Georgia FinTech Academy Brings 100+ Students Face-to-Face with Industry at FinTech South’s Workforce Lab

ATLANTA, GA — Georgia Fintech Academy (GFA) helped open FinTech South 2026 this week, bringing together more than 100 students from eight universities across the state for the Workforce Lab, a half-day track dedicated to closing the gap between fintech education and fintech careers.

Held at the Milner Technology Conference Center on Tuesday, August 18, the Workforce Lab was created by GFA in partnership with the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), with support from Kennesaw State University and Stripe.

An Opening Rooted in a Personal Story

Laura Gibson-Lamothe, Executive Director of Georgia FinTech Academy, opened Fintech South’s general session with her own career story. A three-sport Division I athlete in college, Gibson-Lamothe graduated during a significant economic downturn that hit entry-level hiring as hard as it hit the top of the market. A conversation with a friend’s mother, who helped professionals earn their Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, pointed her toward a career path she hadn’t known existed.

“I had no idea that was even a job,” Gibson-Lamothe told the audience. That single conversation set her on the path that eventually led her to Georgia Fintech Academy.

She used the story to name a pattern she now sees facing today’s students: employers asking for years of experience before extending a first opportunity, while also expecting initiative without providing direction. “That’s not lowering the bar,” she said. “That’s how every one of us in this room actually got here.”

Gibson-Lamothe closed her remarks with a direct ask to the room: find a student, and start that same conversation for them. Students in attendance then stood and were welcomed by applause from the full conference audience.

Three Sessions, One Throughline: Connection

The Workforce Lab ran three consecutive sessions exploring different dimensions of what it takes to build a fintech-ready workforce.

Session One: The Workforce of the Future — Why Connection Is the New Competitive Edge Manish Shah, CEO of Epyx Team Building, used the “Take Flight” framework to explore how self-awareness, trust, and communication are becoming the true differentiators for career growth — arguing that as AI and social media reshape how people interact, human connection is emerging as the skill set that can’t be automated.

Session Two: Exploring Fintech Pathways — How Industry-Academia Partnerships Ignite Careers with Hands-On Experience Moderated by Arianna Woodhouse, Assistant Director of the Fintech Program at Kennesaw State University, this panel brought together Dr. Nick Suppiah, Fintech Program Director at Kennesaw State University, and JC Titus, Group Software Delivery Director at Ingenico, to discuss what meaningful industry-academia collaboration looks like in practice and how it is reshaping career pathways into fintech.

Session Three: Talent, Disrupted A panel of HR leaders, operating executives, and an early-career professional offered an unfiltered look at how AI is influencing hiring decisions, career growth, and the skills that matter most in fintech today — addressing what’s working in the industry’s approach to talent, and what still needs to change.

The Numbers Behind the Mission

Georgia FinTech Academy has now brought more than 14,000 students through its programs in six years. At Fintech South, Gibson-Lamothe was clear that the number is not the point.

“The number isn’t the secret ingredient,” she said. “Connection is. Mentorship is.”

That philosophy is what shaped the Workforce Lab: not a career fair or a resume-drop, but a deliberate space for students and industry professionals to have the kind of conversation that changed the course of her own career.

Building the Pipeline, One Conversation at a Time

With 100+ students representing eight Georgia universities and roughly 15 faculty and staff in the room, the Workforce Lab reflected Georgia Fintech Academy’s core mission: connecting the state’s higher education institutions directly to the fintech and payments industry that has made Georgia’s “Transaction Alley” one of the country’s leading fintech hubs.

Georgia Fintech Academy plans to continue expanding the Workforce Lab model at future events, building on the connections made this year between students, faculty, and industry leaders.

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Georgia Fintech Academy is a University System of Georgia initiative building talent pipelines between the state’s higher education institutions and the fintech and payments industry. Learn more at www.georgiafintechacademy.org.