15+ years advising banks, fintechs, and financial institutions globally. PhD Candidate in Political Science at the University of Aveiro. Author of Inclusive Finance (Kogan Page, 2025).
I like solving problems. I like understanding how finance actually touches people's lives and then figuring out how to make it work better. Sometimes that means sitting with a product team redesigning an onboarding screen. Sometimes it means looking at an entire country's financial system and institutions and asking why they leave most people out.
For over 15 years I've worked across the digital financial services industry. I've helped banks redesign their customer experiences, supported fintechs in finding product-market fit, run workshops for central bank staff, and led product for early-stage startups. I've worked with more than 50 organisations across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and North America. I co-founded 11:FS in London, built and launched research platforms, and have been consulting independently since 2017 from Berlin and now Portugal.
But I kept asking bigger questions. How do states shape financial systems? Why do some countries manage to include most of their citizens in formal finance while others don't? What happens when digital financial infrastructure becomes a tool of surveillance rather than empowerment?
In 2024, I started a PhD in Political Science at the University of Aveiro. My research looks at how states, institutions, and digital infrastructure shape financial systems, with a focus on the Global South. I use methods including Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), which I trained in at the QCA Summer School at USI Lugano under Prof. Patrick Mello, alongside conceptual and comparative work on financial governance, digital authoritarianism, and the politics of inclusion.
I bring these two worlds together. The industry work makes my research sharper. The research makes me a better consultant and a more interesting speaker.
I'm based in central Portugal. I'm the co-author of Inclusive Finance (Kogan Page, 2025), a senior lecturer at CFTE, and a former co-host of Breaking Banks Europe, the continent's leading fintech podcast. I previously wrote for Forbes on embedded finance, open banking, and AI.
I speak at international conferences on digital finance, financial inclusion, fintech governance, and the intersection of technology, policy, and power. I've keynoted events from Berlin to Dubai to Lagos, moderated fireside chats at the Forbes Future of Fintech Summit, and co-chaired the EFMA World Congress.
What I bring to a stage is 15 years of hands-on industry experience combined with active academic research. That means audiences get practical insight grounded in evidence, not just trend-watching.
Available for keynotes, panels, fireside chats, and moderation. Based in Portugal, available globally.
What does it actually take to include the excluded? Moving beyond mobile money narratives to look at the institutional, political, and technological conditions that drive financial access, or block it.
Good intentions, authoritarian outcomes. How digital financial infrastructure, from mobile money rails to CBDCs, can become tools of state surveillance and control.
How open banking, data, and AI are intersecting to reshape digital banking strategy. What's changing about the way banks serve customers, where AI is genuinely useful versus overhyped, and what the next wave of personalisation and embedded finance actually looks like in practice.
What makes a great digital banking experience and why most banks still get it wrong. Lessons from over a decade of benchmarking, UX auditing, and customer research across dozens of banks globally.
A bigger-picture talk connecting fintech and digital finance to questions of political economy, state capacity, and the relationship between governments and citizens.
On-stage
Panel with N26 CPO, Solaris CPO, and Netguru co-founder. Berlin, 2018.
Video
Keynote: "The Secret Sauce to a Killer Customer Experience." Berlin.
Video
Conversation with co-author Alessandro Hatami on Inclusive Finance. October 2025.
Coverage
"Five speakers not to miss at Finovate Berlin 2020."
Podcast
Co-host of Europe's leading fintech podcast, 2020-2022. Full archive.
Written
Posts on cross-border banking, neobanks, and customer experience.
My book, co-authored with Alessandro Hatami and published by Kogan Page (2025), looks at how fintech and emerging business models can expand financial access for the billions still excluded from formal financial services.
It draws on years of consulting work across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, alongside research into the policies, technologies, and institutional conditions that make financial inclusion succeed or fail.
View on Kogan Page →
Through Digital Maggs Consulting, I work with banks, fintechs, development institutions, and investors on strategy, product, and research. I've worked with over 50 organisations since 2012, from early-stage startups to global corporates.
