It was this reporter’s first year at Benzinga, in late 2019, when the opportunity came to speak with Brandon Dewitt, co-founder and CTO at MX Technologies.

While cofounding the firm that provides fintech and traditional financial institutions the tools to aggregate, enhance, analyze, present, and act on financial data, Dewitt had been living with a terminal cancer diagnosis.

After five years of battle, on Nov. 16, 2021, Dewitt passed on leaving behind not a hole, but a legacy of impact and disruption.

Here’s a short tribute to the accomplishments of Dewitt and MX.

Background: Prior to MX, Dewitt worked in financial services for 15 years.

The Illinois State University computer science major – a nerd to his core – co-founded personal finance management company MyJibe after a couple of years at Experian. Then, during a trip, Dewitt met Ryan Caldwell who had just founded Money Desktop.

The two believed there was a demand for platforms that offered continuous delivery with zero downtime, Dewitt explained in his conversation with Benzinga.

They partnered with the intent to build a platform that would increase data connectivity and management for financial services firms. This effort resulted in MX.

Impact: While at MX, 38-year-old Dewitt helped grow the firm to more than 750 employees and 2,000 clients, as well as secure $475 million in total venture capital.

MX, today, helps institutions like Ally Financial Inc (NYSE:ALLY), Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA (NYSE:BBVA), and the National Bank of Canada (OTC:NTIOF), among smaller fintechs like OurBanc, create unique digital banking solutions, as well as provide customer-centric client services and marketing.

In his conversation with Benzinga, Dewitt had said MX was working to improve the lives of end consumers.

“These relationships are a win for us as a technology provider, a win for the institution in order to help manage the potential downside of lending money at that point in the infrastructure, and also a win for the consumers,” he explained.

Focus: “Purpose over profit.”

That’s what Dewitt said in a tribute video posted to the MX website.

“As a species, we are better when we come together to do things.”

This mantra is forever embedded in MX’s core values.

Amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, disruptions in finance accelerated. As a result, MX amped up its efforts to innovate and protect end consumers, working alongside regulators, traditional financial institutions, and fintechs to do better.

We are “living in the golden age of financial data connectivity and financial services innovation” Dewitt had said. “[If] consumer advocacy is not your strategy, then it should be.” It is essential for “consumers to be put at the center of your strategy.”

Though it is an awing fact, Dewitt’s passage further impresses the importance of sustainability and righteousness in finance and life, in general.

“These days my philosophy on life is more oriented towards how many people can you help, with all that you have, with all the good that you can do, as much as you can, as often you can, as big as you can.”