The Cohort Advisory Proof About Apply / Book a Call
Inflection Architecture Advisory

I know how banks buy.
I've been on both sides
of the table.

Twenty-five years inside regulated banking institutions. Now a fintech founder with a live bank deployment and a national core-provider contract. I teach founders how to sell into financial institutions, and I help enterprises deploy AI with governance that holds.

Join the Founder's Playbook Explore Advisory
Martha Underwood
"Banks don't buy products. They buy risk they've already learned how to hold."
Martha Underwood
25+
Years inside regulated banking institutions, including Head of Retail Engineering at a global bank.
Live
Founded a fintech now deployed at a regional bank and contracted with Jack Henry across all three cores.
3
US patents filed in time-based orchestration for financial infrastructure.
7 / 60
Departments and days: enterprise AI governance designed and deployed at United Way Worldwide.
1
Published book, The Death of Deposits, on the structural future of financial institutions.
The Flagship Cohort

Selling into Banks:
The Founder's Playbook.

A five-week live cohort for fintech founders and revenue leaders selling into banks and credit unions, built to give you the tools to move fast. Not theory: the actual mechanics of how institutions evaluate, de-risk, and buy, taught by someone who sat on the buying committee for two decades and then crossed the table to sell.

Format
5 weeks · live
Sessions
Weekly, 90 min
Seats
Capped at 12
Investment
$2,500
Next Cohort
Forming now
Week 01
How Banks Actually Buy
The anatomy of a bank buying committee: who can say yes, who can only say no, and how budget cycles decide your close date before you ever pitch.
Week 02
The Core-Provider Chessboard
Partnering with, versus selling around, core banking platforms. How integration positioning changes the risk conversation and shortens the path to a signed contract.
Week 03
Surviving Diligence
Vendor due diligence, InfoSec review, SOC 2, and third-party risk questionnaires. Build your diligence binder before you're asked, so review accelerates the deal instead of stalling it.
Week 04
Pricing for Institutions
Contract structures banks recognize, the pilot-pricing traps that quietly kill margins, and how procurement psychology differs from every other enterprise sale.
Week 05
From Pilot to Pipeline
Converting a proof-of-concept into a signed, referenceable deployment, then turning that first logo into a repeatable motion: references, ecosystem presence, and a pursuit system that makes the second deal faster than the first.

You leave with a bank-ready sales system: a committee map for your target institutions, a diligence binder checklist, a pricing architecture, and a 90-day pursuit plan. Built during the cohort, not after it.

Apply for a Seat
Advisory

Two doors.
Both open onto execution.

Scoped engagements with defined deliverables and defined timelines. Advisory here means working the problem with you, not a report that ends when the invoice does.

For Fintech Founders & Revenue Leaders
Bank GTM Advisory

One-to-one depth for companies with live institutional pursuits. The cohort teaches the system; this applies it to your named accounts, your diligence package, and your next ninety days.

  • Deal-level strategy on active bank and credit union pursuits
  • Diligence and InfoSec preparation before the questionnaire arrives
  • Core-provider partnership navigation and integration positioning
  • Institution-specific pursuit plans and committee mapping
Scope and investment confirmed on a fit call Book a Fit Call
For Enterprises & Nonprofits
AI Adoption & Governance

A sixty-day framework deployment for organizations moving AI from experiment to infrastructure. Governance first, tools second: the sequence that determines whether adoption compounds or unravels.

  • Governance model and decision rights across departments
  • Policy architecture aligned to your regulatory and mission context
  • Department-level operational playbooks
  • Executive and board enablement for ongoing oversight
60-day deployment · scoped on a fit call Book a Fit Call
Who This Is For

Builders selling into
institutions.

This work is for operators with something real at stake: a pipeline, a runway, a board that expects the institutional market to open.

  • ◆Fintech founders selling into banks and credit unions
  • ◆Revenue leaders at companies serving financial institutions
  • ◆Enterprise and nonprofit executives deploying AI at scale
  • ◆Boards that want governance before deployment, not after

If you want a keynote, this is not for you.

If you want the system that gets institutions to yes, we should speak.

Martha Underwood
Proof of Work

Taught from deals closed,
not decks written.

Founder Proof
Prismm
Founded an estate-orchestration fintech and sold it into the institutions everyone says are impossible to sell into: live at a regional bank, contracted with Jack Henry across all three cores. The playbook taught in the cohort is the one that closed those deals.
Enterprise AI Governance
United Way Worldwide
Designed and deployed a responsible AI adoption framework across seven departments in sixty days: governance model, policy architecture, and an operational execution blueprint for global nonprofit leadership.
Inside the Institution
25 Years in Banking
A career inside regulated financial institutions, including Head of Retail Engineering at a global bank, evaluating, approving, and rejecting the vendors on the other side of the table. Three US patents. Author of The Death of Deposits.
How I Work

Built for execution,
not presentation.

Scoped, priced, timed.
Every engagement has a defined deliverable, a defined timeline, and a price you see before we start. No open-ended retainers disguised as strategy.
The system, not the secret.
I don't sell introductions. I teach the buying architecture so your second institutional deal is faster than your first, with or without me.
Independent by design.
Advisory work is fully separate from my company. Where a client's product competes with it, I disclose and decline. What's discussed in advisory stays in advisory.
Common Questions

Answered
directly.

Is the cohort right for my stage?
Best fit: a live product and a real intent to sell into banks or credit unions in the next twelve months, typically pre-seed through Series B founders, or revenue leaders who own the institutional segment. If you're pre-product, join the newsletter and come back when there's something to sell.
How much time does the cohort take?
One live 90-minute session per week for five weeks, plus about an hour of application work between sessions, all of it applied to your actual pipeline, not hypotheticals. Sessions are recorded if you miss one.
You run a fintech. Is this a conflict?
The advisory practice is independent of my company. If your product competes with its category, I'll tell you at the fit call and decline the engagement. Client strategy discussed in advisory is never carried across that line.
Is the governance work AI consulting?
It's adoption architecture: decision rights, policy, playbooks, and executive enablement. The structure that makes tools safe to scale. Tool selection is downstream of governance, and most organizations do it in the wrong order.
What does this cost?
Cohort seats are $2,500. Advisory engagements are scoped individually to the work. We'll confirm fit and investment on a call before any commitment.
Martha Underwood

Operator first.
Advisor second.

Martha Underwood spent more than twenty-five years inside regulated banking institutions, including as Head of Retail Engineering at a global bank, sitting on the committees that evaluated, approved, and rejected the technology vendors trying to get in.

Then she crossed the table. As founder and CEO of Prismm, she built estate-orchestration infrastructure and sold it into the market she came from: a live deployment at a regional bank and a contract with Jack Henry spanning all three of its cores. She has filed three US patents and is the author of The Death of Deposits.

Alongside the founder work, she has designed and deployed enterprise AI governance for global nonprofit leadership, most recently a seven-department framework at United Way Worldwide, delivered in sixty days.

Her advisory practice exists for one reason: the distance between a great product and a signed institutional contract is a system, and almost nobody teaches it. She does.

She has sat on the buying committee.

Now she shows you what it takes to win it.

Martha Underwood
Apply or Book a Call

The fastest path to yes
is knowing how they say it.

The fastest route is a 25-minute fit call: cohort, 1:1 pursuit support, or an AI deployment that needs structure. Prefer to write first? The form below works too.

Book a Fit Call Or Send a Note
Thank you. I will review your request and be in touch shortly.
Martha Underwood