Fintech South 2025: Ania Lackey with FinTech Atlanta

Intro: Broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Now. Here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here broadcasting live from Fintech South 2025. So excited to be talking to my next guest, Ania Lackey with Fintech Atlanta. Welcome.

Ania Lackey: Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, for those who aren’t familiar, tell us a little bit about Fintech Atlanta. How are you serving folks?

Ania Lackey: We have been around for almost ten years working to advance, um, the fintech ecosystem in Atlanta by working with many, many companies in this space. We focus on four major areas. Um, one is just the general industry growth. Um, another one, talent expansion, uh, making sure that we influence the public policy and then also innovation acceleration. We’ve got a ton of companies that work with us to make that happen.

Lee Kantor: So what was kind of the start? How did this begin? Fintech Atlanta.

Ania Lackey: Listen, I am brand new to this wall. And one of the very surprising things to someone like me was the fact that this ecosystem has been around for decades. I mean, we’re going back to the 50s and 60s. So Atlanta has been always positioned to be the capital for payments and transactions. Um, so ten years ago, a group of organizations and people in the industry, including Metro Atlanta Chamber Technology Association of Georgia at EPC, decided that it’s time to have a common voice, one organization speaking for the industry to make sure that it’s, uh, the well-known fact for them, which is we process a ton of payments that are US payments going through a node in Atlanta. That’s a fact that’s known not just in Atlanta, but also in the United States and globally.

Lee Kantor: So what kind of is your role? What’s your day to day look like?

Ania Lackey: Ah, every day is different, as they say. Um. I mean, first of all, you know, it’s been an easy transition. Thank you to my predecessor, Hilary Champagne. Um, so I focused on that for the last few months, but now it’s really a deep dive into the programing and things that we have done very, very well and then things we have committed to doing even better in the future. So we focus on scaling startups and companies in Atlanta, giving them an opportunity to get in front of enterprise companies for potential future pilots and opportunities to work together. Uh, we work alongside Laura Gibson, la mothe with the Georgia Fintech Academy to make sure that, um, the talent pipeline for fintech, uh, is is healthy and ripe with opportunities. As I talked to companies here at Fintech South this year. Talent, as always, is top of mind. Um, so we tried to focus on those things with our partners and companies.

Lee Kantor: So how do you kind of marry the challenge of dealing with enterprise level organizations that have certain needs and then kind of brand new startups that have a totally different set of needs and try to satisfy each one of those constituents.

Ania Lackey: That’s a great question. But honestly, in Atlanta, it’s not as difficult as it may seem. As you probably know, Atlanta has a ton of enterprise presence. We rank number 3 or 4 in the United States as far as the number of fortune 501,000 companies. Plus, we have this history of of business community engaging heavily and collaborating across the board. So for those enterprise partners, working with scaling companies is nothing new. They see a lot of benefit and sort of uplifting others coming behind them. So it’s a culture. And so that makes it much easier. But then on, on on the side of our company, on our organization, um, we have a program called Run It by the Buyers. And that’s sort of the vehicle and how we get those scaling companies in front of the enterprise partners, we get them on stage. It’s a pitch event. Um, they have an opportunity to tell your banks and payments companies why they could be great in their ecosystem and sort of their infrastructure. And we tracked what happens after that. That’s the success for us.

Lee Kantor: So, um, what are the activities or what are the wins for you where you’re high fiving your team at the end of the week? What what are kind of those key, um, metrics for you that you’re looking at?

Ania Lackey: That’s another great question. You know, for us, five months in, in this role, um, any new company that’s a payments fintech, um, coming to Atlanta, whether from another part of the US or from another country, that’s a huge win. And it’s not just fintech Atlanta to do that. We collaborate with economic development organizations with others in the ecosystem. So it’s always a big high five moment for for many partners. Um, from the fintech Atlanta’s perspective, you know, we want to grow. That’s my big goal for the next few years. Um, so adding new members, making sure that when they join and they commit to support, you know, we keep them busy and they see the ROI on their end. So not only signing up new members, but then taking the time to develop, plug them in and potentially develop new opportunities for them. Um, that’s that’s where when we get excited.

Lee Kantor: So a new member for you, like, say an enterprise organization joins. Does that mean all their employees join or is I mean, the one leader joins, like, what is a member? Uh, you know, how are you defining the.

Ania Lackey: Company joins, and we typically want one rep for the board. But really, the reason why they join is because that second, third layer of their colleagues wants to be involved, wants to be plugged in. And that’s who I want to work with.

Lee Kantor: So you want them as members to. Right? Those are the people who are kind of boots on the ground.

Ania Lackey: That is.

Lee Kantor: Correct.

Ania Lackey: But they don’t pay the membership fees at that point. They they come with the company. And then I will take anybody who wants to be involved and don’t promise if you don’t meet.

Lee Kantor: It, but you don’t want to. I mean, you’ll take anybody, but you want them to be active and engaged, not just to sign the and just have a line on their LinkedIn that says.

Ania Lackey: That is correct. Listen, I spend the last three and a half years at the Atlanta Tech Village, and I’m sure you’re familiar with Ali Merritt and the great work that she does. And one thing that she often says is rising tide raises old boats. And then we also talk a lot about serendipity and serendipitous interactions. So for me, creating opportunities to sort of put people in one room and give them an opportunity to talk and figure it out, that’s another success, right?

Lee Kantor: Creating those collisions.

Ania Lackey: 100% collision was the word I was looking.

Speaker1: For.

Lee Kantor: And so more of those the better. So, um, so how are you finding this event? Is it what you expected? Are you looking for more collisions yourself? Like, what would you consider a win at the end of this event?

Ania Lackey: You know, for us, the goal was to show up as fintech Atlanta here in Support Technology Association of Georgia. Larry Williams is on my executive committee. And we want to make sure that he and Tag are successful. So showing up um, again, rising tide, uh, along those lines. Um, we also wanted to give some exposure to our board members. So we were holding, um, a small content studio here at the event and gathering a little bit of content that we then post on LinkedIn. So giving them a little bit more visibility, telling the story of the ecosystem, uh, sharing that story to make sure more people are aware. Um, the panels and content, uh, have been great. Um, and then really just gospel of Fintech Atlanta, making sure people know who we are now.

Lee Kantor: Um, we were talking to Larry earlier. There was a mention of maybe, um, the footprint of Tag expanding beyond not physically expanding beyond, uh, in Georgia, but touching maybe the southeast as a region and looking at kind of the, the whole of the region rather than just Georgia. How do you see that fitting into your mission and what you’re trying to accomplish?

Ania Lackey: Fintech Atlanta is focused on Atlanta. So I would love to work on the community level with the idea that we want to tell that story globally. So there’s definitely sort of this tug and pull between local and global, but we have so much work that needs to be done here. I mean, there are new companies joining this ecosystem literally every day and big names. You know, we all know about stripe opening in the office. So it’s building connections takes time. Um, you know, I definitely avoid the surface level connection. Um, so, so and that takes time. People do business with people that they like and enjoy, and that’s sort of what I live by.

Lee Kantor: And then for folks who want to learn more, what is the best way to connect the website? What’s the best? That’s correct.

Ania Lackey: So our website is Fintech Atlanta. Org. You’re going to find the basic information about our programing and how to find me. You can find us on LinkedIn. We try to push a lot of content through LinkedIn.

Lee Kantor: All right. Well Ania, thank you so much for sharing your story, doing such important work. And we appreciate you.

Ania Lackey: I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much for having me.