Women in Finance

Inclusive Innovation in Banking, Lessons of Leadership and Mentorship for Women in Finance, Build Confidence to Become a Great Leader - Shail Deep, Chief Product Officer for TransUnion May 30, 2022

Shail Deep joined TransUnion in 2019 as Chief Product Officer. With over 20 years’ experience across retail banking and technology consulting, Shail’s role involves fuelling new product innovation, ensuring robust product quality and delivery, sourcing and incorporating new data assets and delivering valuable analytics insights and solutions.

Previously Shail spent 16 years at HSBC, where she was Global Head of Strategic Partnerships and Innovation for HSBC Retail Banking and Wealth Management. Shail has held various leadership roles across cards, payments, risk, fraud, loyalty and proposition development spanning the UK, US, Hong Kong and Malaysia. Prior to HSBC, she worked with Citigroup (India) and i2 technologies (US).

Shail holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

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Authenticity as the Key to Great Leadership, Entrepreneurship and Startups as Empowerment Tools, Meaningful Connections, Supporting Women Fundraise and Disrupt the Tech Space - Lisa-Marie Fassl, Co-Founder of Female Founders May 30, 2022

Lisa-Marie Fassl is the co-founder and CEO of Female Founders, Europe’s fastest growing community of female entrepreneurs. Lisa and her co-founder, Nina Wöss, set up Female Founders to empower women to start and scale ventures, as well as to tap into wider pools of leadership opportunities. Female Founders’ core accelerator program is now the go-to accelerator for women entrepreneurs looking for a comprehensive and inclusive program ranging topics from finance to mental health. Lisa is also a member of the Austrian Angel Investors Association, which she also led for a while. Since 2020, Lisa is a Member of the Startup Committee of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs.

Lisa is truly a role model with an enviable sense of purpose, energy, and authenticity. In this conversation, we unpack Lisa’s own personal and professional journey to becoming the supporter of women entrepreneurs in Europe and of startups in Austria.

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Embedded Finance, Lifestyle Banking, and Other Fintech Trends, To Be Inspired Be Inspiring, Use Stereotypes to Your Advantage, Honest Advice for Entrepreneurs - Elif Ulbrich, Founder of Contextual Solutions Apr 04, 2022

Elif Ulbrich is the co-founder of Contextual Solutions, a Berlin-based strategy consultancy, coaching and publication agency focused on fintech and legaltech. Elif and her team help entrepreneurs, SMEs, and corporations enter the ecosystem and strengthen their positions in the market by outsourcing the necessary tools and ideal or by facilitating connections to the network of experts. Elif is an avid avocate for diversity and digitization across industries. Elif was trained as a banking lawyer in Turkey before embarking on a discovering journey in the work of business and fintech in Germany.

There are so many aspects that resonate with me in Elif’s story, from pursuing her passion for technology outside of the bounds of her university training, to taking a leap and moving halfway across Europe to Germany, but what I find most inspiring is how Elif used curiosity, pragmatism, and commitment to high-quality work to build Contextual Solutions and serve her clients.

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Forward Looking Green Investing, The Time Value of Carbon, Why Geography, Product and Industry are The Most Important Aspects in Your Career - Gabriela Herculano, CEO and Co-Founder of iClima Earth Feb 14, 2022

Gabriela Herculano is the co-founder and CEO of iClima Earth, a leading green fintech that focused on helping investors find climate champions, i.e. listed companies that can decarbonise the planet. Gabriela has been an investor in the renewable energy space for many years and today she shares her journey from starting off as a financial analyst in Brazil to pioneering the impact green fintech space and launching the first equity benchmark composed of Climate Champions or listed securities that can help the world transition to a carbon neutrality. We also talk about activism and Gabriela’s lessons learned along her illustrious career which saw her speak at the COP26 in Glasgow.

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Breaching the Glass Ceiling with a Continuous Learning Mentality, Hard Work, and a Good Network - Margaret Reid, Senior Portfolio Manager at Union Bank Feb 07, 2022

Margaret Reid is the Senior Portfolio Manager at The Private Bank at Union Bank. Margaret manages a broad array of investment portfolios on behalf of high-net-worth clients, trusts, foundations, and non-profit organizations. She works with a team of specialists in The Private Bank, and exclusive part of Union Bank, to provide wealth planning, investments, risk management, trust and estate services, and banking advice to clients and advisors.

