Fintech Leaders

Hosted by Miguel Armaza

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Episodes

209

Latest episode

Oct 2026

Language

EN-US

About the show

Learn from today’s global leaders building the organizations that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.

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60 recent

October 13, 2026Episode 20950 min

Nubank’s Co-Founder on Winning 140M Customers & Expanding to the US

Send us Fan Mail I sat down with Cristina Junqueira, co-founder of Nubank and CEO of Nubank’s U.S. operation, one day after Nubank officially launched in the United States. Founded in 2013 in a house in São Paulo, Nubank now serves over 140 million customers, 64% of Brazil’s adult population, and they have just launched their US operations. We talk about why product-led growth is a necessity rather than a strategy, why she would rather have a smaller customer base that loves the product than buy her way to growth, and why she spent launch night reading customer support transcripts. Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond. Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide! Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter. Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

September 22, 2026Episode 20855 min

Taktile’s CEO Raised $190M Betting Most Bank Jobs Won't Exist in 10 Years

Send us Fan Mail I sat down with Maik Taro Wehmeyer, co-founder and CEO of Taktile, an agentic decision platform that helps financial services companies automate their highest-stakes decisions: credit underwriting, fraud detection, and compliance. Maik and his co-founder built the company from a failed first product and 99 rejected banks into a business that just closed a $110 million round led by Goldman Sachs. Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond. Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide! Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter. Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

September 10, 2026Episode 20758 min

Harshil Mathur, Razorpay CEO: Building India's Dominant Payments Company

Send us Fan Mail I sat down with Harshil Mathur , Co-Founder and CEO of Razorpay , one of India’s most important fintech and tech companies. Razorpay moves hundreds of billions of dollars in annual payment volume and powers about 85% of the country’s largest tech companies. They are also reportedly preparing for a large IPO on the Indian Stock Exchange . Harshil started coding at age 12 and began building Razorpay in 2014, only a year after graduating college. Their early days were not easy, and Harshil and his co-founder, Shashank Kumar , ran into about a hundred bank rejections before a single bank partner said yes. Fast forward to 2026, and the company today is one of India’s most important payments players. Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond. Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide! Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter. Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

August 11, 2026Episode 20648 min

Mikhail Lomtadze, Kaspi CEO - From Super App to Everyday AI Assistant

Send us Fan Mail Miguel Armaza flew to Almaty, Kazakhstan to sit down with Mikhail Lomtadze, CEO and Co-Founder of Kaspi, for their second conversation in two years. It is hard to explain how dominant and loved Kaspi is in this market: in a country of 20 million people, more than 15 million use the app daily, and it handles two thirds of Kazakhstan's e-commerce. What started as a traditional bank is now one of the world's most defining super apps, and it just entered a new chapter, expanding into Türkiye through Hepsiburada and launching Kasper, its consumer-facing AI assistant. They discussed why Kaspi's final destination is the everyday AI assistant rather than the everyday super app, why almost nobody in the company carries a financial target, how a 10,000-person organization stays a collection of startups, what the first year inside Türkiye has actually taught them, and why he thinks investors are underestimating their ability to execute. Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond. Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~100,000+ readers and listeners worldwide! Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter. Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated organization or employer. This content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as professional financial, legal, or tax advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any financial decisions.

July 7, 2026Episode 20558 min

Rain, Farooq Malik - The $2Bn Company Building the Infrastructure for Stablecoins and Tokenized Money

Send us Fan Mail I sat down with Farooq Malik, CEO & Co-Founder of Rain, a $2Bn company that’s building infrastructure for Stablecoin-powered products, including card issuing, payments, wallets, and much more for businesses like Western Union, Slash and Nuvei. In 2025 they grew 30x and they recently raised a $250m round led by ICONIQ Capital. Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond. Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide! Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter. Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

June 9, 2026Episode 20452 min

How Slash Grew From $10 to $300 Million in 2+ Years. Victor Cardenas, CEO & Co-Founder of Slash

