INCLUSION

Fintech’s gender diversity problem  

Fintech is meant to change the world, right? It’s the combination of finance and maturing tech that can evolve the culture of financial inclusion for the better.

I truly believe that. 

Here’s the thing: Fintech will only change the 🌎 when it changes itself.

And it starts with the tone at the top ↑

Instead, fintech appears to be repeating the behaviors of traditional finance:

• Of all the female executives at the world’s leading fintech firms, less than 1 in 10 sit in the CEO’s office
• Of all executives, male and female, less than 1.5% are women
• Of 1,032 fintech firms, only 16 were funded solely by women
• Women received just 1% of total fintech venture funding

Fintech clearly has a systemic gender diversity problem, but we can fix it. 

Money on the table  

A part of the problem is the relationship between founders and investors.

Within the “bros club” that is fintech, many are unaware or unable to connect with underserved groups (i.e. women and even BIPOC founders) because they never built systems at the foundation of their businesses to ensure their inner circles included them. 

That’s missed $ considering there is hard evidence that boosting women’s equality in the workplace delivers financial and performance returns: 

→ A McKinsey report showed that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national and sector median.

→ The Gender 3000 report from Credit Suisse shows a correlation between gender diversity and superior corporate and share price outperformance – a ‘diversity premium’ worth 200 basis points in generated alpha. 

→ Gender-inclusive fintechs outperform peers – for every dollar of funding received, women-founded fintechs generate 78 cents in revenue while male-founded fintechs generate just 31 cents – less than half as much value. 

Action items 

1. Design: Bake diversity into the fabric of the business at every level in every department. You can’t hit a 🎯if there isn’t one set!

2. Data: Gather metrics on customers, employees and partners as a baseline, and benchmark progress. 

3. Discipline: Commit to achieving diversity and maintaining necessary initiatives even as the business evolves and expands. Diversity is an everyday non negotiable. 

TL;DR: Thanks to this awesome report by Findexable, we can see that fintech is the tool best placed to drive economic change, but we still have a long way to go.

Progress takes time, we got this. 

Women blazing a pathway are to be celebrated and amplified. I highlighted 10 exclusively women-founded fintechs via Twitter. 

WEALTHTECH

Robo-advisers & NFTs

Fintech has given the elitist world of wealth management a serious privilege check throughout the last year (largely due to the pandemic). 

Thank goodness. 

Wealthtech (like fintech but for wealth management) is gearing up for a sea change. Fintech has barely scratched the surface with wealth management, as robo-advisers and online brokerages have largely dominated the space. 

Blockchain is an area I’m excited to see disrupt wealthtech.

→ Meet Min Zhang, co-founder of MeFi, a self-custody DeFi neobank for the international middle class who lack equal access to the global financial system.

Join us: Min, myself and Sheryl O’Connor (CEO of IncomeConductor) are speaking during the 2021 Wealth Management Excellence Series Wednesday (Dec. 1) to talk about this very topic!

We’ll explore how technology is impacting wealth management and investigate how some fintech startups are impacting the space. 

I’d love to see you there, register here!

Why it matters

→ The industry is taking notice of the young, female, BIPOC media-savvy investor that is poised to inherit $68 trillion in the greatest generational wealth transfer over the coming years.

→ Next generation of investors — also known as Gen XYZ — have different expectations of their relationship with their wealth manager, and advisers that embrace digital communication, transparency and relatability will be the ones with a competitive edge. 

→ Traditionally, wealth managers charged based on AUM which typically limited their client base to high-net-worth investors. Now, advisers are moving away from bundling the plan into the asset-based fee and charging a separate fee to open up planning for more investors.

What the experts are saying

A panel of experts during the Sifted Talks broke down why wealthtechs need to change in order to capture this valuable market share. 

In fact, they broke it down into a really awesome graphic that feels literally like everything I’ve been preaching over the last two years. Appreciate you, Sifted. 

CULTURE

Twitter’s CEO joins the Great Resignation

We all know that Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey has decided to step down as CEO and former CTO Parag Agrawal is now CEO. 

Twitter friend Packy McCormick did a great job breaking down the deets here, while addressing the innovation “funk” Twitter’s been trapped in for a bit.  

What surprised a lot of people apparently is when Jack said Twitter needs to move away from being “founder-led” 🤔

This didn’t surprise me in the slightest. Why?

→ A record 4.4 million Americans left their jobs in September, accelerating a trend that has become known as the Great Resignation. 

What’s that?

→ The phenomenon that describes record numbers of people leaving their jobs after the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Just because you’re the CEO of one of the biggest social media platforms in the world doesn’t mean you can’t want to pursue something that aligns more with your passions.

In fact, I believe good leaders know when it’s time for a change. 

PS: Twitter was smart to tap a diverse leader from within the co. 

What’s next?

The obvious prediction is that Jack is going to use all that extra time away from Twitter and put that energy into Square to amplify its crypto offerings. 

Bigger picture: I suspect to see a lot more CEOs and founders from outside the industry leave their long-time roles to pursue fintech, crypto or other digitized financial services. It’s the hot ticket in town, and everyone wants to join the ride. 🔥

WTF ELSE? 

• David Marcus (Facebook…I mean, Meta’s crypto boss) is leaving
• Mastercard acquired Arcus FI, a participant in its Start Path program
• Webull CEO on how his trading platform differs from Robinhood
• Fintech startup Slice becomes a unicorn after raising $220M
• Thought Machine hits $1 billion valuation in JPMorgan-backed funding
• Bolt makes first acquisition with Tipser and launches remote checkout
• STP Investments Services ramps up its fund services with acquisition of Tower Fund Services
• Envestnet filed for its ETFs with the SEC