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Women in Fintech

Angie WalkerDirector, Ignite G2M

Caroline DavisStrategy Consultant, Verlylee Limited

Chetna BhatiaVP Partnerships and Services, Aspect Enterprise Solutions

Joanne SmithChief Executive & Creative Officer, The Consulting Consortium & RecordSure Caroline TonkinDirector of Sales & Marketing, Quarternion Risk Petrina SteeleEMEA VP, Business Development, Equinix. Danielle BallardieHead of Cash Markets, Deputy Head of Markets & Global Sales, Euronext Susan CooneyClient Services & Marketing Executive, MahiFX Jo FinniganDirector, Cognising Ltd Adizah TejaniHead of Ecosystem Development, Level39

Alexandra FosterGlobal Head of Strategy & Business Development, Financial Technology Services, BT

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of the most talked about subjects in FinTech in recent years has been around the subject of diversity with a particular focus on Women in the sector. Writing this on the day where the front page headlines are that David Cameron “vows to close the pay gap for women,” it is a firm belief of mine that FinTech is leading the way in placing increased diversity into its business agenda. David Cameron’s personal commitment to “consigning salary inequality to history by the time his two daughters start work” rings a chord. As a father of a two girls (aged 2 and 6) the FinTech space has to be one of the most exciting spaces to point them in their future careers. As role models continue to emerge from the sector and investment made into education in technology for both boys and girls, there are promising signs for us all to take encouragement from.

It has been pleasing to see the incredible Eileen Burbidge appointed as the government’s special envoy for FinTech. Susanne Chisti (who has written in our sister publication the FinTech Capital) and Nicole Anderson have been making a big splash with FinTech Circle Innovate and another previous writer in the FTC Claire Cockerton’s Innovate Finance is shaking up the space. You can read their articles here: http://www.harringtonstarr.com/downloads/the-fintech-capital-mag/.

We are also fortunate to have twelve of the sector’s most influential females writing on all things FinTech in this copy including Danielle Ballardie, Alex Foster, Angie Walker, Caroline Davis, Chetna Bhatia, Joanne Smith, Caroline Tonkin, Petrina Steele, Susan Cooney, Jo Finnigan, Adizah Tejani and Alexandra Foster. These are the inspirational role models and trailblazers who are helping to shape the FinTech Revolution and it is brilliant to read their commentary of regulation, women in technology and the future of technology in the sector.

We also wanted to conduct our own research into diversity in FinTech. We hold regular industry networking events, both through the FinTech Influencers and the FS Technology Breakfast, and it has always been clear to see that the industry, as it stands, is a male heavy population. These events are senior level networking opportunities and, over the last two years, the average percentage of women in the room has been less than 7% hi-lighting issues of a male dominated industry at a senior and executive level.

At a mid to senior level (£60-120k salaries and our core demographic) our data in 2015 shows that in the first 6 months of the year 15% of the candidates who have been placed are female. In the second half of 2014 that figure was only 8%. Whilst improving, this remains far too low a figure and it is encouraging to see enthusiasm from our clients to bring greater gender balance to their teams. When looking at a “gender pay gap” there

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was no supporting evidence to suggest that this exists in FinTech from the data we have pulled. If anything, and particularly in the sales market, there was a slight financial lean in favour of women for a like for like hire in the data that we have studied. Again, it must be said this is too small a dataset to be a definitive picture of the industry but, having worked in the space for sixteen years, it is far from uncommon to see bigger salaries paid in order to secure greater diversity in a team. There are also numerous examples of major investment banks specifically seeking out women for senior roles. This is where it becomes important not to veer into positive discrimination. The best person for the job should still be the one chosen regardless of their gender.

Efforts have certainly been made to ensure that FinTech becomes a viable and attractive career opportunity for ambitious women. A series of meetup groups have helped create strong networks and companies are recognising more and more that there are benefits from a diverse team. The role models mentioned above are also critical. As we see more and more successful senior women in FinTech, more and more will follow.

So what more can be done? It is important for companies to tailor the message appropriately. Businesses at an institutional level are getting this right with Goldman Sachs being a prime example. Putting gender diversity on the boardroom agenda is a must and part of that includes creating an employee value proposition that is attractive to both males and females alike. Benefits should reflect diversity and the cultural change needed in many technology teams should be driven rather than expected. Predominantly though this comes down to education. When the government creates academic programmes that create “work ready” technologists and ensure that young women are inspired and encouraged to see technology as a viable career path we will see a real sea change of revolution.

The first steps have been taken, as these role models continue to showcase the success and career potential that exists in the sector for women, the future looks bright.

Toby BabbDirector

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We live in a technological age. Across many industries nimble, innovative and exciting new entrants are being leveraged to push the boundaries of performance, enhance service levels and to reduce cost of ownership. Historically the Financial Services industry, hamstrung by the rigours of client protection and regulatory burden, have been slow to adopt fledgling players. However, increasingly stringent and

prescriptive regulatory requirements are prompting a new approach. The so-called ‘disruptors’ are being beckoned from the shadows into the light.

In this article, Angie Walker of FinTech go-to-market specialist Ignite G2M discusses the growing appetite within the Capital Markets community to embrace new technology and services, in the quest for sourcing affordable regulatory compliance solutions.

Almost 30 years on from Big Bang (27th Oct 1986) the market faces the biggest of all operational changes with the introduction of MiFID2, a cross market, multi-asset, front to back regulatory revolution that requires ALL market participants, buy side & sell side alike, to clearly demonstrate appropriate levels of conduct and operation control over their entire business flow. Furthermore, MiFID2 earmarks a shift from a “principles” based approach to regulation as witnessed with the introduction of MiFID1 in 2008 to a definitively “prescriptive” approach.

As a result of this latest regulatory change and almost 10 years on from the inception of MiFID1, the challenges that ALL market participants now face are far greater than ever before. The evolution of the markets instigated by this far reaching MiFID1 directive, prompted a new generation of regulatory tech challenges in the trading space. This

FinTech for regulation – mind the GAP!!!!

Angie Walker | Director, Ignite G2M

Women in Fintech

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saw the birth of Smart Order Routers, Risk modules, Best-Ex and industry endorsement of ALGO performance benchmarking. In Europe alone the pace of introduction of new regulatory changes/obligations has been relentless with MAD1, MAD2, MAR, MiFID2, MiFIR, EMIR, BCBS 239 and more …all being mandated in quick succession.

