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Stoyan Kenderov and I had a truly rich and candid conversation about the evolution of banking innovation and regulation, and though he appears ten episodes into Barefoot Innovation, it was Stoyan who first suggested I record our thought-provoking discussions and offer them as a series of podcasts. Thank you, Stoyan, for your encouragement! In this interview, we travel everywhere from communist Bulgaria to the emerging coding culture of mid-1990s Germany to today\\u2019s nucleus of innovation, Silicon Valley. In his current capacity, Stoyan leads Business Development and inorganic growth partnerships at Intuit\\u2019s Consumer Ecosystem Group and its product brands Mint,\\xa0Mint Bills,\\xa0and Quicken.

As a child who literally disintegrated every toy he and his brother were ever given, Stoyan was born a natural disruptor. His vast curiosity has already taken him half way across the world, and he is ready to pass on his vision and wisdom to the new generation of financial consumers. (It was a real treat to hear how an innovator is teaching his young daughters about financial responsibility!) Stoyan and Intuit incorporate cutting edge behavioral research to create products that are simple, easy-to-use, and shorten the learning curve of traditional financial instruments.

Year after year, Intuit is recognized as one of Fortune\\u2019s \\u201c100 Best Companies To Work For\\u201d and Fortune World\\u2019s \\u201cMost Admired Software Companies.\\u201d With the acquisition of Check, and the creation of Mint Bills, the company now offers users a way to search for and set up bill reminders, see what bills are due and pay them with a single click so that they never miss a payment. Wired.com agrees that getting started with Mint Bills is easy; maybe Mint Bills can even help consumers forget that \\u201cbills are the worst!\\u201d

Prior to Intuit, Stoyan held executive positions at payments, telecommunications, and mobile companies such as Amdocs, XACCT Technologies, KPN-Qwest and pioneering German, Dutch and Austrian Internet service providers. He co-founded two start-ups and participated in four successful exits. He is an advisor and mentor at Village Capital \\u2013 the financial services accelerator and impact investor, and he also invests personally in early stage financial services start-ups in Europe, India and the US.

I so enjoyed this conversation with Stoyan, and I hope you are as Intuit\\xa0as I am. And, finally, here\\u2019s a bit more to exercise your financial (and listening!) skills:

Pop quiz! One of the following is not a startup mentioned in this episode:\\xa0Vouch,\\xa0Digit,\\xa0Even,\\xa0Gather,\\xa0Sweep,\\xa0SavedPlus,\\xa0Float,\\xa0Simple,\\xa0Karma,\\xa0Acorns,\\xa0Robinhood, and Coinye.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0

See my previous blog post for more on serving the \\u201cunderestimated\\u201d consumer and how behaviors can change under conditions caused by shortages of a key resource like money, time, or food.

Professor BJ Fogg of Stanford\\u2019s behavior model\\xa0and how to motivate and trigger responsible consumption.

The CFPB\\u2019s Project Catalyst.

The Center for Financial Services Innovation\\u2019s brief on household cash flow challenges.

You can subscribe to the podcast at iTunes HERE or open your favorite podcast app and search for Jo Ann Barefoot.