In our tenth episode we hear from Sofie Blakstad, CEO and Founder of hiveonline. hiveonline is a blockchain based community finance platform rolling out to unbanked communities across sub-Saharan Africa and Central America. Prior to starting hiveonline, Sofie spent nearly 30 years building and transforming technology and businesses for international banks.

Sofie is the author of “Fintech Revolution: Universal Inclusion in the New Financial Ecosystem” and research papers including “Blockchain: Gateway for Sustainability-Linked Bonds”, “The Next Generation Humanitarian Distributed Platform” and policy papers on the economic impacts of emerging technology and CBDCs.  She advises the UN, Central Banks, Commercial Banks and NGOs on applications of distributed ledger technology and digital assets, and chairs the Edinburgh Futures Institute’s Finance and Fintech Industry Advisory Panel.

In this episode we learn about Sofie’s journey starting hiveonline, lessons learned in building a global product and team, how she is thinking about hiveonline’s business model going forward, and the biggest challenges and opportunities on the horizon in the fintech space.