Fintech Talks (a Georgia Fintech Academy podcast)
Welcome to Fintech Talks, the official podcast of the Georgia Fintech Academy, where we dive into the dynamic world of financial technology. Join us as we explore the latest trends, innovations, and challenges shaping the fintech landscape. Hosted by industry expert Laura Gibson-Lamothe, each episode features insightful conversations with fintech leaders, alumni, and visionaries who are driving change and fostering innovation.
Whether you're a student, professional, or enthusiast, "Fintech Talks" offers a unique platform to gain valuable insights into the intersection of finance and technology. Discover how the Georgia Fintech Academy is building a diverse and skilled talent pipeline, connecting academia with industry, and preparing the next generation of fintech leaders.
Tune in for engaging discussions on topics ranging from blockchain and AI to cybersecurity and regulatory compliance. With "Fintech Talks," you're not just listening to a podcast—you're joining a community of #FutureFintechLeaders committed to shaping the future of finance.
www.georgiafintechacademy.org
Fintech Talks (a Georgia Fintech Academy podcast)
Episode 20: Finastra Cloud Platform, Fintech, and Payments - Stephanie Foster, Finastra and Laine Kehoe, UGA
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Stephanie Foster is the Head of Product Management, Americas for Finastra and she joins Laine Kehoe of the University of Georgia and a holder of a fintech certificate from UGA. The discussion explores the Finastra cloud platform and its impact on payments and payments hub technology.
Georgia Fintech Academy
https://www.georgiafintechacademy.org/
LinkedIn (Georgia Fintech Academy)
https://www.linkedin.com/company/georgia-fintech-academy/
Welcome to the Georgia FinTech Academy podcast. The Georgia Vintech Academy is a collaboration between Georgia's FinTech industry and the university system of Georgia. This talent development initiative addresses a massive demand for FinTech professionals and give learners the specialized education experiences needed to enter the FinTech sector. Hello
Speaker 2Everybody . This is Tommy Marshall , the executive director of the Georgia FinTech Academy. And welcome back. This is episode 20 of our podcast , and just last night we surpassed 1500 streams of the Georgia FinTech Academy podcast. So we're celebrating a little bit of a milestone today. I have two , uh , two guests today. Stephanie Foster of Finastra had a product to product management for the Americas. Welcome Stephanie and lane keyhole from , uh, UGA as our student guests. Welcome to you both.
Speaker 3Hi, thank you for having me, Tony. Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2Yeah, let's uh , get into intros. Uh, Stephanie, if you don't mind starting , uh, and telling us about your , uh , fantastic career in FinTech and , um, how you got into this space , uh , take us , uh, give us that context.
Speaker 3Yeah. So again, thank you. Uh , Tommy and the Georgia FinTech Academy for having me here today. I'm very excited to share a little bit about my career journey, as well as some of the amazing innovations that we're doing at Finastra. So I, so I actually started my career in financial services right out of high school. I went from graduation into corporate America before I even took my first college course. Oh, wow. Yeah. And this was thanks to a non-profit organization called and roads and roads is a group that develops and places , um, talented minority students to this four year internship program. So three and roads , um, through all the training , um, getting my resume off to seed and the training for interviews, I landed at Western union.
