BigPay 

Committed to our vision, our people and our customers. Rising to the challenge everyday.

Always happy to help,
Let's grow! 💪💙💪

Chief Product Officer

Chapter 3: Path to Profitability. 

Set Product culture, structures, and product operating model that allow us to improve Product Efficiency across 5+ squads in order to transition to scale up mode and reach profitability. 

Co-Led our Embedded Finance solution with one of our superstar PMs. 

Trained and coached the Product team.

Principal, Product Ways of Working

Chapter 2: Growth at All Cost. 

Led key strategic initiatives including Payout Payments APIs, Engagement and Gamification, Ministry of Finance initiatives for financial inclusion, 

Set the Product foundations for Thailand Market Expansion.

Product Lead

Chapter 1: From Zero to One. 

Built BigPay Product from scratch to multiple Geos and Business Lines, including Payments, Analytics & Remittances, across Singapore and Malaysia reaching 1 Million downloads. 

Built a strong Product and Design team of twelve and the foundations of BigPays Product Culture and Processes across the organization.

Head of Product

Purpose Driven Fintech

I speak with Founders, CEOs, and CPOs to understand the challenges of our industry and how to better build products and FinTechs with impact across customers, colleagues and profitability

I release new episodes every Tuesday and you can listen or watch in YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or your favourite platform

Reach out to be part of the pod

Podcast Host 

PayEd - Education in Payments

Advisory Board Member

Connecting the dots in FinTech...

APAC Newsletter Contributor & News Curator

Tandem Bank

Consultant, CEO Office

Service Design Delivery Manager, CEO Office

- First member of the Banking Products team. Employee num. 18th. 
- Led credit cards design and implementation from zero to pilot launch

Product Manager, Banking Products

barclaycard

Product and Propsositions Manager Small Business Cards

Existing Customer Manager Small Business Cards

Visa

Global Client Sales Account Manager, CEMEA

Banco del Ahorro Nacional y Servicios Financieros BANSEFI

Product Development Manager

Empowering FinTech Product Leaders to navigate complexity with purpose, passion, and impactful conversations for inclusive financial well-being I Join to connect, learn, and lead the industry forward.🚀

Hello 👋 I’m a hands-on product leader with a proven track record of building and scaling digital banking solutions across multiple geographies.  I am mission driven (because money has been a pain point, and it didn’t have to be like that).

I thrive at the intersection of a fast-paced entrepreneurial culture, customer centricity, and solving real problems with actual impact.

*Results Oriented*

At BigPay, one of Southeast Asia's largest NeoBanks, I’ve helped steer our product through three critical phases: Zero to One, Growth at All Costs, and now, sustainable Path to Profitability - growing the customer base to over 1.37 million users. We are known mainly as a travel solution and increasingly becoming a day to day app. 

My expertise spans from product design, delivery and growth, team building, and driving the cultural shift and ways of working necessary to go from startup to scaleup. 

At Tandem Bank, I helped build from scratch, and worked with Tandem's CEO on strategic initiatives and Board management. 

*Achievements & Impact*

1. Product Growth & Innovation: 

Led the development of credit cards, BigPay’s prepaid card with its app, remittances, a payments API, an embedded finance solution for airasia, and engagement initiatives to meet evolving needs.

2. Strategic Planning: 

Collaborated with the CEO and ExCo to shape product strategy, aligning squads on growth, innovation goals, OKRs, and resource planning.

3. Expansion: 

Launched BigPay’s product in Malaysia, Singapore, and empowered teams to launch in Thailand. 

4. Cultural Transformation: 

Established a strong Product Operating Model, guiding BigPay’s shift from startup to scaleup.

5. Team Building: 

Recruited and mentored a high-performing product and design team, setting a scalable foundation.

*Knowledge Sharing*

I host the Purpose Driven FinTech podcast, where I interview FinTech Founders, CEOs, and leaders on how to build differentiated FinTech products that drive 10x impact. We cover customer needs, solving pain points, and leadership insights.

I’m keen to explore:
- Incorporating AI into existing workflows
- Building AI-powered products
- Staying at the forefront of AI innovations

I’m recognized as one of Singapore’s #Fintech65 Product Leaders and Women in FinTech, I’ve spoken at Money2020, and am an active mentor for women in Fintech and new to FinTech.

*Let’s Connect*
 
If you’re a leader, founder, or innovator passionate about transforming FinTech and driving real impact—I’d love to chat!

We can ideate, collaborate, podcast, mentor & coach.

