There are plenty of things about fintech worth celebrating, but today, in honor of International Women’s Day, we’re giving three cheers to the women in fintech!
We’re taking a special look at our most recent show, FinovateEurope, where 23% of the presenting companies were represented by a woman on stage. That’s a 50% increase from 2015, where 15% of the companies had female speakers, and a huge leap from our first event in 2007 with zero (see note 1).
So here’s to progress. And here’s to the women of FinovateEurope:
Avoka
Hali Khan, Director, Business Development
Comarch
Paulina Powązka, Sr. Business Solutions Consultant
CREALOGIX
Eszter Vass, Sr. Product Strategy & Presales Consultant
Dorsum
Reanta Stein, Business Development Director
ebankIT
Diana Winstanley, Business Developer
EyeVerify
Tinna Hung, Director, Marketing
GainX
Angelique Mohring, CEO & Founder
Horizn
Janice Diner, CEO, Founding Partner
ICAR
Mariona Campmany, CMO
ITSector
Patricia Soares, Business Developer
Mitek
Sarah Clark, General Manager, Identity
nCino
Trisha Price, EVP, Product Development & Engineering
Swaper
Iveta Brūvele, CEO, and Elīna Rasmane, COO
Trustly
Märta Viberg, Head of Product & Consumer Risk
Wealthify
Michelle Pearce, Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer
Xignite
Vanessa Gatihi, Global Head, Customer Success
Editor’s Note: While sadly it’s true that no women were on stage during the 20 demos of the first Finovate. One company, iPay Technologies, was founded by Dana Bowers, but she chose not to speak that day. And Finovate might not even exist if it wasn’t for Melanie Flanagan, then Marketing Manager at Yodlee (also co-founded by a woman), who was the first person to agree to demo. Finally, Susan Hawkins, then SVP at Metavante, was instrumental in getting both her company and Monitise on stage. So there you have it, woman called the shots for at least 20% of Finovate v1.0’s content, even if they ended up delegating the on-stage pitching to men. Thanks Melanie, Dana and Susan! — Jim Bruene, Founder