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Miguel Armaza interviews Dan Westgarth, a powerhouse operator and current COO of Deel, one of the fintech world’s fastest-scaling companies. After an early, legendary run at Revolut, Dan now oversees an organization of 3,300 people across 100+ countries and has played a pivotal role in Deel’s explosive growth — from a mono-product startup to a global, multi-product leader exceeding $1B in revenue and a $17B valuation.

In this episode, Dan shares actionable lessons and first-hand stories from the trenches of leading high-performing, distributed teams. He reveals the creation of Deel’s elite "Ghostbusters" team—an internal SWAT group that tackles the gnarliest, cross-functional operational challenges—and explains why they’ve become one of the most sought-after resources inside the company.

Timestamped Overview
00:00 Intro & Dan’s Background
05:51 Expanding products and global reach
06:30 Optimized systems scaling go-to-market
12:55 Begging for Ghostbusters Expertise
13:41 RevOps solved with Ghostbuster
18:05 Building a Streamlined Goal System
20:26 Payroll and Adjacent HR Services
26:09 Keep It Simple Prioritize People
28:15 Morning Routine and Work Prioritization
31:46 Clarifying Communication for Alignment
35:27 Building payroll processing engines

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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.

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How Deel Built a $17 Billion Company in 7 Years - Dan Westgarth, COO

Fintech Leaders