SBS Blog > Deepening systems thinking through the MSc FinTech by Kingston Tagoe

Deepening systems thinking through the MSc FinTech

By Kingston Tagoe - Posted on 7 May 2026

Kingston Tagoe is a MSc Financial Technology student – here, he talks about the experiential learning at Strathclyde, connecting academic rigour with real-world action.

Before joining the MSc Financial Technology at Strathclyde Business School, I spent a decade operating at the intersection of regulated financial systems and commercial execution across fintech, payments and embedded finance in Africa and the UK. My work spanned banking-as-a-service infrastructure, mobile payments, AI-enabled consumer platforms, alongside founding and scaling early-stage ventures. This had given me direct exposure to how financial institutions make decisions under regulatory and commercial pressure.

What I was looking for was a way to step back, strengthen my financial systems thinking, and connect technical decision-making more explicitly to financial theory, risk management and the regulatory frameworks shaping how banks and fintechs operate. The MSc FinTech was a deliberate step to do exactly that.

I chose the MSc FinTech because it combined technical depth with applied financial reasoning, rather than treating technology and finance as separate domains. Strathclyde Business School stood out for its emphasis on real-world application and decision-making under uncertainty.

For someone already operating at a senior level, that applied focus was essential. I wanted to formalise intuition built through experience, stress-test assumptions using analytical frameworks, and deepen my understanding of how financial, regulatory and technological factors interact at a systems level, particularly as sustainable finance and climate risk reshape institutional priorities.

Experiential learning, support and flexibility at Strathclyde Business School

Experiential learning has been a defining feature of my time on the programme. Through applied coursework, live projects and external challenges, including work linked to the Becoming an Effective Financial Technology Analyst module, I’ve had the opportunity to apply analytical tools in settings that reflect real constraints rather than idealised scenarios.

It was not exposure to new tools per se, but the focus on how and when to use them, how to balance quantitative outputs with judgement, and how to explain technical analysis in a way that supports decision‑making. These are critical skills in practice, yet ones that are often under‑emphasised in traditional technical training.

This extended to the Climate Investment Challenge, a global competition focused on innovative approaches to climate finance and analytics solutions. Frameworks from the MSc helped my team and I structure complex questions around climate systemic risk and network effects across supply chains, while my product background informed how solutions might operate within real regulatory and financial constraints. Our team has reached the semi-finals and submitted our application for the next stage.

Strathclyde Business School has also been notably supportive of students pursuing multiple pathways simultaneously, enabling me to continue building my venture while studying. Most recently, I was accepted into the Strathclyde Inspire Accelerator to support the market acceleration of my startup, UGiftMe, marking a shift from early validation towards scaling, with access to funding pathways and targeted business support, while allowing MSc learning and commercial execution to inform one another in real time.

Looking ahead

My focus is on continuing to operate at the intersection of financial technology, and the rapidly evolving landscape of climate finance, institutional risk and capital markets innovation. Strathclyde has enabled me to connect academic rigour with real-world action: not as a career reset, but as an intentional step forward.