Send us Fan Mail I sat down with Victor Cardenas, Co-Founder and CEO of Slash, one of the fastest growing fintechs in America that went from $10M to $300M in annualized revenue in 24 months And just crossed a $1.4 billion valuation after a $100M Series C led by Ribbit Capital, Khosla Ventures and Goodwater Capital. The company powers over $30Bn in annualized payment volume across wires, ACH, stablecoin, and card for over 5,000 businesses. Victor is a Venezuelan immigrant, Stanford dropout, and Thiel Fellow. He started Slash at 19 serving sneaker resellers, lost 60% of his revenue almost overnight, and rebuilt the company into a rocketship by betting on vertical banking. Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond. Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide! Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter. Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

May 26, 2026Episode 20355 min

Max Levchin - Building Affirm, PayPal, and Why He Only Starts Network Businesses

Send us Fan Mail I sat down with Max Levchin, Co-Founder and CEO of Affirm and one of the living legends of tech and fintech. He co-founded PayPal with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, invented anti-fraud technology that's still foundational today, and has spent the last 14 years building Affirm into one of the largest publicly traded fintechs in the world with a mission to replace credit cards with transparent lending. He is one of the most thoughtful and brilliant founders I've spoken with. Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond. Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide! Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter. Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

May 13, 2026Episode 20253 min

Rob Heyvaert, Motive Partners Founder: Investing Billions to Build the Future of Finance

Send us Fan Mail I sat down with Rob Heyvaert, Founder and Managing Partner of Motive Partners, a fintech-focused private equity firm with over $6Bn in AUM, 80 portfolio companies representing over $15 trillion of assets in the wealth management space. Rob is a serial entrepreneur who started his first company at 24, sold it to IBM, and later founded Capco and sold to FIS to hundreds of millions of dollars, before launching Motive in 2016. He is a true fintech builder and it was inspiring to learn from him. We recorded this episode live at Motive's NYC office as part of New York Fintech week. Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond. Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide! Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter. Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

April 30, 2026Episode 20141 min

Renaud Laplanche on Building Upgrade to a $7.3Bn Giant, Reinventing the Credit Card, and Shipping AI-Native Products

Send us Fan Mail I sat down with Renaud Laplanche, Co-Founder and CEO of Upgrade, a consumer fintech valued at $7.3 billion. Since 2017, Upgrade has originated over $45 billion in credit to 7.5 million customers, crossed $1 billion in annualized revenue, and has been cash flow positive for years. Renaud also founded Lending Club and took it public in what was the largest US tech IPO of 2014. He is one of the most accomplished entrepreneurs in fintech and someone I personally admire. We discussed building a multi-product platform from day one, how a company acquisition became their best customer generation engine, the first AI-native product Upgrade is shipping soon, and much more. Outside fintech, Renaud is an avid Sailor holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest Newport to Bermuda sailing crossing. Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond. Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide! Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter. Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

April 14, 2026Episode 20059 min

The Trader Who Builds Billion-Dollar Companies: Tom Sosnoff on Thinkorswim, Tasty, and What Comes Next

Send us Fan Mail I sat down with Tom Sosnoff, one of the most successful entrepreneurs in financial services. Tom spent 19 years on Chicago’s CBOE trading floor and then left to build Thinkorswim, the first online broker specialized in options, which he sold to TD Ameritrade for $600 million. He then built Tastytrade and sold it nine years later for a billion dollars to IG Group. He is now building Lossdog, a career optimization platform to help fight wealth inequality. What I enjoyed the most of this conversation is how genuine Tom is. He’s kind and cares about fairness and inequality. Prioritizes legacy over money. And he is a builder at heart that loves to take risks. Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today’s global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond. Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~85,000+ readers and listeners worldwide! Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter. Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4Z Miguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBc Fintech Leaders Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp

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