Melissa Frakman

Melissa Frakman Speaking Topics

• Another Silicon Valley: The Remarkable Rise of India and how Global Organizations Can Leverage This Unique Moment

  For decades, India was often viewed as a vast yet underdeveloped market, while China basked in the spotlight as the darling of emerging markets. Yet, today, India is undergoing a remarkable transformation at an astonishing pace. Its previous identity as a hub for business services outsourcing is rapidly giving way to a new image – that of a country capable of achieving moon landings, pioneering the most advanced real-time payment and identification infrastructure, affordable mobile internet connectivity for a billion people, and hosting the world's second-largest number of startups. Coupled with its historically more open economy than China's, widespread use of English, and positive relations with the US and Europe, this moment in India’s history presents a truly unique opportunity for Western businesses.

  From accessing the next billion digitally-empowered consumers to collaborating on the development of cutting-edge technology products, Western organizations are presented with a multitude of opportunities, harnessing both India's economic surge and the global relevance of innovations emerging from the country. However, navigating India's multifaceted and intricately woven landscape is no easy feat.

  In her thought-provoking keynote, Melissa Frakman will share unique business insights and actionable strategies drawn from almost two decades working on the ground in India, close to both the business and policy ecosystems. Her message serves as a compelling wake-up call, urging global organizations to recognize India's transformative potential, showing how to engage in strategic partnerships and how to harness the greatest global opportunity of the next decade.

• A New Corporate Playbook for Investing in Emerging Markets

  Investing in emerging markets has long been a complex endeavor, but the landscape is undergoing a profound shift. Countries in Asia like India, Vietnam, and Indonesia as well as many nations in Latin America are emerging as both massive consumer markets and global innovation hubs. Businesses in developed-economies must now decide their position in response to these nations' ascendance on the global economic stage.

  With the growing competitiveness of companies in emerging markets and the increasing significance of local technology hubs, opportunities for partnerships in key innovations, intellectual property, and research and development are multiplying. Western corporations now have the chance to tap into expansive consumer markets and forge partnerships with formidable counterparts. Local innovations are gaining global relevance, making investments in these regions lucrative on a global scale.

  Nevertheless, identifying opportunities and investing in those regions remains a formidable challenge. Language barriers, regulatory complexities, and unique local dynamics can make the endeavor seem daunting, even for the most determined leaders.

  With over two decades helping western corporations break into emerging markets, Melissa Frakman will unveil innovative strategies and cutting-edge insights to effectively spot and capitalize on emerging market opportunities. She will help organizations gain a deeper understanding of the intricacies of these evolving economies and learn the art of risk management. Armed with this knowledge and these tools, they will be well-prepared to seize the immense opportunities presented by emerging markets in the next decade and beyond.

Real-Time Payments and Identity: How Countries Are Building the Economic Infrastructure of the Future and What It Means for Businesses and Governments

A global wave of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is sweeping the world, with India, with its Unified Payment Interface (UPI) infrastructure, unequivocally leading the charge in implementing large-scale digital systems that are both cost-effective and accessible to the underprivileged. This journey began over a decade ago when India pioneered Aadhaar, itsunique biometric ID system. Over the past ten years, India has systematically built layers of infrastructure atop Aadhaar, including a KYC (Know Your Customer) layer for payments and a health stack designed to enhance medical accessibility and health record management. The infrastructure serves a staggering 1.4 billion people and stands as a free, interoperable platform, inviting software developers from around the world to tap into its potential and build innovative applications on top of it. As a result, one of the most thriving startup ecosystems developed around India’s DPI, representing a blueprint for other countries around the world looking to maximize the growth of their digital economies.

India's DPI has now become the gold standard for Western, Latin American and African countries. Brazil’s PIX and U.S.’s FedNow are another example. These systems open up immense opportunities for both governments and the private sector.

In her insightful keynote, Melissa meticulously unravels the intricate layers of India’s DPI and its economic and societal potential, also by looking at other international examples, such as PIX in Brazil and FedNow in the U.S.. She outlines how real-time payments and identity verification are reshaping these countries’ economic landscape, and how other nations are in the process of learning from and imitating those experiences. Finally, she presents a roadmap for startups, global companies and national regulators to gain a competitive advantage and propel their growth by proactively preparing for and embracing this historic innovation.

