TBLI Talk: How to create Impact in unstable frontier markets

Michael Madden has over 30 years of experience in Financial Services. His success has been built on inventive business intelligence, the ability to engage with international partners, and most importantly, as a leader and consensus builder. Michael has significant knowledge of the payments industry, both cards and digital, the retail banking sector, and as a business leader and entrepreneur in emerging markets.

Michael is the Managing Partner of Ronoc, an investment business he founded in 2008, which invests in financial services businesses with a focus on Central and Southeast Asia. He is the longest-serving board director of XacBank where his company Ronoc is a significant shareholder. In Myanmar, he is the founder and Chairman of OnGo, a market-leading digital payments business, that he launched in 2016.

In 2003, Michael joined the Renaissance Capital Group as the founding CEO of Renaissance Credit. During his tenure, it grew to one of the largest consumer finance banks in Russia, he established a bank in Ukraine and a financial services joint venture with IKEA where he was the Chairman of IKANO Russia. At the time of his departure in 2007, the Renaissance Credit business was valued at $498 million. Before that time, beginning in 1989, Michael had a successful career with American Express, holding various positions in Ireland, then establishing the American Express Card business across Russia and the former Soviet Union, and finally in the UK as Vice President and Head of the European Dollar Card business and Head of the EMEA franchise business, with responsibility for seventeen markets.

An active and engaged student of the world, Michael has a passion for sports, travel, and giving back to the community. He has visited over seventy countries, and his sense of adventure and curiosity has extended to include space, as a 2008 pioneer of the Virgin Galactic Future Astronaut program. He has also completed six marathons and multiple half marathons.

What will you learn:

-How do you launch a fintech company in a country that lacks everything?

-How do you keep your staff safe during a coup?

-What are the greatest challenges in frontier markets?