Consequently, and as a direct result of these mandated changes Compliance, Risk, Controls and the technology underpinning them are impacted by every nuance of the

regulations, in some instances in a very material way. As a direct result of these growing tech challenges, between 2009–2013 the cost of compliance alone across the TOP 10 Global Investment Banks alone was estimated at a staggering $4bn and continues to grow exponentially year on year as we approach MiFID2.

Lengthy investigations and exceptionally large fines threaten both the profitability and reputation of the major players not only at the entity level but more recently individual professionals will and are being

held accountable for poor and inappropriate conduct. So not surprisingly a large number of market participants are looking to innovative new technologies for the answers to these very challenging and complex issues. It’s simply not enough to think that one needs only to comply, but in order to differentiate ones business and thrive in this increasingly challenging environment, participants must find smart and creative ways of transforming these regulatory burdens into key business differentiators. Often backed by the most innovative of the Investment Banks, a fast growing number of FinTech Incubators and Accelerators are buzzing with new technologies. Since 2008 the global annual investment in FinTechs has tripled to over $3bn/pa and is currently on track to grow to a breath taking $8Bn/pa by 2018. Today the key financial around the globe offer a huge hunting ground of financial institutions along with a wealth of highly skilled and seasoned FinTech resources, so not surprisingly these very same locations have become the birthplace of and home to many of these new and very promising FinTech companies.

Given the exponential growth in FinTech investment in providing compliance/regulatory related solutions over recent years it’s no great surprise that an increasing number of FinTechs are joining the race to find answers to the fundamental challenges underpinning these regulatory changes as/when they occur. For example, one of the current challenges under scrutiny is the one of “time stamping” and in relation to the market participants need to ensure (and clearly demonstrate) timeliness, accuracy and completeness of ALL transaction flows. Whilst previously this might have been a perennial challenge, under the new MiFIR regulations, (Articles 7 and 50) its set to become a far more onerous and mandatory requirement from the outset for time-stamping to millisecond accuracy across the whole order lifecycle, from grandparent order creation to settlement.

Today the key financial around the globe offer a huge hunting ground

of financial institutions along with a wealth of highly skilled and

seasoned FinTech resources, so not surprisingly these very same locations have become

the birthplace of and home to many of these new and very promising FinTech companies.

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The principal behind this uptick in regulation is that, by introducing this level of event resolution across all systems it allows individual transaction to be reconstituted in order to prove market conditions at every point during that transaction’s lifecycle. What’s important though is that the underlying principle driving these requirements are either in order to achieve a widespread view of the same data or to actually account for data points within that transaction flow relative to other events/market data. Perhaps, at this point it’s safe to dispel the myth that it is not the actual time stamping to microsecond or millisecond (or even nanosecond) accuracy that is necessarily important here, what is important is the ability to synchronise with extreme accuracy a number of events and the relativity of those actions to each other at that moment in time. However, this poses three significant industry challenges namely;

1) The need to reconcile the flows across many disparate platforms, front-to-back

2) The need to timestamp to 1uSec on HFT and 1mSec accuracy on all other transaction based flows, across a synchronised timeline

3) The need for a single consistent instrument model and “golden source” of client and instrument data across all platforms/flows

Big Data to the rescue one might think. Well, whilst undoubtedly the data to be collected and stored will be a huge challenge in its own right, the source and normalisation of that data is a far greater issue to be solved right now!

For ALL market participants involved in electronic trading, being able to rationalise and consolidate transaction based flows/data from disparate systems, working to different protocols and often in completely separate infrastructural environments, in an attempt to ensure that the underlying transactions within each flow is time-stamped and to a single source is a tall order for sure. So how do we solve that problem in a way that is both consist cross-asset/cross-flow and extensible across systems over time?

The first step needs to be to standardise industry wide the data model by which that data is sourced, processed and stored. That said, I suspect that no single party/industry participant is equipped to do this in isolation as it needs to be agnostic in order to be effective. What is required here is an industry wide collaboration/consortia to sponsor and endorse a move to a single standard “superset” data model cross asset, cross market globally and with a view to adoption industry wide.

Let’s assume for one moment that this were indeed the case and that the whole industry had adopted this single data model. The problem then shifts to the next big challenge which is that no single part of the work flow front to back contains all of the elements of the required data “superset” needed to guarantee completeness across the whole flow. In order to resolve this rather thorny issue a single global provider of that golden source of superset data needs to emerge.

Finally, assuming we have the data model and our golden source in place then in order to correlate events with accuracy and ensure timeliness of flows throughout the entire transactions life cycle one needs to ensure that all associated applications within that flow remain synchronised to the same master time-stamping source. This is potentially the biggest of all challenges and requires an industry agnostic solution in order to be effective. So, perhaps the approach here is to source, interpret and store data directly

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from the network (rather than the applications themselves),as this significantly reduced the dependency by (1) time-stamping each packet of transaction data as it passes through each hop enterprise-wide, core-to-edge which is now technically achievable and (2) to interpret content of each packet at each hop of the flow and in order to ensure both the appropriateness of content and the completeness/accuracy of the underlying data. Adaptors/collectors allow you to access and interpret the packet’s contents completely independently of the platforms on which the transactions are processed ensuring no degradation to that transactional flow in terms of latency, throughput or performance.

In summary, by combining a single data model, golden source and time-stamping methodology front to back, across ALL transactional flows it is feasible that a market participant could meet this latest wave of regulatory challenges with a single cost effective and industrial solution that clearly differentiates themselves within their peer group for having resolved those challenges in a robust and demonstrable way firm-wide.

For the market participants, the lead up to MiFID2 is set to be a very busy period indeed with significant technological and operate level changes required in order to achieve conformance. For those FinTechs already well positioned to resolve some/all of these complex challenges and in a timely fashion, it is without doubt an incredible opportunity for yet further exponential growth. For the select few that are actually in that position today you might even call it the perfect storm. HS

This is potentially the biggest of all

challenges and requires an industry agnostic solution in

order to be effective.

