FinTech industry has witnessed a positive change over recent years, with more women founding businesses and entering the world of financial technology. However, despite the rising popularity, it is still necessary to ensure that women are given the same opportunity to grow, lead their teams and operate a company. We look at how open the FinTech industry actually is for females today, and what could be done to improve the situation.
The least surprising issue that women come across when creating own business related to financial technology is the same as in most other industries. Unfortunately, a lot of female FinTech leaders have noted that they still (but especially at the beginning of their FinTech career) come across diversity issues. Despite FinTech being much more inclusive than the finance sector, prejudice still exists. “There still is a problem of sexism in business. Women, especially young ones, are usually not comprehended seriously.” — Daria Dubinina, Crassula
Female entrepreneurs note that there is a lot of room for improvement. So far, it is mostly an organization’s own initiative to recruit, promote and assign leading positions within the company with a more diversified approach. What could be done globally is restricted regulations embracing and requiring a more inclusive organizational environment. Also, successful female leaders should empower other women to be brave about their ideas, and be vocal about female success in the industry.
Daria Dubinina: “With recent events and active discussions on this topic and highlighting this problem I personally feel that the situation starts to change. It is also great to feel big support and motivation coming from Women in Tech communities in particular. We have to talk more about that, we have to inspire and support women in their beginnings, and this will lead to more successful female leaders.”
Is there an apparent competitive disadvantage (or perhaps advantage) though? Not really. At the end of the day, your business is estimated by the amount of the value that you can add and your goal is to benefit from doing business. The current prejudice towards businesswomen may not be correct, but while we are fighting for equality it would be safer to have a supportive partner alongside. “It is important to enter into the partnership negotiation at the first stage, and you are safe if your potential partner does not have prejudice about making business with women. My approach is common sense — if I feel that the potential partner might have issues in dealing with women, we send the male negotiator.”
Most successful female leaders are ready to share their support in communities that have helped them in the beginning as well. There are a lot of industry players ready to address the issue and working collaboratively to tackle it and raise awareness. “Role models are incredibly important for women to redefine the image of what a ‘fintech professional’ looks like.” Women are very accurate, precise and responsible with numbers. But women have to gain more confidence in starting their own companies.
