Mackenzie is the Global Startup Evangelist at AWS. His days are spent traveling the globe to meet startups, share their stories, and connect engineering teams together. Every day there are a large number of startups launching on AWS across every imaginable industry. It’s Mackenzie’s mission to find stories of startups that are helping to improve the world and share these stories with a wide audience.
Prior to joining AWS, Mackenzie was the Head of Technical Operations at Betterment, the world’s largest independent robo-advisor based in NYC which manages over $8B in assets. Mackenzie was a founding engineer and Head of Technical Operations at Oscar Health, an insurance startup also based in NYC, helping to grow the company to over 400+ employees and a $2.7B valuation. Before Oscar, Mackenzie was one the original engineers at Tumblr where he helped scale the infrastructure to 20B page views a month eventually selling to Yahoo! for $1.1B. He’s worked in a diversified set of industries including global media (MTV/Viacom), global Shipping (DHL), and more. He also holds numerous advisory roles at companies providing technical and business guidance around the world.
Mackenzie is the Global Startup Evangelist at AWS. His days are spent traveling the globe to meet startups, share their stories, and connect engineering teams together. Every day there are a large number of startups launching on AWS across every imaginable industry. It’s Mackenzie’s mission to find stories of startups that are helping to improve the world and share these stories with a wide audience.
Bringing in a whopping $39.57 billion in VC funds in 2018, up 120% from 2017, fintech is easily one of the hottest emerging industries. From mobile payments to cryptocurrency wallets, fintech startups are busting at the seams. Having the autonomy to move faster than legacy systems, they’re delivering innovative solutions, an explosion of new products, and accelerating the consumer experience.
Brex and Plaid will share the wins, and challenges, in this evolving industry. They'll discuss how they scaled their business, how they navigate the changing regulations, and the steps other entrepreneurs can take to build - and fund, a fintech startup that’s got a competitive edge.
Networking and drinks to follow.
Sarah Adams leads the Startup Growth team for Plaid, the technology company powering the fintech ecosystem. Thousands of companies, like Acorns, Venmo, and Coinbase, use Plaid's suite of APIs to build applications that enable millions of consumers to lead healthier financial lives. In her role, Sarah manages startup client accounts, from their initial implementation of Plaid to how they leverage the platform to increase scale as they grow.
Before joining Plaid, Sarah founded her own startup, Atlas Crypto, a platform to connect crytpominers to cheap, carbon-free power. Prior to that, she was the first operations hire at Forward, and on the business development team at NRG. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Princeton University.
Larissa Maranhao Rocha was the first employee at Brex — the first of its kind credit card for startups. She was deeply involved in the early iterations of the company, working on everything from recruiting an international workforce to developing sales strategies, helping customers along their journey to financial modeling.
She attended Harvard, where she studied economics under the leadership of her thesis advisor and mentor to Sheryl Sandberg, Larry Summers. The daughter of a sugar mill supervisor, Larissa is the first person in her state to attend the university. At Harvard, she served as President of Eliot House and President of The Brazil Conference - where she interviewed and engaged with countless world leaders - including Warren Buffett.
Kristen is a Security and Compliance Business Development Manager focused on strategic initiatives that enable financial services customers to adopt Amazon Web Services for regulated workloads. She cares about sharing strategies that help customers adopt a culture of innovation, while also strengthening their security posture and minimizing risk in the cloud.
Mark brings a unique regulatory perspective to Atrium Fintech & Blockchain, having worked at FINRA, BigLaw, and as a financial services lobbyist. Specifically, Mark advises emerging growth companies on issues surrounding broker-dealer registration, money transmitters licensing, and investment adviser registration.
Mark worked at K&L Gates in Washington D.C. representing financial services companies before the CFTC, SEC, and Congress. After leaving BigLaw, Mark led legal and compliance at a FinTech startup in San Francisco. Mark received an LL.M. in Securities and Financial Regulation from Georgetown University Law Center and J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