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Many factors contribute to the success of a start-up, just ask 10 successful entrepreneurs and you’ll get 10 different answers, but for me focus on the three Ps; People, Product, Planning. With the right mix your start-up will be on the road to success. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

People: As a FinTech start-up your salaries can’t compete with the banks but by creating an entrepreneurial environment you have a strong chance of attracting highly skilled, motivated people. In start-ups, it’s about the right blend of resources who can be flexible to deal with the unexpected surprises which inevitably occur along the way. An additional bonus is that the skills of your team will develop in ways they hadn’t considered which presents opportunities for them and you.

Creating a trusting environment which allows people to shine and demonstrate their worth can often be a bigger motivator than money alone so don’t underestimate the value of empowerment – plus the more you can delegate the more time you have for driving the company forward. Whilst you may be paying great bonuses, share options can be a simple way to ensure long-term engagement and give the whole team a stake in future success.

Planning: You have a vision and a business plan so take that plan and stick to it. Easier said than done maybe? In the melee you can get distracted and veer away from the original vision so don’t forget to keep reminding yourself of your initial goals. The plan should evolve as you understand your market better but beware of costly tangents. Everything you do should be aimed at getting you closer to the end goal not further away.

The three Ps of FinTech start-up growth

Caroline Davis | Independent Strategy Consultant, Verlylee Limited

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Women in Fintech

But don’t forget to also measure everything. How else do you know if you are on track? Make sure that the plan contains a measureable set of KPIs from day one and your team are aware of their own deliverables as well as those of their colleagues.

Product: Of course you have a great product! The business case says so, so it must be true! You may have done your market research but until someone pays you for your services, your product is almost worthless. The key is to constantly ask for feedback. Know what your potential customers want at all times and don’t be scared to go back repeatedly to validate this. You’ll learn nothing about the market from the inside of the office, so get out on the streets and find out what your market needs.

Chances are you’ll be presented with more ideas that you know what to do with. Stick to the plan but use the knowledge you gain to understand the minimum sellable product, then make sure that all your people are focused on delivering this and constantly reiterate the core objectives and the vision.

It’s easy to overlook the successes which happen in the middle of the non-stop race towards the next goal, but do take time to celebrate the things which you do well and don’t beat yourself up over a bad few days. A couple of drinks can help the whole team to let off steam, just make sure you’re on hand to buy the bacon butties the next morning. With the right product, a talented group of people and an executable plan, you are always on the front foot. Now you just need a dash of luck and you’re on your way! HS

As a FinTech start-up your salaries can’t compete with the banks

but by creating an entrepreneurial

environment you have a strong

chance of attracting highly skilled,

motivated people.

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Women in Fintech

The Financial Technology (FinTech) sector is booming today because of new market players, business models and new innovations. With changing times, what needs to change is the mind-set of the organisations empowering this change. This year's International Women’s Day sparked a debate at the Innovate Finance Global Summit around the lack of females holding board-level positions in the FinTech sector and elsewhere.

According to one of the panellists as 51% of the audience for FinTech products are women and they are the early adopters, the next generation of products needs to appeal to this mass audience. In my experience, women make better investment decisions, so are more likely to use the products in a more productive way. So it is essential that women are involved in the design, packaging and usability of FinTech products.

The current situation is not reflective of this fact and women represent a significantly lower percentage of the constituents on the management teams of FinTech organisations. There is a need to strive for more mixed gender on board of any organisation as it draws better performance. During the debate on International Women’s Day, it came out very evidently that organisations with a diverse board and mixed gender perform 15% better than the organisations without such diversity. A recent look at the S&P 500 index found only 26 (0.05%) have female CEOs, while lower managerial positions such as vice-president, of which around 10,000 available roles exist, approximately 600 (0.06%) are filled by women.

There is a clear need to develop very strong professional development programmes to help elevate women who sit in the managerial or director-level positions into leadership positions and decision-making positions.

Women in FinTech

Chetna Bhatia | VP Partnerships and Services, Aspect Enterprise Solutions

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A major factor in recent times is a radical shift in the way business leaders perceive what makes a good corporate board. In particular there is a growing urgency to improve the gender balance. A modern, successful company needs directors with a range of experiences, perspectives and personalities. This is the only way to ensure that it has a wide pool of expertise and experience to draw on, and to reduce the danger of homogenous thinking.

I have worked at Aspect Enterprise Solutions (Aspect) for almost six years now. Aspect is the leading global provider of a web-based commodity trading, risk management and data management application for front, middle and back-office operations. It’s the only integrated, all-in-one platform delivered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) in the Cloud, which enables rapid deployment, controlled costs & immediate return on investment. Building upon a flexible infrastructure and technology platform, with an innovative development methodology, Aspect’s development team has produced a range of web-based applications, customization services and enterprise integration solutions.

As all other organisations, initially Aspect had a male-dominated ‘monotone’ board, but about five years back our CEO decided to make the management team more inclusive and balanced. As it stands now three of the five members of the executive team are women and 49% of middle management are women responsible for development, testing and product roadmap. The executive team also exhibits cultural diversity having representation from the USA, UK, Canada, India and South Africa – five people, five nationalities.

Our company has seen growth in terms of revenue, profitability and product quality. With an eye for detail, women have brought not only quantitative improvement to the bottom line of the company but also brought a qualitative improvement in working environment, streamlining processes, customer interaction, employee turnaround and the products itself.Drawing from personal experience, I feel that having a diverse team with gender balance brings in value addition to any organisation and contributes to an overall positive impact. HS

This year's International Women’s Day sparked a debate at the Innovate Finance Global Summit around the lack of females holding board-level positions in the FinTech sector and elsewhere.

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Women in Fintech

We are experiencing exciting times in the FinTech sector. Business is booming thanks to new market players and innovations that are driving the industry forward. However, in terms of gender equality and diversity, there is still work to be done and improvements to be made.

Statistics show that female entrepreneurs currently make up just 17% of the FinTech sector and the number of female CIOs has remained at around 14% per year for the past decade.

An independent report published in February of this year by Women in Enterprise champion, Lorely Burt MP, found that although the number of female-run SMEs has increased, more work needs to be done in order to close the gender gap between men and women. The report, Inclusive Support for Women in Enterprise, found that women entrepreneurs could play a bigger role in the UK economy, creating jobs and boosting growth as well as reducing gender inequality.

