Women in FinTech

The FinTech industry (Financial Technology) is continuously evolving with advances in revolutionary technologies. The sector has come a long way when the first credit card with a magnetic stripe introduced in 1966. As the world reached the digital age, fintech services have significantly adapted to digitally, delivering convenient and cheaper access to financial services to millions of consumers. As the financial services sector has made its way ahead of innovation, there is a considerable challenge the industry face is gender equality. Considering a report, women make up only 30 percent of the fintech workforce, 12 percent of fintech founders are women. 

In the European fintech landscape, Spain is the leading country outshining the global average (20 percent) of female representation in fintech c-suites with 25 percent, a Sifted analysis of European data suggests. The country has 57 percent of women fintech employees, and this was double the number reported the previous year, according to Spain’s 2019 study. Meanwhile, 60 percent of fintechs in Lithuania, Europe’s second-largest fintech hub, have a sizeable female workforce, with women representing at least one-third of their employees.

The number of women in fintech is expected to grow in the coming days and they have opportunities to reshape the industry. 

Here are the top 10 ingenious women in European fintech shaping the industry and paving the way for women across the world.

Anne Boden, CEO, Starling Bank

Starling is an independent, privately-owned company. It is not a part of any other bank. The company is 24 percent owned by Anne Boden, employees and ex-employees, and an employee benefits trust set up for employees. As CEO, Anne oversees the Executive Leadership Team and focuses its vision on building the best possible customer experience. She is also a member of Starling’s Board of Directors. Anne started her career at Lloyds Bank, as well as worked at Standard Chartered and UBS, before becoming Head of EMEA, Global Transaction Banking across 34 countries for RBS and ABN AMRO. Her vision for Starling is to build the best bank account in the world.

Amy Nauiokas, Founder and CEO, Anthemis Group

Amy Nauiokas, the Founder and CEO of Anthemis, is a visionary executive, investor, producer and a recognized leader in innovation, strategy, and management across a variety of markets and industries. She is also the Founder and CEO of Archer Gray, a media production and content company. As a venture capitalist, Amy identifies and invests in early stage technology companies focused on the disruption of media, financial services and marketplaces. She has built a strong investment portfolio of best-in-class, high growth companies. Currently, Amy is a board member of Flo Technologies, Matic, Arthena and Inked Brands.

Romi Savova, CEO, PensionBee

Romi Savova, CEO of PensionBee, has founded the company to simplify pension savings in the UK, following a harrowing pension transfer experience of her own. She began her career at Goldman Sachs at the height of the 2007 global financial crisis in the Credit Risk Management and Advisory Division, working in New York and London. In 2012, Romi joined Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking Division to advise major banks, insurance companies and pension providers. The idea for PensionBee came after Romi struggled to switch her pension provider on traditional platforms, and decided there had to be a better way.

Sofie Quidenus-Wahlforss, CEO, omni:us

Sofie Quidenus-Wahlforss, the CEO of omni:us, is an experienced managing director with a strong entrepreneurial spirit. She founded omni:us in 2015, which offers a suite of insurance-focused AI tools developed for claims management. Before omni:us, Sofie founded Qidenus Technologies, which quickly became the leader in the market of robotics and digitization. She is also the patent owner of the Vshape scanner Technology and winner of several awards, including The World’s Top 50 Women in Tech 2018 from Forbes magazine. Sofie’s strategic skills coupled with a passion for AI led her to create omni:us with the goal of redefining the way people work and how companies are handling their business operations.

Megan Caywood, Managing Director, Global Head of Digital Strategy at Barclays

Megan Caywood serves as the Global Head of Digital Strategy at Barclays. She holds an academic background in cognitive science research, and have worked at Xero and Intuit in the U.S. In June 2016, Megan joined Starling Bank as a chief platform officer. During her two and a half year stint at Starling, she helped in designing and rolling out Starling Bank’s flagship financial ecosystem, the Starling Marketplace, which includes an open API and an extensive range of marketplace of third-party financial services that reside within the Starling app. In January 2019, Megan joined Barclays as a Managing Director, where she now leads digital strategy across Barclays UK as well as Barclays International.

Diana Biggs, Global Head of Innovation, HSBC

As the Global Head of Innovation for HSBC Private Banking, Diana Biggs leads the testing and development of new business models, fintech partnerships and use of emerging technologies. Her team promotes an inclusive culture of innovation throughout the organisation, driving engagement, thought leadership and collaboration. Diana is also a Head Tutor for the Oxford Said Business School Blockchain Strategy Programme and a mentor for initiatives in social enterprise and diversity in business. She named as one of the top 25 fintech influencers in the UK by City AM and one of Innovate Finance’s Women in Fintech 2016 Power List.

Céline Lazorthes, Founder and CEO, Leetchi Group

Céline Lazorthes created Leetchi, a European fintech group payment application, in 2009. Céline had Leetchi's idea when she was a student. Responsible for organizing the integration weekend for her promotion, she was chasing each other to recover their participation and was forced to advance the missing sum. When she saw that no service yet existed on the Internet to simplify the collection of money, she decided to start! Céline developed the tech underpinning Leetchi into the SAAS business Mangopay, used by marketplaces and crowdfunding platforms. She is also a founding member of France Digitale, a supporter of Girls In Tech, and an active angel investor. 

Meri Williams, CTO, Monzo Bank

As an experienced technology leader, known for building and scaling technology organisations in a range of sectors including banking, ecommerce, government, telco and manufacturing, Meri Williams serves as a CTO at mobile-first challenger bank Monzo. She is a geek, a manager, and a manager of geeks. Meri is a published author and international speaker. She is also the host and co-curator of The Lead Developer conference in London, Austin and New York. Meri is also a Technology Advisor for Kindred VC, which practices equitable venture, where any entrepreneur that is backed by Kindred becomes a co-owner in the fund.

Sophie Bialaszewski, Head of Innovation Culture & Events, Lloyds Banking Group

Sophie Bialaszewski, Head of Innovation Culture & Events at Lloyds Banking Group, is passionate about making innovation everyone’s job and unleashing talent where she finds it. She built a grass roots movement by creating an innovation culture ladder of events and activities which thousands of colleagues took part in, developed an intrapreneurship programme to future proof leaders skills and was instrumental in creating the innovation ecosystem which opened up Lloyds Banking Group to a different type of collaboration. Sophie is determined to create diverse sector and is proud of her sponsorship of the Women in Fintech Power list from Innovate Finance and signing the Tech Talent Charter.

Lupina Iturriaga, Founder and CEO, Fintonic

Lupina Iturriaga, Founder and CEO, Fintonic, graduated in Business Administration and Management from CUNEF, where she obtained a scholarship for academic merits with which she showed her worth within the business and financial sector. For some time, Lupina devoted herself fully to the world of banking, first in New York and then in Madrid, where she dedicated some years to the world of treasury and commercial banking, to finally join the IDEON company as a leader in the area of financial consulting. Lupina’s professional career positions her from an early age as an expert in financial planning, along with her entrepreneurial profile, led her to found Fintonic in Spain.