The first Flourish Silicon Valley Immersion was very successful! We brought together a select group of clients, partners, and Flourishers for an immersive experience in the heart of Silicon Valley, exploring the future of financial services and how to design responsible products, and connecting with industry experts and innovators. Let's recap some of the highlights!
We kicked off our immersion at UC Berkeley Skydeck with Pedro Moura and Jessica Eting, Flourish Fi co-founders! They shared their powerful vision for the week and emphasized the importance of collaboration in achieving better business results while driving people's financial health in emerging markets.
At Flourish Fi, our mission is to empower individuals to build positive money habits, transforming lives through financial empowerment. We are revolutionizing the industry by licensing their cutting-edge customer engagement technology to banks and fintechs across the Americas.
Pedro and Jessica's opening focused on collaboration, fintech trends & innovation, and driving positive financial behaviors. They emphasized the transformative impact that can be achieved when industry leaders unite to create a positive effect on individuals' financial well-being.
They shared a few different business cases of the company in Brazil, Bolivia, and the United States including how Flourish has helped BancoSol drive digital adoption, deposit growth, and improve on-time loan payments. They also highlighted success cases with fintech lenders to increase digital touch-points, improve on-time first payment behavior and reduce overall default rates. The cases of loan repayment included Qista (former Focus Financeira) and Tricolor, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) in the United States.
Arnaud Auger, Deputy Head of BNP Paribas C.Lab Americas, shared invaluable insights on open innovation and the power of sustainable solutions in Fintech & Insurtech. We delved into the impact of incentives for open innovation to work alongside its pitfalls and discovered the value of data for personalization and monetization. The discussions around Fintech + Bank partnerships were both thought-provoking and insightful!
Gregory La Blanc, a renowned lecturer from UC Berkeley and Stanford, enlightened us on the latest fintech trends and emerging technologies. We gained a deeper understanding of the importance of UC Berkeley and Stanford in shaping the innovation ecosystem. The discussions on the challenges and opportunities for businesses built on digital architecture were thought-provoking. He left participants with important advice of “being extremely stubborn with the problem, but flexible in how to solve it.”
Kristen Berman, CEO and co-founder of Irrational Labs, captivated participants with her applicable insights from behavioral economics. We learned effective strategies to engage and lead clients into good financial habits using behavioral science principles. She shared different use cases leveraging choice structure, framing information, and automating action to drive behaviors related to saving money, spending smartly, and paying off loans. The intersection of finance and human behavior was truly fascinating!
We were fortunate to have Alice Cheung, a product leader with experience ranging from institutions like PayPal, Uber, WhatsApp, and Facebook. She shared her perspective and insights on prioritizing roadmaps, navigating AI trends, and driving product teams to achieve exceptional results. Alice also explored the intersection and impact of privacy policies on product development and its tradeoffs.
Alice's passion for product leadership shined through in the conversation. She shared her strategies for successfully building team alignment and her passion for falling in love with the problem and not necessarily with a specific way of solving the problem.
She highlighted significant differences in building directly to consumer businesses versus building a b2b solution that has multiple stakeholders involved in the process.
We're grateful to Alice Cheung for her contribution to our event, and the impact she made in empowering our participants with practical knowledge and inspiration for their product journeys.
Matthew Hatch, Partner and Americas FinTech leader at EY, shed light on the dynamic fintech landscape. We explored topics such as embedded finance, data-driven customer engagement, and the impact of emerging tech on banking. Understanding the trends and challenges of working with financial institutions was invaluable for all attendees.
Matt also shared his perspective on being an entrapreneur and the importance of evangelizing what he believes in within the firm. And wrapped up the conversation with the importance of the ecosystem, thought leadership, and meaningful connections to drive innovation and business outcomes.
Ana Simoes delivered an electrifying talk on the power of generative AI at Amazon during Flourish Immersion! We explored its impact on our day-to-day productivity, potential side effects, and what really gets her excited about the scale of her impact being part of Amazon AWS.
With her expertise in product management, linguistics, and deep knowledge of AI and Natural Language Processing, Ana showcased the transformative potential of generative AI. She captivated participants as she highlighted how this technology is already revolutionizing industries and enhancing lives, citing examples of the Moderna vaccine and many others.
Ana's unique background in film and TV production added an exciting twist to the conversation. The talk at Amazon left participants inspired and ready to harness the true power of generative AI!
Our participants had the unique opportunity to connect with established players and visionary entrepreneurs. Through engaging conversations and pitch sessions, we witnessed firsthand the innovation processes and learned from the experiences of local startups and founders like ️Roberto Peñacastro and Sergio Torres from Alvva. The energy and knowledge exchange was unparalleled!
The Flourish Immersion program was an unforgettable experience that expanded networks, provided deep insights, and fostered inspiration. We are grateful to all the participants, experts, and partners who made this event a success!
Stay tuned for future opportunities to join us in exploring the forefront of fintech, behavioral science, and customer engagement. Together, we will continue to shape the future of financial services!
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