The FinTech industry is enjoying an exciting period of growth, and in order to keep this momentum going we need to ensure that a diverse pool of talent is in place. We need to be doing more to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit among young women and promote the FinTech sector as an innovative and exciting industry to break into.

In the year 2000 I started my first business The Consulting Consortium as I realised there was a need for a compliance firm offering proportionate, bespoke advice. It is now the largest independently-owned compliance consultancy in the UK and I’m pleased to say that females account for over half of our staff. I am now focused on ensuring my new

Bridging the gender gap in FinTech

Joanne Smith | Chief Executive & Creative Officer, The Consulting Consortium & RecordSure

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venture RecordSure radically alters the way companies address compliance to protect consumers and prevent future mis-selling scandals. It is a great feeling to be working on something that no-one else in the market is able to do.

I am passionate about encouraging young women to think big and realise their dreams. Financial services and compliance are both traditionally very male dominated sectors - an interesting and challenging by-product of this is gentlemen are occasionally prone to underestimate a woman’s ability and try to take advantage of what they see as someone incapable of understanding the nuances of business as they do. This is an irritatingchallenge, but one that is very easily and quickly overcome, once they realise just how capable women can be!

Young women need strong role models to look up to, and fortunately the number of female trailblazers in the FinTech sector is on the increase including inspirational ladies

such as Susanne Chisti of FINTECH Circle, Claire Cockerton of Innovate Finance, Wendy Jephson of Sybenetix and Paulina Sygulska of GrantTree who have all founded their own FinTech businesses.

The newspaper City AM issues a weekly update to its ‘FinTech Most Influential Powerlist’ that includes the movers, the shakers, the doers and the people to know in the world of London FinTech right now. This week there were just twenty women in the top 100 list.

For this reason we need to do more to encourage entrepreneurship from a young

age. We need to encourage young women to believe that they can set up their own businesses and that they can succeed in traditionally male-dominated industries like finance and technology.

The UK is the FinTech capital of the world – and for good reason. We have a strong financial services sector and a fantastic pool of multi-talented entrepreneurs and innovators who are leading the way. In order to sustain this, we need greater diversity to keep our industry as fresh and exciting as possible.

In short, we have come a long way, but there is still progress to be made in order to truly bridge the gender gap.

With over 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry, Joanne has made a name for herself as an innovator with a passion for compliance. Joanne has built her award-winning company The Consulting Consortium into the UK’s largest independent regulatory and compliance consultancy. Joanne is also the founder of RecordSure, an innovative solution to record and analyse the interactions between front-line staff and customers, enabling firms to monitor and improve the quality and compliance of their customer-facing functions. HS

Young women need strong role models

to look up to, and fortunately the

number of female trailblazers in the FinTech sector is on the increase

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Women in Fintech

Core technologies currently in use cannot meet the demands of the regulators in the required timescales – banks are needing to rethink their reporting paradigms in order to cope with the onslaught of regulations. Key elements that banks are struggling to achieve in meeting regulatory reporting include:

● Streamlining and aggregating data in ways not done before, to the lowest level of detail

● Managing data of different types in different jurisdictions

● Achieving transparency.

This last is probably the hardest – existing systems can maybe be extended to cope with the first two, but legacy “black box” applications will need wholesale rewrite. Visionary banks are seizing the opportunity to not only tick the box for the regulators – but to make business advantage out of surfing what Tony Coppellotti of StoneRock Advisors - specialists in FinTech innovation - calls the “true wave of disruption” of new capabilities. Here are some examples of use of technology to overcome the challenges identified above:

Regulation:With MiFID II and the Wave of Regulation continually hitting the banks coupled to the large gaps in capacity and capability to deal with this, what are the core challenges? How can they be overcome? Where are great examples of innovation around tech solutions for regulation?

Caroline Tonkin | Director of Sales & Marketing, Quarternion Risk

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● Aggregating data - using Big Data, a concept from the internet: banks are all impelled by BCBS239 to make their risk data aggregation coherent and transparent. Big Data enables management of structured and unstructured data, and does it faster - an example being MongoDB’s technology with which, over just 2 weeks, MetLife created a working prototype of a system that pulled together every single relevant piece of customer information from over 70 different systems – a boon for regulatory reporting.

● Managing data – using blockchain technology, a concept behind the bitcoin: decentralizes the control process: Nasdaq has started working on blockchain technology in its trading arm to “provide extensive integrity, audit ability, governance…” according to a release from Nasdaq. Given that regulatory reporting for most banks involves audit ability over just about every activity in every jurisdiction, this is an obvious application – watch this space!

● Transparency – using open source: the favoured approach of many technology innovators, the transparency that typically accompanies open source credentials is a boon to regulatory reporting. Most banks have legacy systems that have built up over many years, but which were never designed for transparency – and can’t have transparency thrust upon them without substantial effort. Many banks worldwide have for some time used Quantlib – the open source library of transparent financial pricing models – for e.g. model validation and testing. They are comfortable with Quantlib; it is in use in many other banks. Now that transparent model validation is required to achieve, for example, Basel IMM compliance, use of Quantlib is an obvious choice for forward-thinking banks, and for FinTech companies such as Quaternion Risk Management (whose proprietary QRE risk engine is used by a number of banks in order to achieve regulatory sign off, either as the primary system or for model validation of their own systems) to integrate into their proprietary technology (why reinvent the wheel if it already exists, is freely available, is liked and is in common use?). This is all down to speed of development with Quantlib, and bank – and regulator - acceptance. HS

Most banks have legacy systems

that have built up over many years,

but which were never designed

for transparency – and can’t have

transparency thrust upon them without substantial effort.

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Women in Fintech

London is a growing hub for Europe’s finest FinTech start-ups, with 24 of the FinTech50 originating from the UK capital. The big data revolution has led to the proliferation of FinTech companies coming to market - seeking to meet the growing demand for diverse feature and content rich financial applications; satisfying opportunities in mobile payment, electronic trading and risk evaluation platforms.

