INSEAD Fintech Club: A Year in Review

Shaina Trotta
Jul 28, 2017 · 8 min read
Sagar Sarbhai, INSEAD MBA Class of July 2017

The INSEAD Fintech Club took form in mid-2016, the brainchild of three members of the MBA class of July 2017. I recently spoke with Sagar Sarbhai, INSEAD MBA Class of July 2017, one of the club’s co-founders, and asked him to describe the earliest days of the club during its start in Singapore, how it’s grown since then, and where the club, and its recently-graduated founding members, are headed next. Read on below for his insights.


How did the idea of a fintech club at INSEAD first get started? Did you come to INSEAD with the intention of starting one?

“I thought the time was ripe to make a career transition from banking to fintech and decided to pursue my MBA from INSEAD.”

Back then, only two US b-Schools had dedicated fintech clubs. I thought it would be a great opportunity for myself and like-minded batchmates if we could create an avenue to connect students with INSEAD alumni in the fintech sector through a dedicated fintech club. I was joined by two other batchmates — Luca Dotti and Lina Gedvilaite, who had similar ambitions of switching from financial services to fintech. We took inspiration from the Wharton Fintech club and approached INSEAD alumni to seek help in launching the club. With support from alumni and the INSEAD administration, we were able to officially launch the club even before starting our MBA. We launched the Fonty chapter (led by Ross McDonald and Sarah Wong) in the next two weeks and within a month, we had more than 200 members across two campuses.

Why start a separate club for fintech, rather than just rolling it into the TMT club?

What was the initial reception of the club among students like?

How has the two-campus model worked for the club? What have been some pros and cons?

As far as drawbacks are concerned — it was difficult to give a ‘consistence’ experience to club members. For example — given location advantages, Singy had more events and treks than Fonty. On the other hand, the Singy experience was mostly restricted to Singapore while Fonty members were able to create strong linkages with companies in London as well. Furthermore, with club leadership teams switching campuses it was difficult to maintain relationships with alumni and other professionals. That being said, this was an issue with all clubs and not just the Fintech Club.

Do you find that students are generally more interested in club events from a future employment perspective or more from an informational/curiosity perspective?

How do fintech companies tend to react to speaking to a group of MBA students? Do most view there to be concrete roles for MBAs in the space?

As far as career opportunities in fintech are concerned — this is still an evolving space. Whilst incumbents are still trying to figure out things, startups hire mostly for tech roles. That being said, there are a number of business roles such as corporate strategy, business development, sales and marketing, and finance up for grabs — but most firms prefer candidates with prior relevant experience for these roles. Furthermore, geographical experience and country work visas may also act as barriers for firms to hire MBAs. But again, it depends on how individuals forge strong connections and take things forward. I strongly believe in the next two years, fintech will see big MBA hiring.

To quote the founder of a crypto-currency firm — “In 2010 crypto/fintech meetups were dominated by computer geeks and nerds like me but the MBAs are slowly taking over now!”

What are some of your club highlights from this past year?

  • MAS Fintech Festival: A bunch of us attended the inaugural fintech festival organized by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. We had the privilege of meeting the most high profile entrepreneurs and founders from across the globe. Atleast 5 big banks and payment firms invited INSEAD students to visit their innovation labs. To see the kind of path breaking work they were doing was inspirational
  • INSEAD Fintech week: We organized the first INSEAD Fintech Week during P3. The week saw many speaker sessions, panel discussions and workshops. Almost every session was a full house. I particularly remember the Blockchain workshop we had organized. The speaker made a live transaction and actually showed how a block was created and what happened in the background to demonstrate how a blockchain actually worked.
  • VISA innovation crawl — we organized various treks but the one at VISA was most memorable for me. INSEAD alumni at VISA were very welcoming (they even had a digital banner to welcome us) and gave us a thorough walk-through of the cool things VISA’s innovation lab was doing.

Where do you think the club should look to go next?

What are your plans for after graduation? Did your involvement in the club at all shape those plans? Do you see the club as having played a role in shaping other students’ plans?

My involvement with the club really helped me shape my plans. Whilst I knew I wanted to join the fintech sector post MBA, it was my participation in club activities that helped me narrow my options. For the club’s launch event, we had invited Richard Olsen, the founder of Lykke (Swiss fintech firm). Hearing him speak about the power of crypto-currencies and the underlying technology really inspired me and helped me focus on my post MBA goals.

I am sure my fellow classmates would have had similar experiences. I know a few club members who were able to secure internships and ISPs with fintech startups. Also, given the focus on digital and fintech for the top consulting club, I would say the Fintech Club also helped classmates who were interested in consulting careers. Most importantly though, the club helped students forge strong networks and opened doors for future opportunities.


Shaina: Thank you to Sagar for taking the time for this interview and for all the work that he, his co-founders, and the rest of the leadership team have put into the club over the past year. The other members of the current leadership team and I have some big shoes to fill.

On that note, I’ll briefly chime in with a few words on what the Fontainebleau club members have been up to over the past few months to add to Sagar’s highlights from Singapore. Since March, we have visited over 10% of the 2017 global FinTech50 in a series of fintech treks to hubs across Europe. Through the benevolence of some exceptionally accomplished INSEAD alumni and generous fintech firms, we have met with fintech innovators and investors in Paris, London, Berlin, and Amsterdam, and our club members have benefited from some very candid and insightful discussions. We hope that you’ll follow us on our Facebook page or here on our blog to keep us with what we have in store for the coming months. Please also feel free to reach out to us through our website if you would like to connect directly.

INSEAD Fintech

The INSEAD Fintech Club is an INSEAD student club intent on informing INSEAD MBAs about developments in fintech and bringing INSEAD talent to the fintech space.

Shaina Trotta

Written by

INSEAD MBA | http://productgames.io

INSEAD Fintech

The INSEAD Fintech Club is an INSEAD student club intent on informing INSEAD MBAs about developments in fintech and bringing INSEAD talent to the fintech space.

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