Tonik's Mila Bedrenets on Pioneering the Digital Banking Revolution in the Philippines | Call 171

On Call with Insignia Ventures

The year is 2019. Mila Bedrenets, a fintech marketing exec with two decades of experience building companies from the ground up across markets, gets a call from a familiar voice. It's Greg Krasnov, a founder she has worked with twice previously, first on a bank in Ukraine and second on a solar energy fintech in Southeast Asia. He's inviting her to join him on his next venture: Tonik, the first of its kind digital bank in the Philippines. A trip to Manila and five years later, Mila has led the rapid evolution of the Philippines' digital banking industry, specifically from a user experience perspective. Her work has introduced new ways of doing time deposits, processing loan applications, integrating generative AI, among other micro-revolutions that we talk about on this episode of On Call with Insignia. We see how these add up to principled approach to innovation, driven by a simple question. Timestamps (00:00) Introducing Tonik’s Chief Growth Hacker; (04:23) The One Question to Ask for Growth Hacking; (16:03) Raising the Bar on Digital Banking; (23:09) Why Mila joined Greg, for the third time; About our guest Mila Bedrenets is currently Chief Growth Hacker at Tonik. Mila is a seasoned banking and fintech executive with experience across multiple countries and continents. She was previously Deputy CEO at SolarHome, enabling pay-as-you-go solar for bottom-of-pyramid clients in Southeast Asia. She also led marketing for several banks in Eastern Europe, including being Head of Marketing at Platinum Bank in the early 2010s. Follow us on LinkedIn for more updates: Check out Insignia Business Review for more insights Subscribe to our monthly newsletter for all the news and resources Directed by Paulo Joquiño Produced by Paulo Joquiño The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, tax, or business advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Insignia Ventures⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ fund. Any and all opinions shared in this episode are solely personal thoughts and reflections of the guest and the host.