The industry, reported by UKTI to be worth £20 billion annually to the UK economy, has defined itself through innovation in speed and connectivity to develop partner ecosystems, new products and a raft of new revenue streams. Whilst large banks and financial services firms have struggled to adapt owing to centralised IT structures, the FinTech industry is at the forefront of pioneering digital mobility, bridging the challenges faced by traditional institutions through big data, cloud and interconnection solutions.

Given the size of the FinTech market, with further room for growth and sustained innovation, a visible trend of heavy investment from the major financial players in FinTech companies is emerging. Eager to remain competitive and meet demand for FinTech services, banks and wealth management firms are looking for IT infrastructure models that allow them to quickly connect with customers, partners and service providers to provide a better Quality of Experience (QOE) for user’s access real time data.

Interconnection: Transforming London’s FinTech sector

Petrina Steele | EMEA VP, Business Development, Equinix

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Women in Fintech

To profit from the digital revolution, these traditional organisations must meet and exceed the IT agility, data security and computing challenges by moving from a systems-of-record to user-centric system of engagement edge compute model, in order to provide next generation critical financial applications.

It is in these traits that the FinTech industry excels, exemplifying the characteristics required to navigate the big data minefield - revolutionising a sector where speed, security and innovation are vital components. Through adopting a more agile IT architecture, new products and revenue streams can be realised in banking and corporate finance solutions within capital markets, electronic payments, retail banking, wealth management and personal finance. As such, alongside the trend for acquisition and investment, there is also growing cooperation between traditional banks and FinTech companies.

Equinix global data centre colocation and interconnection solutions now serve as a critical edge computing and IT mobility partner providing a catalyst for technology innovation, new disruptive growth, increased global reach and enhanced digital collaboration between these businesses.

Equinix assist banks, wealth managers and Fintech players to re-invent their IT architectures to drive incomparable latency speeds, improved application performance and real time data analytics. This is achieved through the facilitation of

an Interconnection Oriented ArchitectureTM – a transformative enterprise approach connecting people, locations, clouds and data. By decentralising enterprise work flows to create hubs and specialist ecosystems nearer to users, Equinix are leading an interconnected era that enables banks and Fintech businesses to develop a new suite of products and services.

This interconnected model provides a highly secure physical connectivity between ecosystem participants, but it also helps businesses significantly reduce TCO, whilst simultaneously reducing latency, and increasing performance and productivity capabilities demanded in the Fintech segment, whilst also fulfilling the product and revenue innovation opportunities afforded by a big data market forecast by IDC to reach $41.5 billion by 2018. HS

London is a growing hub for Europe’s

finest FinTech start-ups,

with 24 of the FinTech50 originating

from the UK capital.

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Women in Fintech

Will the next Steve Jobs be a chick?!Perhaps! I know several female role models in corporate life, so many that I can count them on my, oh hold on…. fingers & toes….ahem. Seriously there are loads but there could be so many more!

Does gender diversity really make a difference?I think so. Why? I’ve been asked that a lot lately…why is it important, why does it matter? There are all sorts of reasons that cover a broad range of factors: socio-political, shareholder value & return, risk management, client mirroring, cultural strength, innovation, the value of equality. From a business standpoint the most important is compelling evidence that a more gender diverse workforce generates better results, consistently.

This quote by James Surowiecki says it all: “Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromise.”

What’s the issue?There are several issues. Despite women representing roughly 50% of the population and that in the UK a higher number of women now attend university than men, the proportion of women working in Finance is low and becomes miniscule in senior management. Graduate intakes in Finance are rarely close to 50/50 meaning there is an imbalance from the outset. According to Oliver Wyman (in 2014) research covering 150 of the world’s major financial companies showed that only 13% of EXCO members are women and 4% of CEOs are women. Even outside the financial spectrum this figure does not improve,

Will the next Steve Jobs be a chick?!

Danielle Ballardie | Head of Cash Markets, Deputy Head of Markets & Global Sales, Euronext

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Women in Fintech

Google published its diversity stats showing that only 18% of its workforce are women.

There is progress, in the UK female board representation for FTSE 100 companies has increased to 23.5%, almost doubling in four years. Change is more notable in countries where quotas have been introduced and in those with public targets and the support of several women’s networks. Let’s be clear, not all women want to get to the top and those that do absolutely want to do so on merit alone. Our focus needs to be on the overall workforce at all levels to create a more diverse and inclusive corporate culture with equal treatment of employees regardless of gender (or any other form of diversity).

In addition, although girls often achieve higher grades than boys in their academic results and enter the professional workforce at the same age, there is a difference in the amount they are paid. Alarmingly, the UN says it will take 70 years to close the gender pay gap based on the current slow pace of improvement. That’s not fair or acceptable. Who’s setting the pay in the UK? Typically white males that flourish with unconscious bias towards other white males (that’s an oversimplification but you get my point).

What’s holding women back?Sometimes it’s the women themselves due to lack of confidence, inexperience, fear, cultural dynamics, insecure competition, a desire for greater fulfilment, time commitments to people/activities outside work, a strong sense of whole life rather than being “The Provider” and a deep need for authenticity. Male dominance, repression, unconscious bias and gender stereotyping and the fact that sexism is still rife also contribute to the challenges faced by women in the workplace.

1 in 4 women in the UK are reported to be affected by domestic abuse. That’s a meaningful representation of staff in any large organisation. How does that affect the interpersonal dynamic in team work and in boss/senior management relationships?The reality is men too are held back by similar reasons (although notably less sexism!) but they are in the majority at work and the dynamic is very different.

What’s bringing women forward?Raw talent, intellectual power, intuition, empathy, education, innate leadership skills, organisational savvy, ambition and many more attributes. Thankfully many people, of both genders, see all those positives and know the highly valuable contribution women can make in life and to any organisation and are actively supporting them. Targets, quotas, corporate and government policies/initiatives, growing use & acceptance of flexible working and technology advancements as well as men taking more responsibility for childcare are all helping to encourage more women to pursue long-term careers.

Male dominance, repression, unconscious bias and gender stereotyping and the fact that sexism is still rife also contribute to the challenges faced

by women in the workplace.

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Women in Fintech

What does that mean for FinTech in the UK?Opportunity. Progress. Innovation. Billionaire investor Warren Buffet has been quoted as saying “What a waste of human talent – 50pc of the population was pushed off into the corner for 200 years [….] I see how far we've come using only half the talent […] and now we're getting to the point that we are using 100pc. It makes me optimistic but we still have a way to go".