Speaker 2You just there for one day , because it was significant. Um, we're about to announce , um, that the Georgia department of education , um, is supporting a set of dual enrollment programs with high schools across Georgia. And so now as this program is launching, actually right now, this fall , uh, I think it's 481 high schools in Georgia , um, have been approved , um, to offer three different types of FinTech classes that , um, will leverage , um, some of what we've established , uh, with the Georgia FinTech Academy at the undergraduate level , uh, and be able to offer and teach courses at the high school level. And then students can also dual enroll into a certain college courses as well as high schoolers around FinTech. So we may see more high school students maybe taking a journey. That's not so unlike the one you've had Stephanie
Speaker 3That's , that's very interesting. Um, and in my case, I always say that I didn't choose financial services. I didn't choose FinTech . It chose me because if it were up to me, I'd be working in fashion in New York. Um , but at all, you know, it all kind of worked out. So I was actually at Western union for a total of 17 years, and I've seen the company changed quite a bit. Um, at one point we had acquired a smaller remittance company, gold legal money transfer. Uh, so having been in the company for several years and working on a number of different roles from being , um, an events, marketing manager to product marketing manager, I was handpicked by our general general manager at the time to lead a business development and expand the Vigo money transfer base throughout the Caribbean , um, which was a very interesting assignment. Uh, so early in my career to have the opportunity to , um, travel to the Caribbean negotiate contracts , um, launch new products and another part of the world and meet with regulators on a regular basis to ensure that our solution , um, with compliance . So one of the really cool projects I worked on at the time was , uh, when PSD the payment services directive , uh , the first part was finally , um, implemented. I was , uh , one of the few leaders who had the chance to expand the money transfer business in the French Caribbean. So what loop or teeny sub-parts , um, as well, because that reg that piece of regulation that enabled us to expand our money transfer business outside of financial institutions, because before at PSD, we could only offer the service to a bank or a post office. Um, so having the chance to grow our business , um, was quite a great experience for me early on in my career. So I've gotten the opportunity to lead cross-functional teams , um , expand my critical thinking, taking a risks , um, and doing it all outside of the U S for the majority of them.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's cool. We have a student that just graduated from Georgia state, Jonathan Pender, and he has started a FinTech in The Bahamas. And , um, he's been helping me to kind of understand some of the dynamics and The Bahamas , uh, from a perspective in particular, which has been really interesting.
Speaker 3Yeah. That's one of the central banks that I work very closely with back in the day. Yeah. So my year at Western union led me to Pfizer where I was leading the product commercialization for an integrated receivables solution , um, which is a totally different part of the business. I went from a very highly , um, global product that was very tough customer focused to now back office . And basically our integrated receivables solution , um, was , um, is an automated tool that uses AI and machine learning to automate the cash application process for large corporates. And you were talking earlier about fax machines and outdated processes. So in the back office of a lot of large corporates today, as they're receiving payments from a number of different channels, chat payments, ACH payments, wires card payments, the person who's sitting in that back room and the accounts receivable department has to manually match these payments to open invoices, right? So they're taking pictures of checks, they're scanning, they're uploading, and then they have to type in all this information in an Excel spreadsheet to figure out exactly, okay, I've got this wire for $10,000 , um, which, you know, how many invoices you hit covering . So our tool automated that process using AI and machine learning. Um, so I did that for a couple of years, and then the amazing opportunity at Finastra showed up , um, to lead the commercialization of their payment hub platform. So our ACH Val , um, our real-time payments offering as well as the wires too . Um, and I I'm that weird person who switched roles in the middle of COVID. So I literally have not even met my coworkers yet. It's been a very interesting onboarding for store. Um, but it's , it's, it's quite quite the journey of , um , you know, having , uh, the opportunity to , um , actually get to know a lot of our regulators from the us side now with the Notcha the clearing house , um, as well as the federal reserve. So that's, that's my new life moving forward. It's very exciting.
Speaker 2Um , fantastic. I think grass on the new role at Finastra, it's really exciting , um , such in a great, you know, really amazing , uh, an important new area , um, in supporting the payments. Uh , um, I is . It's cool. Um, thanks for that , uh, lane, tell us about you and your experience at UGA.
