A Few Noteworthy Women in Global FinTech (Part 1!)

Diversity and inclusion are a necessity for any organisation’s success today. The tables are turning now for women-led companies and women in technology are leading the charge of innovative developments and cutting-edge technologies in fintech.

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Here are 10 prominent women who have been role models in Fintech.

1. Vidya Peters, Chief Marketing Officer, Marqeta

Vidya Peters is the Chief Marketing Officer at Marqeta, the first global modern card issuing platform. Before joining Marqeta in 2019, Vidya led the global marketing team of MuleSoft, which consisted of over 100 people. Before MuleSoft, Vidya held various leadership roles at Intuit and was a strategy consultant at Bain & Company. Vidya received her MPA from Harvard University and MBA in marketing and finance from Kellog School of Management and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University. At Marqeta, Vidya is responsible for driving the strategy and execution of their global marketing. She is also a member of the Northwestern University Council of 100, which is a group of highly-successful female alumnae committed to furthering the careers of other Northwestern alums.

2. Kathryn Petralia, Kabbage

Kathryn Petralia is a co-founder of Kabbage, a fintech company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Kabbage is an automated lending platform that provides funding directly to small businesses and consumers. Kathryn, with her B.A in English literature from Furman University, wanted to become an English professor. However, soon she noticed her interest leaning towards lending technology and ever since has spent her career dedicated to working with companies focused on credit, payments, technology, and ecommerce. Her passion for helping small businesses has always being her priority She co-created Consumer Financial Data Rights, a consumer rights organization pushing to allow people access to their financial data through a safe platform.

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3. Cristina Junqueira – Nubank

Cristina is one of the co-founders of Nubank, a Brazilian neobank and also known to be the largest fintech in Latin America. Nubank was co-founded in 2013 and with her expertise in financial technology it became a unicorn start-up with a valuation of US $1 billion within four years of its launch.  Cristina holds her degree in BSc and MSc from the university in Sao Paulo and MBA from Nothwestern University. In 2016, Cristina received an award from Claudia, the most important female-focused award in Latin America, in the Business category. She was also recently elected by Fortune as one of the leaders under 40 that are transforming the business world.

4. Amnah Ajmal, Executive Vice President, Market Development, MEA, Mastercard

Amnah Ajmal is currently the EVP of marketing development, MEA, at Mastercard. Amnah joined Mastercard in 2015 as a Head of Products for Middle East and Africa, with a focus on driving innovation across consumer and commercial payments. Amnah started her career as a traditional banker.  Some of her previous roles entail heading the consumer bank franchise of Standard Chartered Malaysia and before Standard Chartered, she has worked in a number of positions at Citigroup. Amnah holds a master’s degree from London School of Economics and Political Science. Coming from a family where no woman worked, Amnah not only broke the glass ceiling but also was honoured to be listed as the top 100 women in Fintech across the globe, for 2019 by Lattice80 and was recognised as the top 25 women leaders in financial technology across the world by the Financial Technology Report US.

5. Emily Larkin, Chief Information Security Officer, Abrigo

Emily Larkin is the Chief Information Security Officer at Abirgo. Abrigo provides compliance, credit risk, and lending solutions and also offers advisory services. Emily is a veteran with over 25 years of experience in the information security segment. Her team at Abrigo is responsible for tech related audit and compliance initiatives, information security, risk management initiatives and more. Emily has achieved various milestones at Abrigo and has won titles like CISO of the year. Her prior experiences include leadership roles at Infosys McCamish Systems.

6. Ana Sirbu, Chief Financial Officer, BlueVine

Ana Sirbu is the Chief Financial Officer at BlueVine. BlueVine is a California based fintech company that provides online business banking and financial solutions to businesses of small and medium size. Her academic journey includes Bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard University. With an experience of more than 10 years in the field of fintech, Ana now leads BlueVine’s strategic finance, accounting, capital markets and business analytics.  In 2017, Ana was named in the Women in Fintech Powerlist, which recognizes the contributions of women professionals in the rapidly-expanding industry.

7. Rebeca Minguela, Founder and CEO, Clarity

Rebeca Minguela, is the Founder and CEO of Clarity. The tech startup Clarity, aims to solve the problem of inefficient and unequal allocation of capital by developing a universal framework and building an automated tool to rate companies.  She is also a former founder of Blink Booking, hotel booking mobile app leader in Europe. Before Clarity, Rebeca lead the Global Digital Transformation Program at Santander Bank. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, MSc in Telecommunication Engineering for Polytechnic University in Madrid and Stuttgart University. She is also an advisor at several start-ups.

8. Jeanniey Walden, Chief Innovation and Marketing Office, DailyPay

Jeanniey Walden is the Chief Innovation and Marketing Offcer at DailyPay, a leading provider of the daily pay benefit that allows employees to get instant access to their earned wages. Jeanniey holds around 30 years of experience in leadership roles across a wide range of industries leading their global marketing teams and driving their growth. Before DailyPay, Jeannniey worked with companies like Zinio, Barnes and Noble, OgilvyOne, and JCPenney. Apart from being an impactful and accomplished leader, she is also a popular keynote speaker and has contributed to various blogs, book, and articles.

9. Anna Maj,  FinTech Leader & Advisor, WBAF

Anna Maj is presently the fintech leader and advisor for World Business Angels Investment Forum. Anna has 20 years of experience in banking and payments industries. She introduced one of the first online payment gateways in EMEA region as well as the first digital wallet and mobile payment platform. Her expertise lies in the field of innovative digital payment solutions. In her former Role at PwC, she was responsible for building cooperation models between banks and fintech partners, especially with regards to the Open Banking, Payments as well as Conversational AI projects with a focus on Central Europe. Anna is the Co-Author of The PAYTECH Book and The AI Book and has been a prominent speaker at many international conferences.

10. Sheila Monroe, Chief Operating Officer, TrueAccord

Sheila Monroe is the Chief Operating Officer at TrueAccord, a digital debt recovery company that is transforming the collections experience. Before TrueAccord, Sheila was the COO of Simplicity payments at Echo Health Inc. and was also at leadership roles at Barclays Bank and Barclaycard for 10 years. Given her previous roles, Sheila brings more than 30 years of financial services and collections experience with her to TrueAccord. She has led multi-cultural teams across the US, UK, India, South Africa and parts of Europe. Sheila also has an impeccable ability to effectively navigate sensitive regulatory environments, which makes her a splendid leader that she is.

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