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Cantellus group adds AI firepower as former Mediasmart founder Noelia Amoedo joins as advisor
SAN FRANCISCO: The Cantellus group is sharpening its AI edge—and it’s doing so with intent. The boutique advisory has roped in Noelia Amoedo as advisor, bolstering its bench as clients grapple with the messy middle of AI adoption, governance and trust.
Amoedo is no theorist. She is a builder. Best known as founder and CEO of Mediasmart, she scaled the AI-led programmatic advertising firm into a profitable global SaaS business before steering it to a successful acquisition by listed Affle Group. The deal turned heads—and set the tone for a career spent converting emerging tech into hard currency.
Over a 25-year, five-continent career, Amoedo has led international expansion at Palm/HP, Hi5 Networks and the Buongiorno group, riding—and often shaping—waves from micropayments and mobile services to social networks and AI-powered advertising. Few can claim to have seen so many tech cycles from the engine room.
Today, as managing partner at Nodeom, she advises enterprises on human-centric AI strategy, helping boards and c-suites navigate governance, ethics and adoption without killing innovation. Her pitch is simple but sharp: human + AI collaboration is not a risk to manage, but a competitive advantage to weaponise.
A Fulbright scholar and Aspen Institute fellow in Spain, Amoedo holds an MS in electrical engineering from Stanford University and a BS in physics from the University of Santiago de Compostela—credentials that explain her comfort moving between code, culture and corner offices.
For Cantellus, which advises clients on frontier technology strategy, oversight and governance, the appointment is timely. As regulation tightens and AI moves from pilot to P&L, Amoedo’s mix of entrepreneurial grit and governance nous could prove decisive.
In an era of black-box algorithms and boardroom nerves, Cantellus has chosen clarity over hype. And with Amoedo on board, it is betting that the future of AI will be built not just smart—but human.
eNews
PNB partners Kiwi to launch credit-enabled UPI for users
Targets 180 million customers; RuPay card offers 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent cashback
MUMBAI: Swipe, tap, or scan credit is quietly slipping into the rhythm of everyday payments, and Punjab National Bank wants in on the action. The state-run lender has partnered with Kiwi to roll out credit-enabled UPI payments for its 180 million customers, marking a significant push to blend traditional banking with India’s fast-evolving digital payments ecosystem.
At the centre of the collaboration is the launch of the PNB Kiwi Credit Card on the RuPay network. The card is designed with a digital-first approach, offering fully online onboarding and seamless integration with UPI, allowing users to transact via scan-and-pay while accessing credit.
The offering also brings in a rewards layer, with cashback ranging from 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent on online transactions, positioning the product as both a convenience play and a spending incentive.
The move comes as UPI continues to dominate India’s digital payments landscape, increasingly blurring the lines between debit-led transactions and credit access. For PNB, which operates over 10,000 branches around 60 per cent in semi-urban and rural areas, the partnership signals a targeted effort to extend formal credit to segments that have traditionally remained underserved.
The collaboration also reflects a broader industry shift, where banks and fintech platforms are converging to embed credit directly into payment flows, reducing friction while expanding access.
With RuPay credit cards gaining traction and UPI evolving beyond peer-to-peer transfers, the PNB–Kiwi tie-up positions both players at the intersection of scale, accessibility, and the next phase of digital finance in India.