Monica

Monica Millares 🎙️

Twin Towers Ventures (TTV)

Focus on identifying, evaluating, and executing investment opportunities. Adept at conducting thorough due diligence, analyzing financials, market trends, and competitive landscapes to drive informed decision-making. Proven track record in developing compelling investment memos and presenting to senior leadership. 

Key Achievements: 
Due Diligence: Conducted due diligence for three companies, preparing investment memos presented at TTV's Investment Committee for companies in deep tech sectors. 

Market Research: Conducted in-depth research and analysis on emerging opportunities within TTV's investment verticals, with a specific emphasis on AI trends and AI chip investments.

Portfolio Management: covered three companies, specializing in drone and robotics services, machine learning applied to geoscience and engineering, and drone technology for digital transformation.

Outside of investments:  contributed to the development of engaging content for TTV's website and the TTV Technology Mixer, enhancing the firm's online presence and networking capabilities. Helped author critical documents such as MoUs and press releases to facilitate transparent communication and operational efficiency.

Summer Associate

Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI)

Developed knowledge products for AFI's Micro, Small, and Medium Entreprises (MSMEs) policy area. Interfaced directly with member states to assess national policy landscape and collaborated with working group members to produce case studies, survey reports and policy notes which inform development of policies that support MSMEs at national and regionallevels.

The African Leadership University

Aligned team of 200+ members, working across multiple cultures and continents, to ensure seamless operations, coordinate strategic initiatives, and manage organizational change. Drove conceptualization and delivery of high-stakes projects, managing internal and external stakeholders to secure business success. 

Program and Project Management: 
Spearheaded global initiative, managing a team of 47 members across 5 continents to develop digital learning product, delivered program ahead of schedule for pilot testing and scaling.
Partnered with People Ops and L&D teams to establish a performance management framework, leveraging data analytics to drive organizational excellence

Strategic Planning & Operational Excellence: 
Decreased project cycle times by introducing an enterprise-wide digital portfolio management framework that enabled cross-functional collaboration across 20+ remote geographies. 
Led inter-departmental planning and review for quarterly and annual cycles, driving the formulation and tracking of 3 companywide OKRs and 7 functional OKRs, ensuring congruence with strategic priorities.
Collaborated with finance and unit heads to lead budgeting and forecasting. Eliminated none-essential expense lines and optimized operations, yielding a 23% reduction in OpEx in 2 quarters. 

Communication and Partnerships Management:
Established and maintained relationships with key functional stakeholders and C-level executives to facilitate support for strategic initiatives.  
Led operational reporting for the Executive Committee, driving alignment and support for strategic initiatives.  
Coordinated project squads to drive cross-functional alignment, facilitate communication, and bolster decision-making speed, resulting in a reduction in turnaround time for multi-functional task completion.

Chief of Staff

Led initiatives to enhance efficiency and optimize program processes. Implemented strategies to accommodate growth, improve student learning experience, and reduce compliance risk. Built and optimised business processes, developed and administered policies, led cyclical planning, and designed and managed the workload allocation model.

Key Achievements:
Created centralized reporting dashboard that provides information on key operational KPIs, increased visibility for 230+ stakeholders, enabling leadership to make informed resource allocation decisions.  
Led a process re-engineering project to improve end-to-end program assessment processes, restructured communication flow and delivered training on new processes, increasing compliance rates by 26%. 
Managed the integration of digital systems into organizational processes with a multi-functional team of 15 people, including the integration of finance, product, operations, admin, and customer success systems.
Implemented a mentoring and coaching program for team members, leading to a 20% increase in team satisfaction scores 76 days into the job.

Programs Operations Manager

Strategic Projects Lead with a focus on designing impactful training programs, fostering client relationships, and ensuring data-driven program optimization. 

Program Development & Implementation:
Designed curriculum for a training program for military leaders from 17 African countries to improve their knowledge of digital and agile methodologies. 
Devised and deployed performance framework to evaluate course effectiveness and prioritize essential skills, leading to a 78% enhancement in targeted core proficiencies within 1 quarter.

Team & Partnerships Management: 
Cultivated and maintained relationships with 8 clients, defining project scopes and delivering progress and output reports, improved client retention and increased repeat engagement by 26%.
Provided constructive feedback and conducted performance evaluations for 6 team members, improving their job satisfaction rating.

Projects lead

Africa CDC

I was recruited to support the establishment and operationalisation of an African Union health agency. I identified areas of inefficiency and implemented solutions to optimize performance, reduce costs, and improve engagement with the member states. Key projects included rapid response process re-engineering, supply chain management, inventory control, and logistics planning. I coordinated the development and implementation of a framework for regional collaboration and data sharing. At a programmatic level, I ensured regional preparedness through 1) managing the rapid response team for the Eastern Africa regional office, 2) developing a matrix of assets needed for emergency preparedness and rapid response to identify gaps for procurement and other resourcing and 3) developing protocols and SOPs for management of stockpiles at the regional level.

