Dave Inc.

I'm Christina Rubino, GM of Offline and Audio at Right Side Up, and your host.

Today, I'm joined by Michael Goodbody, a CEO, CMO, and FinTech growth leader who has spent more than 15 years helping companies like Robinhood, Dave, and Credit Karma scale from early-stage startups into household names.

He most recently served as Global Head of Marketing and Communications at Robinhood.

Before that, he was the CMO at Dave, VP of Marketing and Growth at Credit Karma, and he helped lead Wise's launch and expansion in the US and across the Americas.

Michael's perspective is especially timely because he has operated at the intersection of data, brand, trust, and product in some of the most competitive financial subcategories.

We'll talk about what real differentiation looks like in FinTech, how to balance rational performance marketing with emotional conviction, and how his view of growth has changed after stepping back from a top executive role to travel and homeschool his kids across 21 countries.

Yeah, because the underlying challenge in all of this also is that you've picked, I won't even call it a niche, like financial services and the financial category is one of the largest categories to market in.

But it's not a market that, or it's not a category that a lot of marketers necessarily run towards or like grow up and they're like, you know what I want to do when I grow up? I'm going to work in financial services marketing, right? Like it's a regulated environment.