These fintech leaders are making the sector count.
2024 proved to be a challenging year for the global fintech market, KPMG reported, with investments and deals falling to a seven-year low.
The uncertainty stemmed from ongoing macroeconomic challenges, a number of geopolitical conflicts, leading to a pullback in investments. Still, the consultancy firm found growing hope for a rebound in the industry.
Despite this, Ireland’s fintech sector seems to be doing well, according to Enterprise Ireland. The agency says that Irish fintech VC deals continued to grow last year, despite EU VC fintech deal activity levelling off in 2023.
Fintech leaders have to brave the waves of uncertainty that comes with the sector, guiding their organisations across different parts of the world, while tackling unique regional and macroeconomic challenges.
Money runs the world, and making sure the money flows smoothly across borders is more vital today than ever before. Here’s a list of fintech leaders who help make it happen.
Bahea Izmeqna
Izmeqna is the chief product officer at the London-headquartered fintech Smart Pension.
Taking up the role in 2024, Izmeqna oversees the company’s tech, product and solutions, with a particular focus on developing Smart’s platform Keystone.
Keystone is specifically designed to help governments and financial institutions – including insurers, asset managers, banks and financial advisers – deliver retirement savings and income solutions.
Izmeqna has extensive experience in the fintech sector, as well as international experience across the EMEA. Previously, she served as the chief operating officer for CurrencyFair and Zai at SC Ventures by Standard Chartered.
Smart Pension has a number of big-name investors, including JP Morgan, Legal and General, Link Group and Barclays, among others.
Katia Karpova
A Stanford graduate with an MBA, Karpova leads the fintech giant Fiserv in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), where the business operates in 13 countries. Previously, she served as the EMEA chief financial officer for the company.
Prior to her role in Fiserv, Karpova was the head of client service and implementations for treasury services, also for the EMEA region, at JP Morgan Chase.
Fiserv is a global fintech giant that enables the movement of money for its clients that include nearly 10,000 financial institutions and a large number of businesses and general consumers. It is one of the fintech companies that moved from London in recent years and made Ireland its new European headquarters.
Karpova was featured in the SiliconRepublic.com The Leader’s Room podcast in 2024.
Lorna Martyn
Martyn is the regional chair and senior vice-president of tech at Fidelity Investments, taking up the role in 2022.
She has been with the fintech for two decades, serving in several leadership roles in Ireland and the US.
Before taking over as regional chair, Martyn was the company’s head of technology in Ireland, where she helped the division see large headcount growth over the years.
Martyn has more than three decades of experience in financial services and telecommunications. She was previously a developer and project lead at Bank of Ireland and project manager at Saville Systems.
Outside of Fidelity, she is actively involved in developing the technology ecosystem in the country as a board member of Technology Ireland.
Marc Murphy
The founder and CEO of Fenergo was chosen as The Irish Times Businessperson of the Month for December last year.
Last week, the fast-growing fintech announced a €100m research, development and innovation expansion package and the creation of 500 jobs across its locations in 14 countries globally – including 300 in just Dublin.
The fintech’s customers include 300 of the largest banks and insurers in the world, including Bank of China, Danske Bank and Credit Suisse.
The CEO told The Irish Times that a majority of the company’s income comes from oversees. “It’s truly a global business out of Dublin,” he said.
Before founding Fenergo in 2008, Murphy spent more than 11 years at Ergo, growing from a software engineer to a sales director.
John O’Beirne
O’Beirne is the CEO and executive director of Square International, the European division of the US fintech Square.
Earlier this year, he was appointed as the chair of Fintech and Payments Association of Ireland (FPAI). An affiliate of the Banking and Payments Federation, FPAI represents the Irish fintech sector.
Commenting on his recent appointment, O’Beirne said that FPAI will focus on harnessing the benefits of new technologies such as artificial intelligence.
At Square, O’Beirne works to optimise integrated commerce and payment solutions in the company’s operations.
Prior to Square, he gained more than 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry, holding roles in Ireland and abroad including as CEO of Bank of Ireland (BOI) Mortgage Bank and director of business banking at BOI, among several other roles.
You can listen to O’Beirne on SiliconRepublic.com’s The Leader’s Room podcast.
Andrea Reynolds
Reynolds founded the Irish fintech Swoop in 2017 and also serves as the company’s CEO.
Reynolds’ career in finance started as an accountant with KPMG, later moving into raising funds for small businesses.
The Swoop founder is also the chairperson of Berkshire Hathaway European Insurance, non-executive director (NED) and risk committee chair at Berkshire Hathaway European Insurance and NED at Faraday.
Swoop is a global funding and savings platform that connects SMEs with loans, grants, equity funding and savings opportunities. It operates in the UK, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, Canada and the US.
Earlier this year, the fintech announced a significant strategic investment from Sandbox Industries, the venture capital and consulting firm that specialises in the insurance sector, as well as healthcare and sustainability. The investment is reportedly valued at $6m.
In 2023, Swoop was awarded fastest-growing tech company in Ireland in the Deloitte Fast 50 annual ranking, making it the first start-up founded by a woman to win the accolade.
Nicola Sheridan
Sheridan has been serving as consultancy group PwC Ireland’s financial services tax director for more than six years now.
Before this, she worked as a financial services tax manager at the company.
Sheridan has spent the majority of her career in PwC, starting off as a summer tax intern back in 2007.
Outside of her work at PwC, Sheridan is engaged in Women in Exchange-Traded Funds (ETF) and was involved in establishing the Dublin chapter of the organisation in 2016, as well as helping to organise the first bell ringing event for nternational Women’s Day at the Irish Stock Exchange.
Neil Hosty
Hosty took over as the CEO of Fexco Group in early 2022, having previously served as managing director and chief operating officer at the company.
Hosty also served as CEO of Metamo DAC, a 50-50 joint venture between Fexco and Irish credit unions.
Before joining Fexco, Hosty worked as a banking executive at AIB for more than 20 years, including in various senior roles responsible for retail, business banking and wealth management divisions in Ireland and the US.
Founded in Co Kerry in 1981, Fexco is a fintech specialising in payments, foreign exchange and business services.
The company employs more than 2,600 people and provides its services to more than 50 markets, with annual transactions valued at more than €37bn.
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