Operations and Logistics Consultant

Youth-Impact

Lead the team in the A-Z planning and implementation of the Teaching at the Right level program in Botswana. Directed the overall team of 40+ in executing all the program objectives; work-planning, budgeting, fundraising and funds allocation, implementation, program evaluation, communications and partnership management. Oversaw the program work-plan, logistics plan and budget to bring the highest level of efficiency to the program operations

•	Crafted clear project goals, objectives and worked with various department heads to develop detailed project plans to track progress and measure performance on tasks. 
•	Developed and used existing verification techniques (budget, reach, random checks) to manage any changes in project scope, time and resources. Escalated to senior management any significant changes in these indicators to ensure proper support, dispatch and communication. 
•	Worked with the administrative team to create and maintain comprehensive project documentation to build institutional memory and good knowledge management for the organization and other programs. 
•	Coordinating resources availability and use (internal and external) including time, funds, third parties/ vendors ensuring that all aspects are completed on time, within scope and within budget. 
•	Ensure compliance with the internal and external policies, regulations/ laws that influence the program to ensure responsiveness to national and regional priorities.

Program Manager

Tasked with establishing strong operational procedures and manage overall organizational operations to increase the level of efficiency in the organizational processes.

•	Operations Management: overall administration of all organizational resources and practices to create the highest level of efficiency for programmatic and non-programmatic utilization
•	Project Management: managing organization wide and program specific projects for organizational success. This involves managing all field/ implementation projects, results disseminations etc.
•	Project logistics & budgeting: coordinate overall project logistics including soliciting information to inform budgeting and decision making
•	Partnership management- managed the Young 1ove partnerships with various organizations and institutions in Botswana and abroad. 
•	Grant writing and reporting: managed grant writing & reporting calendar including assembling and submitting grant requests, including any supporting letters, budgets, documents etc.

Operations and Logistics Manager

Fostering partnerships and raising funds to finance programming, organizational development from range of sources
Proactively built Young 1ove brand, communications; Endorsed by the National Aids Coordinating Agency, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and other government bodies
Codifying and translating learnings from the field into our evidence-based programs and interventions to build organizational best practices & processes. Reports used in curriculum (program) review and development. 
Managing relationships with international partners and stakeholders to generate government, parastatal and private sector support for Young 1ove programming
Recruiting and developing engaged Advisory Board, with top-flight, diverse membership team with explicit, shared goals for a corporate culture fostering courage, trust, accountability, and effective evidence-based decision making
Supervise and manage 60+ field staff for 4 months of intense field implementation. Provided surge facilitation support on days where facilitators capacity was low. 
Spearhead internal research on office productivity and developing innovative initiatives to boost office productivity and reporting regularly on organizational productivity and activities.

Development and Operations Officer

Born and raised in the dusty streets of Molepolole in Botswana. Village life runs deep – I spent school holidays working on the farm, which definitely sparked my love for nature- and maybe a slight aversion to dust ;). I love to travel, run, and read classical literature. My world adventures have taken me to 23 countries on 4 continents, and I’m always down to explore a new place- or revisit an old favourite!

My greatest professional satisfaction comes from conceptualizing and executing strategies that create lasting impact. I communicate well at all levels, cut through complexity, prioritise (and re-prioritise) large workloads and lead cross-functional teams successfully. I’m skilled at developing and optimizing operational processes, building clarity and structure around problems/ projects, and joining dots between multifaceted workstreams. I excel at fostering and nurturing positive relationships with key stakeholders, leveraging those to drive action and outcomes. I’ve dabbled in data analytics with Python and R, but the jury's still out on my coding career ;).

I am currently wrapping up my MBA studies in the beautiful Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. I earned an MBA to sharpen my financial skills to drive ROI-focused initiatives. For an investment to be enduring, it should provide comprehensive value; economic, ethical, environmental, legal, and social. I'm keen to work on initiatives which aim to maximise comprehensive value, both short-term and long-term, improving humanity’s long-term prospects.

I know first-hand how it feels to be financially/ food insecure, and without opportunity, and will go above and beyond to help. I want to collaborate with people who care about making the world a better, safer, more inclusive place. Integrity and respect are non-negotiable for me – if you deal in good faith and treat others with kindness, you'll find a friend in me. I enjoy helping people and love learning about new technologies….hit me up.

taplio

The Battle

Monica Millares 🎙️

Kennedy Baboloki Kwati

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