Arunjay Katakam
Growth strategies built on extraction are reaching their commercial ceiling. Customers, regulators, and capital are pulling in the same direction: businesses that cannot demonstrate inclusive economics in their unit economics are losing access to markets and licence. The tension for senior leaders is practical, not philosophical. How do you redesign the operating model so participation, opportunity, and sustainability become commercial inputs, not afterthoughts.
Arunjay Katakam is a fintech entrepreneur and author who helps organisations rebuild growth models around inclusive economics, drawing on a decade of building cross-border payments infrastructure with the GSMA and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Arunjay Katakam
- He has spent over a decade inside the GSMA and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation portfolios building the financial infrastructure that brought a billion people into the formal economy, so he speaks about inclusion as an operating problem, not a values statement.
- His book Generation Hope sets out a five-principle model (growth, participation, opportunity, stability, sustainability) that boards can map directly onto strategy, pricing, and product decisions.
- He has co-founded three startups, mentored 20-plus emerging-market fintechs through DFS Lab, and built ventures at Catalyst Fund, which gives him real authority on scale-up economics rather than commentary.
- He brings operator credibility on cross-border payments, digital public infrastructure, and zero-fee payment design, all areas where boards now face direct regulatory and competitive pressure.
Biography highlights
- Author, Generation Hope: How Inclusive Economics Can Help Us All Thrive (Otterpine, 2024).
- Author, The Power of Micro Money Transfers, a practitioner guide to profitable money-transfer operators.
- Strategic Advisor, Interledger Foundation.
- Founder and CEO, Yooz, a cross-border remittance company.
- Founder, Inclusive Action Lab, a non-profit incubating ventures aimed at poverty alleviation by 2030.
- Co-author of two GSMA State of the Industry reports on mobile financial services for the unbanked; former EY consultant; mentor to 20-plus inclusive fintech startups via DFS Lab.
Biography
Most organisations describe inclusion as a values problem. After a decade inside the GSMA and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, building the rails that brought a billion people into the formal economy, the case is sharper than that. Inclusion is an operating problem, with measurable consequences for pricing, distribution, and risk.
That is the argument behind Generation Hope (Otterpine, 2024), which sets out five principles: growth, participation, opportunity, stability, and sustainability. The book gives senior leaders a usable frame for redesigning commercial strategy when the extractive model is running out of road, not a moral lecture.
The operator background is what makes the case credible. Arunjay Katakam co-founded three startups, including one acquired by Twitter, ran cross-border remittance company Yooz, mentored more than 20 emerging-market fintechs at DFS Lab, and built ventures with Catalyst Fund. His earlier book, The Power of Micro Money Transfers, is a working manual for building profitable payment operators on zero-fee economics.
He now advises the Interledger Foundation on open payments infrastructure and runs Inclusive Action Lab, a non-profit incubating moonshot ventures aimed at ending extreme poverty by 2030. The throughline is consistent: commercial discipline applied to inclusive design, with the numbers to support it.
Key speaking topics
- Inclusive economics as a commercial operating model
- Cross-border payments and digital public infrastructure
- Open and decentralised finance
- Scale-up leadership in emerging-market fintech
- Zero-fee payment design and unit economics
- Generation Hope: rebuilding growth around participation and sustainability
Ideal for
- Boards and ExCos rethinking growth strategy under regulatory, customer, and capital pressure
- Financial services leaders (CEO, COO, Chief Strategy Officer, Chief Sustainability Officer) navigating cross-border payments, fintech disruption, and inclusion mandates
- Innovation and venture-building teams inside large institutions backing inclusive products
- Foundation, development finance, and policy audiences working on financial inclusion
Audience outcomes
- A five-principle model audiences can apply to their own pricing, product, and strategy decisions
- A clearer view of where inclusive economics changes unit economics rather than just narrative
- Specific examples from cross-border payments and digital public infrastructure that show what works at scale
- A practical agenda for boards on how to position growth strategy for the next decade