Harnessing Fintech and AI to Drive Innovation and Growth in your Organization

The terms fintech and artificial intelligence (AI) encompass a vast array of technologies and solutions, and unsurprisingly, many companies fail to grasp the impact that those innovations can have on the growth trajectory of their businesses, which is akin to that of the introduction of personal computers decades ago. Combining the game-changing innovation of fintech solutions with the power of AI can catalyze the competitiveness of almost any business • and those benefits transcend industry boundaries.

Beyond the immediate advantages of streamlined payments, KYC and banking, which can inherently boost business volumes, fintech offers a myriad of benefits for businesses, including streamlined internal operations through applications such as smart invoicing, easier financing and cloud accounting, but also fraud detection, increased customer engagement and monetization through seamless authentication, granular customer insights, frictionless financing options and many more. And then, when AI enters the equation, those benefits are amplified to a degree that can reshape the very nature of the business.

In this captivating talk, award-winning venture capitalist Melissa Frakman unveils the synergies between fintech and AI and explains how companies can leverage these technologies in the day to day of their businesses. She illustrates how this union not only fuels innovation but also charts a path towards sustained, exponential growth, irrespective of a business's size or industry. Melissa's insights promise to be a game-changer, as she reveals the untapped potential that fintech and AI hold for organizations willing to seize the future.

Corporate-Startup partnership: A Strategic Playbook for Unlocking Outsized Growth

In today's fiercely competitive business landscape, the race to seize new growth opportunities, whether through the adoption of innovative technologies, groundbreaking business models, or the introduction of fresh offerings, can be the deciding factor for a company's success or failure. However, the required agility and speed can be challenging to attain within the confines of corporate environments. Consequently, many revolutionary concepts and ideas often remain trapped in the conceptual stage.

In response to this dilemma, corporations worldwide are increasingly forging partnerships with startups to access disruptive ideas, pioneering business models, and cutting-edge technologies with unprecedented velocity and mitigated risk. These collaborations amalgamate the strengths of both worlds: the substantial resources and market reach of established corporations with the agility, innovation, and swiftness characteristic of startups.

Nevertheless, establishing and navigating successful corporate-startup partnerships is a complex undertaking. In this insightful talk, Melissa Frakman, shares the key steps to help spot, attract and successfully engage with cutting-edge startups that align with your organization's long-term growth goals and vision. Melissa will share tools that help measure the success of partnerships, and will give you a glimpse into what the future of corporate-startup collaboration has in store. With insights from her experience as leading venture capitalist and advisor to Fortune 500 firms, she will demonstrate the value of this innovation model, and uncover how it contributes to a successful open innovation strategy.

Ripe for Disruption: How Fintech and AI will Reshape Financial Services Across the World

Imagine a world without the internet or mobile devices – it's nearly impossible today. These technologies have seamlessly woven themselves into the fabric of our daily lives, disrupting virtually every facet of business. The financial services industry is no exception. The digital revolution is fundamentally altering how customers access financial products and services. While the sector has witnessed gradual change in recent years, the relentless influx of technology-driven applications into nearly every financial services segment represents a new paradigm. At the nexus of finance and technology stands fintech, a phenomenon that is catalyzing change at an astonishing pace, redefining the industry's conventional norms and boundaries.

In parallel, artificial intelligence (AI) has further increased the advancements in fintech, enabling cutting-edge products such as financial robo-advisors, algorithmic trading systems, fraud detection mechanisms, and personalized customer service platforms. As AI continues to advance, its fusion with fintech promises to reshape the financial landscape, delivering more tailored customer experiences. The benefits of AI in fintech help organizations enhance overall efficiency, security, and accessibility of financial services.

In this insightful keynote, Melissa Frakman, leveraging her extensive experience as a venture capitalist specializing in financial technology, will elucidate the profound impact of AI and fintech on the financial services industry and will provide insights on how industry players can respond effectively and seize this trillion-dollar opportunity.