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December 28, 2020

Helping Immigrants Thrive & Support Their Families: Matt Oppenheimer CEO Remitly & Jonathan Bowman-Perks: Inspiring leadership interview

Podcast Details

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Have a clear sense of vision and purpose build a business around it attract top talent to work with you and ensure that you constantly delight your customers.

Matt said: I co-founded Remitly in 2011 with Josh Hug to transform the $600 billion global remittance industry. Remitly is now transferring nearly $6 billion a year, which makes us the largest independent international money transmitter in the USA. We have raised over $300 Million in funding from industry leaders such as Generation Investment Management, Stripes Group, Naspers’s PayU, the International Finance Corporation, DFJ, DN Capital, Bezos Expeditions, Founders’ Co-op, QED Investors, and Trilogy Partnership.

The inspiration behind Remitly came when Matt was working for Barclays in Kenya and saw how difficult it was to send and receive money overseas. Matt was drawn to the global impact his business could have: remittances eclipse foreign aid in improving global wealth equality and give people who receive them upward mobility. He began working on the problem immediately as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Highway 12 Ventures in Idaho and launched the company from Techstars in Seattle. Matt was named EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2016 in the Pacific Northwest and has been recognized as a Puget Sound Business Journal 40 Under 40 honoree for his work with Remitly. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Dartmouth College.

Before starting Remitly, I was head of mobile and internet banking initiatives for Barclays Bank Kenya based out of Nairobi. Prior to that, I worked for the Barclays Corporate Bank in London.

Remitly has team members in Seattle, London, Manila, and Nicaragua.

Matt is the Co-founder & CEO of Remitly, founded in 2011, Remitly is a mobile payments service that enables consumers to conveniently make person-to-person international money transfers. Remitly’s first corridor is USA to the Philippines and the business is now expanding globally. The company has raised over $10m in capital from QED, Trilogy Partnership, Founders CoOp, Bezos Expeditions, TomorrowVentures, and other well known investors. It has recently become a Tech Unicorn being valued at over $1.5BN.

Remitly is a licensed money transmitter that is headquartered in Seattle, WA with additional offices in the Philippines.
Previous to Remitly, Matt led the internet and mobile banking efforts for Barclays Bank Kenya where he launched internet banking and assisted with the expansion of mobile banking services across Barclays Africa. Prior to joining Barclays, Matt was a Senior Consulting Associate at Cambridge Associates. Matt is a Boise, Idaho native and a proud graduate of Boise High School. After Boise High, Matt received a B.A. in Psychology from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

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