Wells Fargo’s Executive Vice President Joins Duke FinTech Advisory Board

Vas Kodali, Executive Vice President and Head of Strategic Partnerships, Wells Fargo joined the Duke FinTech Advisory Board. “Being a Board member will allow me to leverage my 30+ year career working in banking, management consulting, investing and technology to help position Duke’s Innovative FinTech program and its students to be a catalyst for innovation at scale within the rapidly evolving FinTech ecosystem of top banks, technology companies, incubators and investors,” said Vas Kodali.

The Advisory Board’s members are globally recognized leaders who will advise program leadership on curriculum and general strategy to ensure that Duke FinTech meets the needs of students and of the financial industry. Asked what skills the Duke FinTech Program needs to foster in their students, the Well Fargo executive made a distinction between the basic skills that any tech innovator needs and those that are required for FinTech innovators. While any tech innovator has to master networking, communications, market knowledge, team building and resilience, a FinTech innovator needs more than these, Vas Kodali emphasized. “They need to have the ability to distill the authentic demand (or need) to solve for from among the vast and complex world of economics and finance. And they must have an intuitive understanding of the behaviors of the end user and how technology can enable and empower that user to navigate the same complex world of finance,” described Kodali. Read his full bio on the Duke FinTech Advisory Board website.