'Volatility Creates Opportunity': Alviere Taps Wes Schmidt For Its Global Expansion

Benzinga, a media and data provider bridging the gap between retail and institutional investors, is bringing back its annual Global Fintech Awards to New York City on Dec. 8, 2022.

Ahead of this recognition of disruptive innovators in finance and technology, Benzinga will periodically publish articles on those brands it thinks are making a measurable impact.

Today’s conversation is with Alviere’s newest Chief Revenue Officer Wes Schmidt, as well as co-founder and CEO Yuval Brisker.

The following text was edited for clarity and concision.

Q: Wes and Yuval, nice to speak with you. Tell me a little bit about yourselves.

Wes Schmidt: I’ve been in fintech for 23 years, focused on trading systems and data.

I went through a bunch of recent acquisitions and mergers activities we had and there was an opportunity for me to help for Refinitiv. That was a highlight for me.

After a certain time, we were purchased and it created a different environment. I found it a great opportunity for me to continue what I actually loved doing, which was building.

Yuval Brisker: I’m the co-founder and CEO of Alviere.

We’re a fintech platform covering everything that’s relating to embedding financial services into other people’s businesses.

Our primary focus is on name-brand enterprise companies that have a huge customer base and want to grow the relationship they have with their customers.

We’re talking about retailers, airlines, telecom companies and even, sports teams.

How did you and Wes meet?

Brisker: We needed somebody with world-class leadership skills to help with our global expansion. We hired an executive recruiter and they established the connection.

What does Alviere mean?

Brisker: Beehive in Latin. The idea behind it is that we have a hive of products and see ourselves as a finance building block for our customers and businesses.

Why Alviere over its competitors?

Brisker: We have the most complete set of products that are homegrown and built around a proprietary ledger we’ve built.

We’re probably the only ones in our space that actually have a functioning, well-tested, and proven ledger that’s gone through the scrutiny of banks and regulators.

Apart from that, we’re also the only platform that’s international. We can operate in multiple geographies, currencies, jurisdictions and regulatory environments.

We are our own regulated entity, too, meaning we have a lot more flexibility vis-à-vis the regulator than if we were working through a third-party bank.

Lastly, our DNA is enterprise. We are focused on delivering an API to a full one-stop solution.

Talk to me about market weaknesses and their impact on Alviere.

Schmidt: This volatility creates opportunity.

When you see some recessionary pressures, it’s even more important for these brands to create that linkage with their end consumers.

Whether that is from a retention perspective, or whether it’s a differentiation to get more of their customers on board, it just creates a market opportunity. One of the other advantages we have is that we’re not one of these niche players. We’re very customizable.

What are you most excited about, going forward?

Schmidt: My role is the revenue function.

That’s what I’ve done for my whole career. It’s driving new revenue and growth opportunities for organizations. For me, I’m most excited about getting deals in the door and building the team.

Brisker: We’ve been raising money and are focused on our own sort of area of the market that is unique and needs service.

During tough times, people are looking to cut costs and boost revenue.

What we present is an incredibly valuable proposition. We’re that part of your business that will do this for you and you don’t actually need to learn new skills to provide these financial services.

We’ve got the track record to prove it.

Anything else, guys?

Schmidt: You see firsthand how many employees it takes to stand up a bank. Sometimes it's up to 40,000 employees to look at the onboarding process.

There’s no chance for a brand or enterprise, right outside of these banks, to provide those financial services to their customers.

We enable that. Not required is the onboarding of all those employees.