Welcome to November's episode of This Month in Fintech, recorded live from the Honey Pot at Money2020.

I'm joined today by Nik Milanovic, Founder of TWIF, as we sit down with Michael Sindicich, CEO of Navan Expense.

Michael, Nik and I launched this episode around Navan's landmark new partnership with (former) rival Brex - BrexPay for Navan. BrexPay for Navan is a seamless integration that directly embeds Brex cards into Navan’s travel management software. Customers can now leverage Brex and Navan to achieve 100% automated travel payment reconciliation on bookings made through Navan. This means receiving a perfect report at the end of the month, where every booking is linked to a traveler and a trip with zero manual effort, thanks to a per-booking virtual card number. Through the direct integration, customers can also instantly activate local currency cards for all their global subsidiaries within one card program, saving countless hours in onboarding and underwriting, besides avoiding all FX fees.

We had a lot of fun in this live conversation talking through Michael's journey to Navan (taking him through insurance brokerages and wild valley hacker houses), the art of mastering a partnership with a rival, the business travel whipsaw from Navan's State of Corporate Travel and Expense Report, and a great rapid fire round.

Navan is the all-in-one travel, corporate card, and expense management solution. Navan makes business travel and expense management easy, giving users visibility, savings, and control with their all-in-one super app.

Their corporate travel and expense solution allows users to easily book, view, and manage business travel and expenses. Navan is reinventing the legacy category of travel and expense with one of the first enterprise technologies utilizing the cloud, mobile, and AI to balance business needs with today's modern standards.

Michael Sindicich is the CEO of Navan Expense. Michael joined Navan as one of its earliest employees in 2016 as an Account Executive and has risen through the ranks to CEO of Navan's Expense business. Michael holds a Bachelor of Science from UCLA.

You can find him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Ryan Zauk is the Host of the This Month in Fintech Podcast and Bay Area lead for the broader This Week in Fintech platform. In his day job, Ryan is an investor on the Ventures team at OMERS, the direct investing arm of one of the world’s largest pension plans with over $130Bn in net assets. Prior to OMERS, he worked in Morgan Stanley’s Tech Investment Banking team focused on M&A and capital markets. He is based in the Bay Area.

You can find him on Linkedin or Twitter.

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(Btw... speaking of AI x fintech, check out the new Stripe launch from this week.)

Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news in this short pod.

Welcome back to another episode of our Fintech OG series. I was thrilled to be joined by Michael Tannenbaum of Figure and Nicky Goulimis of Tunic Pay. From talking about our kids (5 between the 3 of us ages 4, 3, 2x2 and 1) to their time at fintech giants SoFi, Nova Credit and Brex, this was a conversation that I thoroughly enjoyed and know you will too.

Many thanks to Method and Mesh for sponsoring this week's episode!

Method is the first ever single sign-on for consumer liability and credit accounts, using only identity and consent to authenticate users. They’ve built an extensive network of coverage, supporting over 15k financial institutions to stream real-time data and make direct liability payments. Method helps companies in the personal loans and HELOC space like Figure, SoFi, Upgrade, Happy Money, and Aven incorporate repayment directly into their application flow.

Shift4, a leader in global payments, has joined forces with Mesh to enable merchants everywhere to offer seamless, secure cryptocurrency payments right at checkout. With this integration, customers can pay in crypto just like they would with a credit card, while merchants enjoy peace of mind knowing those payments convert instantly into their preferred currency, reducing conversion risks and eliminating chargebacks. It’s crypto payments made simple.