Speaker 4Yes. Thank you so much for having me on Tommy . Um, I am currently a computer science major with a FinTech certificate at university of Georgia. I will be graduating this year , um , May, 2021. So my path to FinTech and computer science was long and a little bit uncertain . I started college as a student athlete. So , um, coming in, I wasn't super focused on school and I wasn't sure what I wanted to major in exactly started out with just because I had never had any issues with math. Um , that'd be a good background. And my advisor and family recommended that I look into computer science just because I have such an analytical and logical background. So I've been doing that for the past three years and I like it, but I did feel that there was a bit of a gap between , um, all of the backend programming that I'm learning and how it's actually used with the consumers and the end product , um, on the business side. So my dad actually recommended to me that I look into FinTech and earning a FinTech certificate, and I've absolutely loved it. I think , uh , FinTech has had me and the certificate offered at UGA helped me bridge the gap between , um, all of my computer science backgrounds and what I felt like I didn't know on the business side. So last summer , um, Stephanie switched jobs and onboarded virtually I did two internships virtually , which was crazy. I never met anybody in person, but , um, they were both fantastic. I worked with FinTech Academy and FinTech, Atlanta to create an MVP of a collaborative SharePoint site , um, to streamline some experiential learning processes. And then I also worked at E Y and their technology solutions practice. Um, that's specifically with the service now team.
Speaker 2Oh , good . Um, first question, which , uh, what's your sport when you came to UGA, what are your areas ?
Speaker 4Um, I played soccer, not at UGA at another Dijuan institution. So secure on a university. Um, I played for the first two years of college, and then I transferred once I realized that I wanted to do computer science and , um, wanted to focus a little bit more on school and leave sports behind.
Speaker 2Cool. And then , uh, um , it was nice getting to know you and the team a little bit as you were working on the FinTech Atlanta FinTech Academy project this summer that , uh, that MVP I know is going to be really useful to us , um, for you as listeners. So you can understand a little bit what that is is that , uh , it's going to allow for us to offer out , um, uh, a window to corporations so that they can come in and , uh , log a particular student projects that they would like , um, to be , uh, to be addressed , uh, in their business. And it's going to help us create a catalog so that as professors and , uh , are coming to us at the FinTech Academy and saying, Hey, we've got opportunities for student projects. We can better maps as a corporate interest with the opportunities in the classroom. So , um, we're looking forward to rolling that out , um, here in the fall and making it real and getting more , uh , companies engaged with , um, with , uh, with the FinTech Academy. Um, we've been kind of manually doing that matching for the last couple of semesters , uh, and have had some great engagement from Pfizer and NCR and Wells Fargo , uh, seeing sort , um, and probably saw in several others. So , uh, we're looking to automate that a bit more and, and scale it. Uh, so, so thanks for that. Um, Stephanie tell us about Finastra and the cloud cloud prep platform that , uh , is been, that you've been helping legally .
Speaker 3So , um , so actually didn't know a whole lot about this organization before , um, the whole interview process, but that Finastra is a third largest FinTech and the world , um , headquartered and Paddington in the UK. We have , uh, over 9,000 employees around the globe , um, all remote at this point due to COVID, but we're a $2 billion company owned by Vista equity partners. Um, and what's really cool about Finastra is where basically built on the acquisition. Um, it's, it's a merger of FinTech bank serve the NH myosis and the brand Finastra was born back in 2017. So , um, what two and a half, almost three years now. Uh, but you know, Finastra has over 600 customers around the world and 90 of the top 100 banks are running , um , on the , one of our solutions and the depth and breadth of solutions are across a number of areas. Um, in the financial services space, we have core systems. Um, of course we have to pay the payments, hub, lending, retail banking, corporate banking, treasury, and capital markets as well. Um, and fun fact about Finastra Tami is that we process 25% of all us domestic wires, which is a pretty cool feather in our cap. Um, and we also serve as about 30% of the banks here, here in the asked ,
Speaker 2Certainly aware of Finastra. Um, partly due to the fact that when I was in consulting, we implemented FunTech for a couple of cut , uh , clients . And , um, that was a way for me to begin to learn what really about this , um, payments home space. And , um, this was yes , the first fund implementation we did with little over three years ago, as part when I was , um, had a payments practice at a consulting firm called Capco. And the payments of space is really amazing this putting the software and capability in place to support the management of those different instruments that you were just mentioning, like ACH wire check , um, and now with real-time payments has become , uh , more , um, uh, kind of real part of the ecosystem that , uh, that instrument as well.
