About this episode
Today’s conversation is about financial inclusion in LatAm. In this episode, Martin meets with Luis Marinelli who is CFO and co-founder of Vana, a fintech from Guatemala in Central America providing small loans to customers that have no formal access to the banking system. According to the Global Findex data from the World Bank there are more than 1 billion unbanked adults globally. Vana is one of many Fintech’s around the world that are leveraging digital technology to help and enable unbanked communities gain access to formal financial services for the first time. In the podcast, Luis shares with us how Vana started, survived COVID lockdown and successfully established itself in Guatemala and recently launch in the Dominican Republic - Vana’s second market.
Listen to the episode
Episode Links
Website: https://www.vana.gt
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisrobertomarinelli
Email: luis@vana.gt
Twitter: @LuisMarinelli89
Guest Bio
Luis worked in the Financial Services Industry for more than 10 years in which he served in key positions such as Latam CFO in Grupo EZCORP and Head of Corporate Risk in BAM (Grupo Bancolombia), two of the most important lending institutions in the region.
After some time pursuing new adventures, Luis co-founded Vana, a high-growth FinTech with the mission of providing access to financial services to the unbanked and underbanked population in LATAM.
Luis holds a CPA and Acton MBA in Entrepreneurship from Universidad Francisco Marroquín and completed his Executive Master in Business Analytics from ESADE. He also holds aFinancial Modeling & Valuation Analyst certification (FMVA®) from theCorporate Finance Institute and multiple certifications on Data Science, DataAnalytics and Data Visualization.
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Martin Koderisch is a Former Principal in the London office. He has 20 years of experience as adviser and operator within financial technology industry with a focus on payments. He specialises in accelerating digital transformation of client businesses through industry expertise, data analytics, and fintech enablement. His approach seeks to bridge the gap between strategy and execution with hands-on delivery of value creation initiatives to achieve growth, control or operational efficiency outcomes. He previously held senior leadership roles within industry at Mastercard, Citibank and start up Luup Payments covering digital product innovation, operations, and commercial partnership development. He hosted and produced EDC's popular podcast ‘Leaders in Payments and Fintech’ podcast available on major podcast platforms.