Women are increasingly attracted to working in technology and that’s both push & pull as IT companies focus more on recruiting from the whole demographic to source the best candidate in a growing sector offering creative, flexible and well-paid jobs. Add to that the increasing role Technology has at the core of a company rather than traditionally as a support function.

E2W is a great example of a successful company leveraging strong ideals about the role of women in the workplace to offer outsourcing services in FinTech.

Be the change you wish to see in the world - GandhiIt is fair to acknowledge that companies rarely outperform society in terms of cultural dynamics. Social change that accepts diversity will occur gradually as the concepts and memes discussed here become deeply embedded in our mindset and we outgrow pre-conceptions ingrained in us through generations that held women back. It is not the same as Apple producing a funky new media device that we all just have to buy. But maybe it could be simpler and happen far quicker? Companies strive to outperform! Check in with your own value set when promoting, hiring, firing and paying. Are you treating both genders equally? This sort of change happens from within. Be the change you want to see.

Whichever gender you are and whether or not you have children, ask yourself: if you had a daughter would you want her to experience sexism, be underpaid relative to male peers and be overlooked for promotion because she’s a GIRL and in the minority?

It’s not just about women, it’s about people. Not to sound too idealistic but I believe ultimately we can create a more supportive, balanced workforce for men & women with higher wellbeing, better decision-making and higher productivity. That’s worth aiming for. HS

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Women in Fintech

Every organisation is defined by culture. Without it, there would be dissonance, lack of direction and low staff morale. At its most fundamental level, culture is the foundations on which a business is built and grown.

Recent research conducted by Deloitte has shown that culture, engagement, and employee retention are now the biggest challenges that businesses are facing. Over 50% of business leaders rate this as an ‘urgent’ issue. But how do we define culture, what exactly is so important about it, and how can we apply this to tech start-ups?

Culture is most visible at two key interactive points. Firstly, it is internal, between one another within the team. Secondly, it is reflected to the external world – namely your clients and partners. So, it’s important to identify company culture to ensure that the messages we are sending out are the ones that we want to. What sort of environment are we working in; does it make people want to come to work?

When you instil a set of values within a company, it helps people to know what they can expect; it makes them feel comfortable. For example, at Mahi we like to exercise a sense of flexibility amongst our team. To us, the idea of restricting staff to spending specific hours in the office harbours negativity, whereas the relatively new concept of remote working conveys a sense of trust and understanding. Therefore, providing our employees with more freedom to move around is a large part of our culture. However, a priority for one company can be the least appealing to another, which might favour other areas such as costs. Taking the time to think about these ideas is imperative to a functional culture.

Every organisation is defined by culture

Susan Cooney | Co-Founder, MahiFX

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Women in Fintech

One of the most crucial things a start-up founder can do in the early stages of creating a business is to devote time to defining exactly what sort of culture they want to encourage within their organisation. Failing to do so will inevitably lead to shortcomings further down the line, as the operational side of the business begins to suffer.

We all have a rough idea of what we feel is important with regards to culture, ethics that we believe are the right ingredients to success. There isn’t one ‘right’ combination, but they must be consistent to allow a sense of common ground throughout the organisation. Previous experiences within different workplaces, whether good or bad, help us to see our core values, so reflecting on these is the perfect starting point. Selecting appropriate principles that correlate and are easily achievable is equally important, along with ensuring that they all have a common aim of achieving success.

Culture is completely redundant however, without good, honest communication. Relaying your values to your team and making sure that everyone is actively engaging with these will create a positive, proactive team. By personally involving yourself and demonstrating your work ethic, you’ll confirm that you value these principles.

Occasionally, organisations fall into the trap of creating clone cultures, by selecting employees who they believe are identical in all aspects. Diversity helps drive growth and innovation, so removing that from the equation can have negative consequences. Having said that, too much diversity can also have its problems. If people don’t share the same core values as you, there are going to be difficulties when it comes to collaboration and driving the business forward. As is often the case, a good balance between these two points is ideal, particularly in a tech start-up where innovation and a close-knit, ‘familial’ culture are emerging as the new way of operating. Hierarchy, over-complicated processes, and lack of freedom are among many of the features of large corporations that are now becoming archaic, counter-productive functions. Whilst it might not seem like it directly influences business, culture represents the core values of an organisation. The ‘personality’ of a business is exposed to the external world via culture, and sending out the preferred message is therefore integral to achieving success. HS

The ‘personality’ of a business is exposed to the external world via culture, and sending out the

preferred message is therefore integral

to achieving success.

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Women in Fintech

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about women in IT recently, mulling over how few of us there are, especially in Financial or Trading technology, and wondering how being a woman has shaped my experience over the last 19 years (yikes!) I also wondered how other women in technology felt and what their experiences had been. When I was asked to write an article, with “Women in FinTech” as one of the possible topics, I felt it

was a chance to explore this further.

I decided to interview other experienced women in Financial/Trading technology who were in my network. This is where the stark reality hit home; in my network of 500+ current/former colleagues and business contacts, I could only find a handful of senior female FinTech professionals. Over the years, I have got used to being the only woman in the room in many meetings or working in teams comprised largely of men; but this demonstrated the issue clearly.

So why is it like this, what has it been like for these few women, and what can we do to improve the situation? I have my own views on this, but was keen to find out about others’ experiences and ideas.

What made us choose to go into an IT career?For a lot of us a natural affinity for maths, sciences and problem solving at an early age translated into an interest in IT later. In the case of Sue, one of the very few women I know who is in a technical role at a senior level, there was a desire to programme and build systems “ever since I got my first computer in the early 80's. I couldn't imagine doing anything else.”

Women in FinTech – Our view

Jo Finnigan | Director, Cognising Ltd

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Women in Fintech

What has it been like to have a successful career in technology as a woman?Universally the women I interviewed have enjoyed many aspects of their careers, as have I. Some of the highlights include enjoying developing people and seeing them advance, working with other talented people, creating genuinely useful systems and applications, continually learning, and problem solving such as turning around failing systems and projects.