Speaker 3Yeah, and it it's , what's really interesting is how there are so many different definitions of what a payments hub is and what it's supposed to do with, depending on who you talk to. Right. But at the end of the day, really, it's all driven by the market. It's driven by changes in regulations that are happening around the world. Um, as you know, the new, the new file format for ISO 21, 22, it's coming out and they fear . Um, so, you know, major all the major financial institutions are currently , um, going through that process of ensuring that they're ready to meet ISO standards. Uh, but you know , one of the advantages of Finastra is that our SaaS solution , um , for payments was actually as ISO native. So any customer that's being onboarded , um, on the SaaS solution would automatically be able to consume the ISO format, which is really neat. But, you know, going back to what's driving this it's really regulatory it's compliance. Um , a lot of it is customer experience, honestly, as well, and competitive pressure , um, all these new payment schemes like RTP and, you know, which is already out and fed now that we're expecting in the next seven years or so , um, are really driving more banks to start looking for a payment hub, you know, one place to consolidate, initiate a view, all of your payments.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. I know there's just remarkable , uh , efficiencies , uh, cost savings, of course, but then also new revenue opportunities , uh, that are brought conveyor , um, and supported through these payments , um, that are, that are now available. Uh, and it it's meaningful lane. I know you touched on this a little bit when you were working on your FinTech certificate. Um, what , uh, tell us a little bit about that. What exposure you had to this real-time payments area is just one segment of what supported by the payment subs.
Speaker 4All right . Um, so the first class in the FinTech certificate at UGA is sort of a general background on FinTech, all about principles practices goes into the details of the history. Um, so we talked a lot about the ACH clearing house and how that was a problem that real-time payments has now solved. Um, it's really interesting to get, to see the process of payment transactions and even how it's evolving today, especially open banking, being a big thing in the UK. Um, I actually had a question for Stephanie about the cloud cloud-based spot for him . So , um, I know you mentioned regulatory technology, which is another thing we talked about in my certificate classes, especially being based in the UK. Do you see a lot of cloud-based solutions being made to help companies comply with the consumer protection and consumer privacy wise ?
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question, Elaine . So , um, I'll , I'll tell you a little bit about the platform. So, you know, Finastra really, our , our goal is to change the way that modern software is built and distributed, which is why, you know, our slogan really is what is it ? Finance is open. So, you know, with this fusion fabric.cloud platform , which is an open developer platform, we're really encouraging banks, fintechs, regulators, universities , um, to all meet on the platform to collaborate for modern technology. So what we've done is we've opened up our core systems , um, roll out all of the different product lines, conveying bank, corporate banking , capital markets with open API APIs. We're opening up our core API APIs to everyone in the industry to , um, to enable FIS and third parties to develop obligations. Um, and the fact that it is cloud based , it means that these new solutions can be developed quickly. Um, they can be developed at a lower cost , um, so that these Neo banks and other fintechs can meet regulatory requirements. Um, quicker.
Speaker 2We have a , um, a local company that participated in , uh, in , uh , Finastra fusion hackathon , um, several months ago, maybe six months ago , um, call non-auto . And , uh, I know that , yeah, they've benefited a lot from , uh, the opportunity to engage with the Finastra fusion one platform. And , um , I've just, I've been noticing or just witnessing as, as Finastra has been , um, coming in to the, to the North America marketplace over the last year or so. Um, you know, more companies engaging with this , uh, with this , um, with this platform. Um, so it looks like the , the , the strategies , um, taking hold as, as more companies are engaging with it.