I bring deep product and CX expertise from the industry side, combined with a researcher's discipline in gathering evidence and challenging assumptions.
Bespoke research delivered as reports, workshops, or presentations. Topics include market landscapes, competitor benchmarking, regulatory analysis, technology trends, and vendor profiling.
Supporting new and existing product development with a market, customer, and competitor lens. Includes UX audits, journey benchmarking, customer testing (depth interviews, JTBD framework).
Helping fintechs and BaaS providers define their value proposition, understand buyer needs, and position against competitors.
Fractional CPO and CSO roles for startups and scale-ups.
Strategic advisory for fintech boards across Portugal, the Netherlands, and US/Nigeria.
25+ platform interviews, prioritisation framework and go-to-market playbook.
Team of 20, four weeks, 25+ ranked UI/UX recommendations, development tickets, worked through implementation.
25+ B2B interviews, strategic playbook for internal buy-in.
1-hour depth interviews, Jobs to be Done report with actionable recommendations.
Buyer interviews at global banks, positioning workshop.
Also worked with: Breaking Banks, Penta, Monite, Ross Republic, Vacuumlabs, Pacemakers, Praxent, ConnectPay, Jupiter App, Bazaratech, and others.
I design and deliver training programmes and workshops for banks, central banks, and fintech organisations. Topics range from half-day expert sessions to multi-day immersive courses covering the full spectrum of digital finance.
I've delivered over 40 in-house expert briefings for major banks globally, run multi-day programmes for central bank staff, and teach ongoing executive education courses at CFTE and Manchester Business School.
Half-day or full-day focused sessions on AI in financial services, open banking, CX and hyper-personalisation, or embedded finance. Delivered to commercial banks and financial institutions globally.
Independent contributor to the FIAN digital finance executive programme in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. Sessions for Japanese commercial bankers on AI, data, and open banking reshaping digital banking strategy.
Intensive 2-5 day programmes covering fintech, open banking, digital finance, payments, and blockchain/Web3. Delivered for central banks in the GCC and East Africa through CFTE.
Course Lead for Future of Finance Programme at Manchester Business School (2021-2024). Senior Lecturer at CFTE (2021-present).
3-hour to full-day formats through Qorus (formerly EFMA) for member banks.
My academic research sits at the intersection of political science, political economy, and digital finance. I'm a PhD Candidate in Political Science at the University of Aveiro and a member of the GOVCOPP Research Unit.
My doctoral research focuses on the political economy of financial inclusion, drawing on social contract theory and African communitarian political thought. I combine Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) with conceptual and comparative methods.
I'm also interested in what happens when digital financial infrastructure becomes a tool of state power: how CBDCs, mobile money rails, and fintech regulation interact with surveillance, authoritarianism, and democratic accountability.
Johnson, M. (2025). Inclusive Finance: How Fintech and Innovation Can Transform Financial Inclusion. London: Kogan Page. (Co-authored with Alessandro Hatami.)
Johnson, M. (2021). Challenge banks are dead, long live challenger banks. Journal of Digital Banking, 5(4), 329-341.
Johnson, M. (2016). How traditional banks are innovating the basics to provide customers with an Uber-like mobile banking experience. Journal of Digital Banking, 1(1), 33-44.
Johnson-Siedentop, M.H. (under review). An incomplete bargain: Financial inclusion and the social contract in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Johnson-Siedentop, M.H. (2026, forthcoming). Good intentions, authoritarian outcomes: Financial infrastructure as a parallel domain of digital authoritarianism. ECPR Joint Sessions, Innsbruck.
Johnson-Siedentop, M.H. (2026, forthcoming). To block or not to block: Pathways to digital financial authoritarianism. ECPR General Conference, Kraków.
Johnson, M. (2025). AI, new development legitimacy and the fate of the African development state. 1st PRAXIS International Conference, Covilhã.
Based in Portugal. Available globally.
I'm available for keynote speaking, consulting engagements, academic collaboration, workshops, and executive education.