Speaker Name: Pedro Sousa

In one sentence, what do you do and what is your role?

I'm the CEO and Co-founder of Karavel, which mostly means that I complained about a broken process long enough that I eventually had to go and try to fix it myself.

What topic will you be speaking about at FinTech Connect 2026?

Built by the people who used to approve these things: rethinking financial promotions review from the inside out.

What's one thing you hope attendees take away from your session?

That regulators are already building the AI capability to check financial promotions at scale, and firms relying on outdated review processes will want to catch up before that becomes the norm.

What's the biggest challenge facing the industry in this area?

Firms are producing financial promotions across more channels — like social media, influencer or affiliate content, and in-app messaging — than compliance teams were ever resourced to review, making approval queues a severe operational bottleneck.

What industry trend are you watching most closely?

Regulators' growing use of AI for supervision and enforcement, from monitoring firms' outputs to running faster investigations. It's a trend that will fundamentally reshape how compliance and risk teams operate.

What's one prediction you have for the next 3-5 years?

I think someone will crack the personal finance AI agent: an intelligent system with visibility into your full financial picture that continuously makes the best decisions on your behalf — whether that's when and with whom to remortgage, which credit card suits you, when a balance transfer saves you money, or when to de-risk into safer assets during periods of geopolitical instability. It would be genuinely transformative for people's lives and the financial services industry as a whole.

What's one piece of advice you'd give to someone working in fintech today?

Regardless of what you do in fintech, take the time to understand how agentic AI works under the hood, then learn to build your own. It's going to be a core skill for success, and you might just stumble into solving a real problem in fintech along the way.

What book, podcast, or resource would you recommend to our audience?

I'm hopelessly addicted to The Rest is History podcast. Learning about history shapes the way I think about problems across almost everything I do — yes, even in compliance! — and learning about the past gives clarity on the future.

Just for fun: if you could have dinner with any person, past or present, who would it be and why?

From an early age, I had a fascination with Plato's writings. I often think about how he would view our modern world, so I'd love the opportunity to pick his brain over tapas.