Speaker 3Yeah, for sure. I mean, the , we we've got a whole , um, partner ecosystem, right? The idea is to the idea is two-fold with the platform. Number one, it's the, having this developer portal banks , fintechs integrators, independent developers , um , consultants, students, even students as well are welcome to come and innovate through the platform. But then number two is the marketplace as well. So as a financial institution, you can shop around in the Finastra app marketplace , um, to fill a certain need. For example, the main is running on our payments platform, leverage compliance and fraud tools , um, from the apps and the store. So instead of having that integrate into net guardians or integrate with like to go through the OFAC checks for all of your , um, for all of your payment processing needs. So really the idea here is , um, you know, how do we disrupt the marketplace?
Speaker 2Yeah. And the , uh, I need to, I'm taking a note cause I want to investigate in more detail , uh, how I can help , uh, different student development teams, access to fusion one platform for , um , different experiential projects that I know they're working on , um, to take, to take advantage of that on ramp , uh, and get more exposure to the , uh, financial services , um , marketplace of , uh, applications and apps that are, that are available.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'd love to help with that. Um, and actually anyone can log onto our website. Um, if you click on there fusion fabric.cloud, you can literally browse the marketplace and see what apps are currently available. I believe that they're all listed by category as well. So I would encourage anyone who's listening to, to log on and definitely take a look.
Speaker 2Yes, I'm going to do that right now, in fact. And , uh, it was, it was there in detail. Um, yeah, it's amazing. Cause it looks like you can get into kind of retail banking, corporate banking, lending payments, treasury capital markets , um, all of these different , um, areas of use cases. Uh, and then I, I see how they , um, highlight on fusion fabric.cloud , uh, and , uh , on-ramp for universities , um, as well as of course financial institutions and fintechs and developers and independent software vendors. Uh, it's a , it's really a great opportunity , um, and platform .
Speaker 3Yeah. Oh, I got to tell you a great story about the cloud platform. So , um, so right around the time that when the paycheck protection program was launched , uh , we had a number of our banks who actually were struggling to process these loans quickly and get the funds out to their customers. So they reached out to Finastra and within a matter of days, not weeks, but they, our developers, they felt , um, uh, Lauren origination portal that was custom designed to help serve the market for PPP loans. And it was made available at no cost to Finastra customers. We also updated or , um, a loan documentation software to ensure that all the PBB loans were compliant, they had on the necessary documentations and disclosures , um , that were necessary, you know, mandated by the small business administration and the treasury. Um, so what's, what's really cool about that is the fact that with this portal that we developed within the matter of days, we held our banks process over 86,000 PPP loans and that's way back in June. So it's probably a lot more now to help support the community banks and the credit unions to get critical funds, you know , back to the small businesses that serves in the local communities. Um, so that's a really cool Finastra story that I don't think as they told enough and the best part about all of that . It's not only we provided it for free. We help process, you know, close to a hundred thousand loans, but we also donated the initial revenue generated from this effort, which equaled about $2.2 million in food banks across the country as part of our COVID efforts.
Speaker 2That's fantastic. Um, I was thinking, you know, as horrible as this health crisis has been, it's been remarkable to see how it's really just accelerated the adoption of different financial services, technology capabilities , uh, in the marketplace. And it's been heartening to hear stories like yours , um, about how quickly , um, banks and individuals and, and , uh , others haven't been able to embrace and kind of innovate in the middle of this crisis. Uh, and it's cool to hear how , um, Finastra on the backend of those accomplishments has made a contribution to , um , food banks and, you know, to really help individuals that are suffering.
Speaker 3Yeah, definitely. I would say one of the, you know , when Finastra as big as missions is , uh , corporate social responsibility , um, which is near and dear to our , our CEO, Simon Paris near and dear to his heart. Um, so he definitely enables and empowers employees all across the globe to support , um, local initiatives happening in our community where it's through volunteer hours , um, or actually towards donations as well. So that's one of the reasons why I love being at Finastra. Yeah.