What have been our biggest challenges to date as a woman, working in IT?A big theme in the answers here is that the challenge of being a woman in technology increases as we become more senior. This includes the growing awareness that at more senior levels the leadership and communication styles tend to be more traditionally masculine in nature. Whether you believe there are fundamental gender differences here or not, the bottom line is that given the small numbers of women in Financial Technology at this level, it inevitably means that to a large extent we end up being women in a man’s world.

As a consequence, as my interviewees tell me, there seems to be easier communication and collaboration amongst men at this level. Struggling to be heard in meetings, wanting to hear others’ views but then missing out on having our opinion listened to, and finding some environments quite combative were some examples cited here.

There is also the issue of being accepted as a female leader, especially of technical teams. One of my interviewees explained to me how she has struggled hard over the years to learn to ignore the criticism and cynicism she has been on the receiving end of. She feels this was a direct consequence of being a female manager. Thankfully this wasn’t a widespread issue amongst the responses, but there are many such examples out there.

Even though I think I have been relatively lucky with my experiences as a manager, I can understand how these issues can happen. I am reminded of a time I took over a team comprised of all men and took them all out for a drink. One of the team members, a good friend of mine, looked around the bar and commented that he imagined nobody here would think that I was the manager of this group. His comment was actually meant in a supportive and interested way, but I think the problem is that if you’ve never seen it, you won’t expect it, and different people handle that in very different ways.

Have we had to change ourselves or our behaviour to fit in to the environment/culture? How has this affected us?Overall this didn’t seem to be a major issue among my interviewees. Some women spoke about disliking a “laddish” culture and not feeling comfortable in that sort of environment, but there were also those who felt they have not had to change themselves to fit in at all. Another spoke of being aware of changing her behaviour somewhat, but also wondering whether it should be the culture changing, rather than her.

For myself, I’m sure I have modified my behaviour at work to fit in with the culture, but I think that’s inevitable regardless of the gender issue. I’m different in meetings with my team than I am with a client, for example, and that’s just adapting according to what’s appropriate for the situation. However, reflecting on this recently, I don’t think I have changed my behaviour to be less typically feminine or like myself. I also checked this out with colleagues, who agreed with me. I’m glad about that, and believe that bringing more typically feminine behaviours into benefits organisations, especially such currently male dominated ones.

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Women in Fintech

Do we perceive any challenges in moving to the next stage in our careers due us being women?There were mixed answers here. Some saw no difficulties at all, but others perceived challenges, which seem to boil down to the lack of role models and paths to follow. Not seeing many women in senior technology roles, especially in technical roles, means that it’s hard to aspire to that and potentially for others to accept one’s aspiration to that. Another interviewee wondered about whether a woman’s different communication/leadership style would hinder her progress without her necessarily recognising this.

Why do we think there are so few women in technology roles in IT as a whole? What are the barriers to hiring more women into technology roles?The main reason cited here again was lack of role models, especially for technical roles, which I definitely agree with. I read the phrase “What you cannot see, you cannot be” in a related article recently, and it stuck with me as a very good description of this problem.

A number of my interviewees mentioned the challenge of recruitment. As women, we would all like to recruit more women to redress the gender balance, but there are so few to recruit! I’ve hired quite a lot of people over the past few years and despite wanting to, as well as getting the best person for the job, I haven’t hired many women at all. I did a rough calculation and it looks like around 16% of those I’ve hired in the last 10 years are women. This is very close to the national average of women in tech jobs, which is apparently 17% according to my research. I haven’t gone out of my way to hire women, just hoped each time that I would find a woman who was a great fit for each job. But with the large majority of CVs landing in my inbox being from men, statistics win out in the end.

Do we think that things have improved for women in technology over the last 10 years?The trend of the answers here is that

we are seeing less overt sexism and discrimination, and more acceptance of women in technology roles, however, it feels to some of us that there are even fewer of us around. And unfortunately, my research on this point seems to back this up – the study parameters and results vary, but at absolute best it looks like the numbers of women in IT have remained static for the last 10 years.

What do we think women can bring to technology teams?The thinking here is that women can bring the same to technology teams as they can to any type of organisation. Bringing different strengths and styles can only benefit a team overall. Some of the more typically female strengths such as listening well, building consensus, conscientiousness, and being detail-oriented were specifically called out

Whether you believe there

are fundamental gender differences

here or not, the bottom line is that given the

small numbers of women in Financial Technology at this level, it inevitably

means that to a large extent we end up being women in

a man’s world.

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Women in Fintech

here as being valuable in all teams.

What can we do to improve the prospects for women in IT and increase the numbers of women in technology roles?Again, the idea of positive role models came up here, and an encouragement to focus on representing women positively in all forms of related media. Promoting women speakers at conferences and mentoring of young women were also mentioned.

From the research I’ve done whilst writing this article, it seems that the problems stem from quite early on in girls’ education. Very few girls are choosing to study computer science, and this seems to be because of social conditioning, starting from the types of toys they are given to play with. I’ve come across many fantastic organisations focusing on fostering interest in technology in girls and young women, with the aim of encouraging more women to study IT related degrees and enter technology careers, which will hopefully improve things over time. I also wonder if opening up more graduate trainee schemes to those from non-numerate disciplines could also help to redress the balance in the short term here, while we work on improving the situation at an earlier stage.

What advice would we give to women starting out in a career in Financial Technology?My colleagues mostly talked about the importance of hard work, focus, commitment, thorough learning and study, preparation, and getting involved in technology projects early. Sue gave very practical advice such as “reading up on theory, working on open source projects, answering questions on forums and programming sites, and presenting on technical topics at conferences, to people in your workplace or where you study.”

This all seems like very sound advice to me, but what struck me are the reasons some of the women gave for all this thorough preparation. “This should give you the confidence to hold your own… and to try and make your voice be heard” and “Learn the subject matter thoroughly so you can be confident of your knowledge. There is no better way to earn respect.”

I can’t help but feel we’re all having to try a little too hard here. I’d really like to do an experiment and ask a group of men in Financial Technology what advice they would give to men starting out in their career and see what the answers are. In fact, I feel another article coming on… HS

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Women in Fintech

When I’m asked about what can be done to increase the visibility of women in this industry, in my industry, I can’t help but feel like we’re fighting the wrong fight.

