Ready to ramp up news efforts

I’ve spent a week-plus in the virtual editor’s chair here at LendIt Fintech and I couldn’t be more excited.

Through our morning news calls and two all-hands meetings, I was pleased to discover that I’ve joined a capable team with a focused vision for the post-pandemic future of events, webinars, and content creation.

The leadership team managed to pilot the company through severe pandemic disruption with a keen view of the future.

My mandate as editor is to build out a strategy that moves us ahead of the rest covering fintech by building a team of journalists and utilizing the best practices in online news to deliver in-depth, timely, and objective content.

New reporter

The management team also hired reporter Kevin Travers, most recently of deBanked, to lead our original content streams on the site.

Behind the scenes, I’ve been busy building out the website on a new fast and responsive website template which will be launching soon. We’re in the final days of our internal beta testing and it’s looking sharp.

Another objective is to streamline our newsletter systems to maximize efficiency and content quality for subscribers and to allow for seamless integration of those newsletters onto the new website template.

I learned a ton about fintech and alt-fi during my nine years with Bankless Times. One of the biggest takeaways: Scammers are often the earliest adopters of new tech, as they have the jump on regulators who still struggle to change their out-of-office messages in Outlook.

There was a raft of pump-and-dump ICOs when those were the rage. As security purveyors caught on to the hijinx, the dark players went elsewhere, some to crypto.

There is usually an idealist at the center of every fintech innovation, though.

The bottom line: We plan to shine a light on both the scammers and the jammers, sending heat and light when either is deserved.

  • John K. White

    John has been in communications since graduating from Creative Communications at Red River College Polytechnic in Winnipeg in 1992. He launched one of Canada's first digital-only local news sites called Winnipeg First in 2007, which led to digital editor postings with the Winnipeg Free Press and Edmonton Journal. In 2012 he joined Bankless Times as managing editor, later becoming president and CEO. He and the Bankless Media co-founders completed a sale and exit in August 2021.