Edition 35 - 11:FS Hall of Fame.

Hey folks. ????

Thanks for turning up last week and for the great feedback on edition 34 on inclusive design. Thanks also for all the great feedback and downloads of the Inclusive Design report that 11:FS created. Glad to know it was so useful for so many people.

This week I’m going to talk about a super special award that we will be giving out to five people who have changed the fabric of financial services as part of the inaugural 11:FS Awards tonight. Introducing the 11:FS Hall of Fame.

While the industry moves forwards as a whole, there are always people at the front and this Double-click is recognising the trailblazers that changed the industry fundamentally making it a better place to be.

Let’s double click. ????

11:FS Awards.

Tonight 11:FS is holding its inaugural 11:FS Award ceremony. As part of this we’re launching the Hall of Fame where we want to recognise the people who have shaped the industry.

At 11:FS we are big believers that while it is our vision to change the fabric of financial services in order to better serve the underserved, overcharged and the overwhelmed we can’t do this alone.?

We build on the foundations of the great people who have laid the paths for us and do it shoulder to shoulder with those who share a similar vision.?

Tonight the five people we will be inducting into the 11:FS Hall of Fame will be:

Sir Mark Walport.

Many people don't know this but there are a few people responsible for why this whole fintech thing exists - Sir Mark’s guidance to the regulatory bodies in the healthcare industry on how to innovate without killing everybody, my words not his, was instrumental for both the UKs adoption of sandboxes and other progressive regulations that has rippled out to those of MAS, HKMA the FED and many other regions around the world. The world of financial services and the fabric of the industry is forever changed for the work that Sir Mark and his team did.

Lawrence Wintermeyer.

Lawrence ran Innovate Finance in its formative years. Innovate Finance has played a critical part in enabling and supporting FinTech’s growth in the UK. Lawrence took over as CEO of Innovate Finance when the organisation was only a year old, and built a strong community of over 250 members, helping their voices be heard by government and regulators. Innovate Finance, and more specifically Lawrence, was instrumental in creating a safe space centre point for the community as a whole bringing together all parties in the industry to make change happen.

Nick Ogden.

Nick dispels the myth about lightning striking in the same place twice as he is a successful serial entrepreneur. Nick not only pioneered ecommerce with the first ever ecommerce website back in 1994 but also founded Worldpay, ClearBank the first clearing bank in 250 years, RTGS the first really real time settlement system we’ve seen as well as a plethora of other fundamental fabric of financial services changes.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

What can I say? By founding PayTM in India in 2010, he quite simply redefined how payments are made on an entire subcontinent. With well over? 400 million users and 25 million transactions daily, PayTM is one of the largest payment companies in the world.

Anna Wallace.?

Anna was instrumental in making the Innovate project within the FCA happen. She was living and breathing a culture change project in the FCA bringing together a team and the capabilities to help the industry change and cementing the UK as a leader for fintech more broadly.?

I’m going to double-click a little on this one and talk about the first time that Jason and I came across Anna.

We had been invited along to a briefing that the FCA was doing on fintech in 2016 not long after we founded 11:FS.

Myself and Jason turned up and like naughty kids in school found that everyone else had already taken their seats and that the only two free were right at the front. We shuffled in and along the row to take the empty spots.?

The entire crowd was suited and booted. Unlike us who were in tshirts and jeans looking rather out of place for what turned out to be such a formal do.

Having been to a number of FCA events in the past I should really have known the drill. They were always quite conservative, very well structured and quite formal. Everything you would want a regulatory body to be I guess.

About ten minutes after the time the event was meant to start Anna came bursting through the door, heavily pregnant, sneakers on for comfort and a little flustered having navigated through a tube strike to be there.?

She moved to the front, threw off her jacket and proceeded to blow mine and Jason's socks cleanly off for over an hour. She delivered, with no script, one of the most passionate war cries for change, its importance to the UK, the things she and the FCA planned to put in place to enact this change as well as what this would all mean for the industry.?

Without trying to make her sound like a fox in socks, she talked about sandboxes and progressive regulations. She talked about tech sprints and cohorts. Hackathons, engagements and all around progression towards a set of regulations that you could tell right there had the potential to change the world.?

While what she said was impressive, the way in which she said it was spellbinding. I think of that talk quite often and how earnest, passionate and inspiring it was. No script, all passion and so many really honest and off the cuff questions and answers.

Me and Jason hung around after the talk while the press and other people had shuffled out. Like fans waiting to meet their favorite pop star after the concert we approached Anna and said something stupid like “that was amazing”. Recalling that moment reminds me of the scene in Wayne's World where they met Alison Cooper. We, and they, were and are indeed not worthy. The work that followed that presentation has changed the fabric of financial services for the better not only in the UK but all around the world.?

It’s stuff like this that makes Anna and the rest of this year's inductees stand out. They are not only here because of what they have achieved but the types of people that they are. They are nice normal people who have done and are doing extraordinary things.

Congratulations to those inducted this year. They set a very high bar for any future ones and there will be many more amazing people to come.

See you next week folks. ????

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