The championing of successful, talented and powerful women shouldn’t be a specific initiative, it should be proactively integrated, in a workplace

that naturally identifies and celebrates its diversity and allows women to flourish.

We’ve worked hard at Level39 to bring women to the forefront of the technology conversation, and we’re a better place for it.

We’re proud to boast that out of 553 members, 110 are women, many of them really pushing the boundaries of FinTech, retail tech and future cities technology in London, if not the world. We support Code First Girls which breaks down the tech barriers - over 170 women have gone through the program in two years.

We’re proud, but it isn’t enough. Hard work and graft helped us to reach this goal, and it’s that same work ethic which will propel us to lead the conversation of diversity in technology.

It was I who was once confused for a personal assistant by one of our members, a confusion I’ll never forget. It was that mistake, if driven by ignorance or sexism, that I keep in the back of my mind as I continue to negotiate deals with some of the world’s biggest organisations. Now I’m proud to announce I’ve initiated partnerships with the world’s largest banks, Swift, IBM, UBS, Thomson Reuters and The World Economic Forum.

Are we fighting the wrong fight?

Adizah Tejani | Head of Ecosystem Development, Level39

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Women in Fintech

The list is long and it will continue to grow. A list that exists only because a woman dared to execute and deliver in this male-dominated industry.

To circle back to my initial point, spotlighting women for being women does nothing to change the most crucial tenet of Level39. We are proud of our ability to deliver results, to deliver growth. It isn’t about being a woman here, it’s about being in an environment that constantly pushes us to deliver, and to deliver quality.

From the birth of Level39, we’ve been selective of our mentors, our investors and our companies. We’ve had over 1000 applications but have turned away many, as they just

they didn't fit the Level39 ethos.

Do I need to be around successful women in order to continue achieving? While some may say yes, I wouldn’t agree. Some of the greatest advocates in my professional career have been men, and our head, Eric Van der Kleij, is a perfect example of this.

His attention to detail, drive and quality is a consistent reminder and inspiration to me - he looks beyond gender, class and creed. It is your ability to deliver which means the most to him, and to me.

It is this open mindset which we should advocate across the industry, not just the championing of women. The ability to put aside superficial differences, and to expect one thing only. Success.

There isn’t a lot I can say that we’re lucky for here at Level39 - everything we’ve achieved has been a labour of love over the past two years. Our growth, our reputation, our members and our ecosystem. If there’s anything I can be thankful for, it’s the great women and men I’m surrounded by every day. HS

Hard work and graft helped

us to reach this goal, and it’s

that same work ethic which

will propel us to lead the

conversation of diversity in technology.

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Women in Fintech

Over the last decade the financial markets industry has experienced significant regulatory upheaval. We have witnessed a new approach to supervising financial institutions, with regulators moving from a “light touch” approach to an “interventionist” one.

This new regulatory landscape has levelled the playing field and acted as an incubator for innovation.

And more recently we’ve seen a proliferation of FinTech start-ups. The UK has housed a latent FinTech scene for a long time, dominated by peer-to-peer lending companies. But recently this has rapidly expanded to other areas including payments and investing.

It’s clear that the architecture of the financial markets is being rapidly re-engineered. And innovative technology is playing an increasingly pivotal role in this process. In fact, according to research by PwC in 2014, 86% of bank CEOs felt that technological advances are poised to have the greatest impact on banking.

But FinTech start-ups face many barriers to entry when trying to introduce new solutions to large financial institutions. Their small size creates challenges around market adoption, delivery and meeting the stringent contractual or compliance expectations of large financial institutions.

It is clear that smart start-ups are a growing source of innovation for the global financial

The FinTech revolution heads for the clouds

Alexandra Foster | Global Head of Strategy & Business Development, Financial Technology Services, BT

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Women in Fintech

markets industry. But how do they get the scale and flexibility to deliver services into major financial institutions?

One way is to join an established, specialist, secure financial cloud community. These communities bring together brokers, institutions, exchanges and clearing and settlement houses from around the world. Through a single, resilient and secure network connection, members can reliably access applications and services from a range of solution providers.

Reach for cloudFinTech start-ups that join one of these communities can enjoy the established benefits of cloud technology, such as scalability and speed to market for their solutions. With a ready-to-exploit market reach FinTech companies of all sizes can grow quickly. To do this, FinTech companies should host their applications and services in data centres, or on the growing range of cloud computing services connected to an established financial cloud community.

In addition to that, FinTech companies should keep in mind the commercial, compliance and service level agreements expected by major financial institutions. Smart start-ups should look for simple and proven models from cloud community providers. These could include both managed hosting and connectivity services delivered separately or as a seamless bundle, with in-built security and resilience, to deliver the 100 per cent availability expected by their clients.

The blend of cloud and FinTech innovation is both exciting and enticing. The right combination could provide new routes for the global financial institutions to address increasing regulatory demands, drive efficiencies and identify new opportunities for growth. At the same time it would provide the increased visibility and direct market access for the FinTech companies, eliminating these two traditionally major hurdles in their way to success. HS

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For more information, please contact: Toby Babb at Harrington Starr

T: 0203 002 2850 F: 0207 022 1750 E: toby.babb@harringtonstarr.com

Harrington StarrCompany Registration

Number: 7246003Company Headquarters:

Vintners Place 68 Upper Thames Street

London, EC4V 3BJCompany Telephone Number:

0203 587 7007Company Email:

info@harringtonstarr.comCompany Registered Address:

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Thames, Surrey, KT2 7HG.

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About

Imagine if you had a Recruitment partner whose purpose was to help you grow.

Imagine if you had a Recruitment partner that believed better people made by better clients, better candidates and better people.

Imagine if you had a Recruitment partner that cared as much about putting the right people into the right businesses, as they did about investing back into the community they belonged.

You can!

Harrington Starr. Your Success, Our Business.

In 2010 we launched Harrington Starr and over the past five years we have become the Global Leaders in Financial Services and Commodities Technology recruitment, insight, events & consultancy. Delivering high quality opportunities for professionals on a permanent, retained, contract, and interim basis, to over 500 partners within the sector.

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OVER 500 OF THE WORLD’S LEADING COMPANIES IN FINANCIAL SERVICES AND COMMODITIES TECHNOLOGY TRUST

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