Speaker 2Um , I want to talk a bit about just FinTech and shoes. That's caught our attention in the last week or so , um, lane , how about you what's , uh, take your radar.
Speaker 4Um, I guess one new story that I really that's really stood out to me the most is cabbage being acquired by American express. This was something that I was able to discuss in school or cabbage is a company that we use as a lot of examples in school. Um, so when COVID-19 hit, it was something that we are kind of worried about as a class and students , um, since they give loans to small businesses. But , um, it's good to see that they're being bought by American express for such a high price.
Speaker 2Yeah, the , uh, in , um , I think, I feel like every conversation I've been in, in the last 72 hours, this topic has come up of the American express, announcing their intention to purchase cabbage. And I'm thrilled for , um, Rob froing and , um, Kathryn Petralia who are the co-founders of cabbage. Um, and it's, it's also worth mentioning in light of what we were just talking about. Um, cabbage has been a remarkable , uh, provider PPP loans to small businesses , uh, over really since the onset of the crisis. And that I was noticing , um, just late last week, the , uh , loan volumes of , uh, that cabbage has provided for PPP has, has been greater than that provided by JP Morgan chase. So they've really provided a remarkable service , uh, to the small business community , um, recently. And that certainly caught the attention of American express and Amex . If , if you don't know, has a remarkable , um, small business outreach , um, through their open platform. And , uh, it seems just natural to me that they would look to plug cabbage into that. Uh, Stephanie, how about you, what's caught your eye in the last week, FinTech news,
Speaker 3The big local news are they for all of us is what's happening with Paya yeah . Planning the goal planning to go public , um , through the private equity, private equity firms . So that's , that's exciting. I , I have a lot of connections to Paya from that working in the industry and from being in the women's network and electronic transactions or whatever big sponsor is here. So it was very exciting to, to hear the news of what's happening with them. Um, for, you know , anyone who may not be aware of Taya is they wanted the provisors of , um, integrated payment commerce solutions. And they're active in a number of different industries. B2B payments are in education, government, healthcare, and also non-profit , um, they processed over 30 billion , um, volume of ACH and check data . So it's really cool to see one of our own hair , you know, born out of Atlanta , um, moving on to, you know , bigger and better things and, you know , being in this , the last that , so that's huge, huge .
Speaker 2Yeah , that was also interesting to me because of this financing vehicle that they're taking advantage of called, which are called SPACs or a special , um, acquisition merger companies. Um, the, the SPAC , uh, that is, is that PI is engaged with, is call the FinTech acquisition court three, which I know sounds a little bit esoteric, but the , um, there's, I've been encouraging , uh, particularly students that have been engaged with the FinTech Academy to start to better understand these , um, these SPAC , um, special acquisition merger companies, because they're , we're seeing more and more , um, companies or private entities like Haya take advantage of facts as a way to , um, uh, get some meaningful financing. Uh, I think that Taya deal was valued at over $1.3 billion. Uh, so it's really a significant way to access capital. Um, absolutely. The , the one that caught my attention this week was , um, Robin Hood's $200 million financing, which is , um, uh , another round for Robin hood, which raises the , uh , Val overall valuation of Robin hood up to over a $11 billion , uh, which is just massive. I mean, it took off in some ways , it's just kind of takes my breath away. I mean, if you look at , um, Airbnb, which just last night , um, uh, announced that they were going to do an IPO on either the New York stock exchange is what, where they should go, because of course, the neighbors saw the changes owned by the Atlanta company Intercontinental exchange , um, or they may go to NASDAQ, but hopefully they'll make the right decision and , and go on New York stock exchange. But anyway , uh, that the evaluation that Airbnb , um, is suggesting , um , would, would come through this IPO is around , um, around 22 billion. So, wow. Look at Robin hood at 11 Airbnb at 22. I mean, it's just remarkable what these new co the valuations, these new companies are finding in the marketplace and in our very kind of troubled time , uh, it was we're in the middle of this pandemic.
