Angelneers: Insights From Startup Builders

Our guest in this episode is Yakov Kofner, founder of C-Suite Counsel and publisher of FSI Digital Transformation Weekly. Yakov brings over two decades of hands-on experience in digital transformation across the financial services and insurance sectors. His background spans leadership roles at Gartner, Oliver Wyman, MasterCard, Bridgewater Associates, American Express, and McKinsey, as well as deep involvement in startups, operational leadership, and strategic advisory. In this conversation, we examine the key lessons Yakov has drawn from driving and advising on digital transformation initiatives—focusing on what has enabled lasting change, where transformation efforts commonly stall, and how financial institutions can better align innovation with business outcomes. https://csuitecounsel.com/ https://fsidigitalweekly.substack.com/

In this episode, we bring you Yuri Kolesnikov to dive into the growing issue of technical debt—a challenge that spans the tech industry, from startups to established enterprises—exploring its causes, consequences, and strategies for managing, mitigating, and preventing it. Yuri is an expert in building robust and scalable architectures from scratch for startups and growing companies. Most recently, he was the Head of IT at Skydio, the leading U.S. drone manufacturer and world leader in autonomous flight.

The future of cybersecurity isn't about better technology alone—it's about reimagining how humans and machines work together. In this episode, we're discussing with William MacMillan the potential of the human-AI partnership to transform defense against increasingly sophisticated modern cyber threats. William is a Chief Product Officer at Andesite, a cybersecurity company dedicated to delivering cutting-edge technology to overburdened cybersecurity teams.   https://www.linkedin.com/company/andesiteai/ thisishowtheytellmetheworldends.com/

A crippling decision-making gridlock that paralyzes companies when they need to move fast remains a constant challenge. As teams strive to create products people love—solving real-world problems—they are constantly hampered by conflicting priorities, limited resources, and a lack of clarity on what matters. Whether it's roadmap planning, backlog grooming, or deciding which features to prioritize, this indecision eats away at time, money, and, most critically, momentum. In this episode, we've invited Yan Grinshtein to discuss the realities of building a startup and leveraging design partnerships to improve the odds of crossing the proverbial chasm. Yan is the founder of Nsight Intelligence Corp. which addresses the problem of fragmented and time-consuming decision-making and prioritization processes in data-rich environments for design and product teams. Specifically, they solve the following challenges: Data Overload, Data & Analytics Disconnect, Inefficient Task Management, Predictive Insights, Productivity Bottlenecks, and Inconsistent Prioritization.   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nsightapp/ Yan's wWebsite: https://www.yangrinshtein.com/ Yan's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yangrinshtein/

Hiring the right people is critical for startup growth. While startups often don't have resources to leverage internal recruiters, an alternative way could help solve that challenge.  In this episode, we invited Tiffany Sieber to discuss how startups can benefit from high-touch embedded recruiting.  Tiffany founded Embedded Recruiting which helps startups scale with full-cycle marketing, recruitment, and executive performance coaching.