I became an influencer partly through circumstance – I was a journalist – my by line and face are on thousands of news pieces, features, event agendas and videos. However, some of it is by design. I decided to make my opinions and viewpoints public. However, I have an overarching philosophy that I stick to

The first time I was asked to speak in public it was to moderate a panel. If I remember correctly, it was for an event on risk management held in Frankfurt. I was deep in the risk world at that time – it was the era of Basel II and super-fast Monte Carlo simulations. ‘FinTech’

A few years ago, at a popular ‘FinTech innovation demo show’ in London, a Russian payments company brought out the scantily clad ‘Miss Russia’ to demonstrate how the audience could use their payments app to purchase her clothing line on the internet. Many people – men and women – in the audience were shocked. My

I had a meeting last year with the PR person for a ‘well-known American payments company’. The founder was due to speak at Money 20/20 Europe. The PR woman was very nice and pleasant – but said something that made me think of a Twitter thread I wrote awhile back, while bored at an event

Technology has had some bad press of late. Whether it be privacy invading algorithms on social networks or media-induced fear over the upcoming advances in robotics and AI– what tends to get lost is the way technology can inspire and fundamentally change business models, industry and society as a whole. Technology is but a tool

When the nights draw in and the last of the summer gin is emptied, our thoughts drift from holidays and playtime, towards projects, work and planning for the future. Come September, most of us, in essence, are headed back to school. Whether your school is covered in ivy or simply the school of life –

A well known person in the FinTech space once commented that if you couldn’t dine out on FinTech every night – you weren’t doing FinTech right. From bank elevators, to the free beer at co-working spaces – it would be hard not to bump into someone who works at a fund or an accelerator, grinding

I was sitting having coffee with a well-known FinTech entrepreneur the other day who was looking at recruitment for her startup. She was talking pipeline. She wanted to hire a junior developer that would have room to grow into the role. What she didn’t want was to end up with a shortlist, where the team

TAKE THE SURVEY NOW! Whether you are a large, multinational universal bank or a growth startup looking to expand your team, recruitment can be a long and complicated process. How do you find the right talent, with the best mix of skills, culture fit, long term potential and impact? Many industries are competing against each

As the summer of 2018 comes to an end, we have gone to our community once again to see how they feel about the encroaching tide of automation, artificial intelligence and ‘bots. Whether they are advising you on your investments or chatting with you via a customer service inquiry – chatbots, AI and robo-anything is settling