators of active engagement. So you go from unaware to aware. The activity of engagement, of attending an event, or interacting with email or social. Tells us that they’re more likely to become a member, a sponsor, or an attendee at an upcoming event.

Lee Kantor: And then do you target those specific constituents like members? Is there an order of priority, or is that something that you’re that kind of is a moving target?

Natalie Hogg: Um, it’s definitely a moving target depending on the goals of the organization right now by 2030. Our goal is to attract more members from outside of Georgia. So more of a southeast play, um, and even global. So we would start tracking, uh, not only just members and event attendees based in Atlanta, but the other demographics associated with it, with where they’re from, the diversity of the the industry and where they come from.

Lee Kantor: So when you decide that that’s the objective. Like say, let’s just talk about the one that we want to expand. Technology Association of Georgia to be more southeast as a region. How does that kind of drill down to what is the tactic we’re going to use to get to that objective? Is that just by testing?

Natalie Hogg: Um, there’s a lot of testing that has to go out at the beginning of something that hasn’t been done before, but there’s a lot of data that tells us what hypothesis might work. So we know we need to, uh, get Larry out in the market and more spaces outside of Georgia. Um, connect with more organizations that we can partner with and expand our message to and make sure that we’re bringing in the community of wonderful, innovative speakers who can pour into the community of fintech Atlanta, um, in Atlanta, and all of our partners within the space.

Lee Kantor: So now, uh, the Fintech South event has been going on for quite some time now. How do you recommend kind of squeezing the most juice out of an event like this from a marketing standpoint?

Natalie Hogg: Well, if you’re attending and you’re interested in sponsoring, I think you you want to get on stage and speak, but you want to make sure you’re speaking about something that’s relevant to the industry and understand what your goals are coming in. Are you looking to recruit talent? Are you looking to find new business and make sure that your messaging and who you send to the event is aligned with that? And you set certain KPIs because there’s a dollar amount that goes with sponsoring an event. So, you know, I like to say at the high level of all the metrics we track, for every dollar you want to get 10 to $20 out of it in revenue for every dollar you spend in marketing. So if you think about that and apply what you’re looking to achieve here, I think there’s several paths to being part of this community. It’s either being heard, sharing your point of view, and raising awareness, or connecting with the community to find the upcoming talent. There is a shortage in talent in fintech right now, and I think that there’s a lot of value in making sure you’re part of the community, whether you’re looking to recruit now or in the future.

Lee Kantor: Because at some point, if you’re want to grow, you’re going to need to recruit.

Natalie Hogg: Yes people. Usually if if you’re growing a business, people help you grow the business. You know, people mixed with AI potentially in the future.

Lee Kantor: So you have any thoughts on how to leverage AI in marketing?

Natalie Hogg: Absolutely. Like I said, people are using AI to to go down their own buying journey, and they’re being prompted with questions that they should be asking throughout their buying journey. Um, so what used to be a lot of the old playbook and marketing isn’t working anymore. So I think a lot of marketers are going to be struggling. Um, I’m seeing that. Um, so you have to be on top of the way people change, the way that they learn information every day. And things like ChatGPT perplexity. Um, just like in the past with Instagram and TikTok influence how people consume information. So you have to change the way that you’re putting information out there. Um, so where you’re trying to used to rank for SEO, now you need to be ranking for EO AI content. So usually that’s in the form of a Q&A. Um, so something simple you could do is just change your headlines on your blog to be more addressing direct questions and answers related to specific pain points, because people are getting more specific in their research with AI.

Lee Kantor: Do you still believe in the power of brand?

Natalie Hogg: Oh, absolutely. Especially these days. People buy from people and people buy from brands they trust. So I think a lot of people moved away from brand, um, from a PE driven mindset of the spreadsheet tells the numbers of how many leads you get and the demand gen machine. Now you can’t have dimension without good brand.

Lee Kantor: So how do you recommend somebody kind of leveraging their brand? Because brand brand to me is going to happen whether you’re being proactive about it or not.

Natalie Hogg: Yes. And if you’re not proactive at it, you’re not in charge of your brand and who you are and how you’re showing up. Um, So it’s all about consistency. And it really is important to define that brand personality and the people that are representing that brand and make sure it’s aligning to who you’re selling to. So typically, you know, there’s you need to have that in-house brand of what what makes people excited to work there. You need to make sure that it resonates with the people that are looking to buy from you. So you need to be asking a lot of questions and understand people that don’t want to buy from you, and why that is as part of your brand.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, uh, what is the best way to connect with you or somebody on the team? That method.

Natalie Hogg: Um, I am I’m very active on LinkedIn, so follow me. Natalie Hogg on LinkedIn, the CEO of method Q or go to method Q. Com.

Lee Kantor: Well, Natalie, thank you so much for sharing your story today. Don’t touch important work and we appreciate you.

Natalie Hogg: Thanks for your time. And I love the tough questions.

 

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