Speaker 3I'm telling you where I feel like I need to go on and start my own fence so I can start getting in the middle of this valuation sale .
Speaker 2That's exactly right.
Speaker 3Our cloud platform to do that.
Speaker 2Yeah. Um, yeah, lane, I think , uh, if, if you're looking for something else to do, you know, don't hesitate to start at a new FinTech company. There seems to be a lot of capital out there.
Speaker 4I've definitely been inspired, but this summer, and in the news, both my internships, I'm going to need a partner though. So if any of you willing to pick up the business side,
Speaker 2Yeah. We're here for you. We're ready to, we're ready to give you some advice.
Speaker 3It's a good place. Good place to start late. I got a plug I'm on the board of so many organizations . Um, there's a group called the women driving innovation here locally. So we would love to have you join as a member. We can help connect you in the community, start meeting some investors and other startup founders. You never know where that could lead me.
Speaker 4Well, thank you. I'll definitely take a look at it . It sounds awesome.
Speaker 2Stephanie , you're also involved with Dubby and net , right? The women's , um, network , current transactions.
Speaker 3I'm an advisory member board member , um, for w not , and it's a group of women and payments essentially across the ecosystems from issuers. Uh , lots of major fintechs if I told them base as well. Um, and really the mission of the unit is to , um, we believe that a woman's potential is as unlimited as her envision . So our mission really is to empower women in the industry across all levels of their career from internship entry-level, mid-career up to senior level exacts . So that's another good one to network into as well to help meet folks in the industry.
Speaker 4Awesome. I love all those women in technology organizations. That was one of the first things. Um, that was really hard for me, starting at a new school at UGA , um, being from Atlanta, I knew it good amount of people, but of course, the draw to go to UGA is to be in Terry college of business. That wasn't really my passion. So I chose computer science and I was not surprised there are much more male students than female. Um, but being in with women in technology at UGA has opened so many doors and I've been able to meet and be inspired by , um, women executives and CEOs of startup tech companies. So it's been awesome.
Speaker 3That's great. I'm happy to hear that with as another great one locally as well. I volunteer with them a couple of years ago. It's really a great way, like you said, because our , our industry is so male dominated. Um, so women, the opportunity to network with other women , um, you know, meet executives in the industry makes a difference. And also it's inspiring, especially for students to see that, Hey, there are people who look like me working in these organizations. I can do it too.
Speaker 2It's , uh, you, you are both an inspiration to me on this front. And , um, it's, it's great to see what you all are both doing from a FinTech standpoint. And then, you know, we, we were just talking about cabbage. So, you know, Kathryn Petralia has been, I mean, she amazes me. I mean, she's just the , she's been a road warrior and a just prolific speaker at conferences, and that she's going to be on the stage at FinTech South, our virtual FinTech South, which is , uh , going to be October 10th through the ninth . Um, and then also Lynn lobby from , um , Cardlytics , the CEO of Cardlytics , uh, is another kind of great local woman FinTech leader that we have. I feel we're here in Atlanta, in Georgia. Um, we're blessed in a lot of ways. We've got a lot of wonderful , um, women can take leaders and , uh, I want to do the best job I can of , um, promoting all of those , uh , folks , uh, including yourselves .
Speaker 3That's great. We'd love to see more of that. Definitely. Tommy .
Speaker 2Yeah, we're gonna do it. We're gonna make it happen. Um, well we have come to time. Um, thank you both for being part of the Georgia FinTech Academy podcast, you are welcome back time. Uh, and it's , uh, it's great to have you engaged.
Speaker 3Thank you so much. This was great lane . It was great to meet you. Good luck. Great to meet you. Thank you for having me, Tom ,
Speaker 1The Georgia FinTech Academy podcasts are available on iTunes and Spotify to obtain additional information about the Georgia FinTech Academy. Please visit our website@georgiafintechacademy.org.