Across her career, Margaret has been committed to supporting and empowering women both as growing and unstoppable economic force and as upcoming leaders in the investment industry. In this conversation Margaret shares her inspiring yet challenging journey into the world of finance and how she overcame numerous obstacles with persistence, hard work, and a continuous improvement mentality. Margaret also speaks about how she uses her role at the Private Bank to help women address their distinct financial needs.

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Launching Asia's First Financial Education Platform for Women, Thriving as Remote Entrepreneurs, Enabling Women to Invest with and behind Other Women - Tanya Rolfe, Nicole Denholder, co-founders of Sophia Jan 31, 2022

Tanya Rolfe and Nicole Denholder are the co-founders of Sophia, a newly launched platform dedicated to helping women manage their wealth and learn about investing. Sophia is the first platform taking a gender lens in financial education and inclusion in Asia. Both Tanya and Nicole have channeled their wealth of experience as investors (at Her Capital and Next Chapter Ventures) and advisors in and to women and women-led businesses.

In this conversation, Tanya and Nicole make the case for women looking for women angel investors. We also talk about Tanya’s and Nicole’s own challenges and lessons learned as female investors in Asia and the founding story of Sophia.

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Follow your Passion but Say No, Operational Finance Best Practices - Katerina Nichols, Principal at Torq Partners Nov 22, 2021

Katerina Nichols wears several hats: interim chief financial officer, head of finance, controller, operational finance consultant, and Principal at Torq Partners, a Berlin-based consultancy and solution provider for building and optimising operating processes with a specialisation on the office of the CFO.

Katerina has a wealth of experience and knowledge around financial processes and solutions, having worn multiple hats across her career from investment controller to interim CFO. Katerina’s path in the industry was serendipitous but she discovered her passion for finance on the job.

Katerina’s story is one of passion and resiliency in the face of unwelcoming cultures within finance and certain companies. We talk about personal lessons learned but also best practice operational finance structures for entrepreneurs and founders.

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Hedge Fund Veteran Investor and Portfolio Manager, Author of Damsel in Distressed - Dominique Mielle Nov 08, 2021

Dominique Mielle has spent 20 years as distressed bond investor, partner and senior portfolio manager at Canyon Capital, a $25bn hedge fund. Dominique was one of the very few hedge fund managers in the world when she retired from Canyon in 2018.

In her memoir Damsel in Distressed published on September 7, 2021, Dominique offers more than just her insider view into the world of hedge funds – through her memoir, Dominique sets precedence for women who want a career investing and feel there is no way they can break into the boys club which is largely still the finance industry. The first memoir by a woman hedge fund manager, Damsel in Distressed is a witty account of Dominque’s accession through the ranks of hedge fund investing with all its challenges and awkwardness.

In this conversation we talk about Dominique’s rise to be Canyon’s first female investment partner, why she wrote her recently published memoir and what is the unwritten message behind it, and the decline of hedge funds.

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First Female Credit Trader at Citi on Outsourced Trading - Meghan Siripurapu, Head of Credit and Fixed Income at Meraki Global Advisors Oct 29, 2021

Meghan Siripurapu is the Head of Credit and Fixed Income at Meraki Global Advisors, a leading outsourced trading platform servicing hedge funds, family offices, traditional asset managers, and corporates. Meghan started her career in investment banking focusing on fixed income capital markets and witness the Global Financial Crisis from the trading floor of Citi Bank in New York. She later moved to Loomis, Sayles and Company as a bond trader, before joining Meraki in April 2021.

In this interview, Meghan speaks about the early days as a fixed income trader and her career progression on Wall Street. We also talk about outsourced trading, an ever more relevant topic to increasingly digitized, post-COVID-19 pandemic world.

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Skill-building Approach to your Dream Career and Why Every Woman Should Learn About Investing with Andrea Fernandez, Co-Founder of Vitamin Oct 04, 2021

Andrea Fernandez is the Co-founder and CEO of Vitamin, a financial platform focusing on providing women with guidance and tools to manage their wealth. Vitamin launched earlier this year and offers online courses aimed to build financial knowledge. Before starting Vitamin, Andrea had an illustrious career spanning from equity research analyst on Wall Street to Chief Merchandising Officer at FreshDirect, to Head of European Corporate Strategy at Allianz in Germany.

In this conversation we unpack Andrea’s impressive career which led to the founding of Vitamin. We also speak about her experience crossing the Atlantic and moving to Germany and beginning a career in a new country. It was fun to hear about Andrea’s own cultural discoveries once in Germany but what I enjoyed most was learning how Andrea is building Vitamin to be the platform of choice for women looking to learn more about managing and investing their money.

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Trends in Global Private Equity and Venture Capital and Advice for Breaking into Private Equity or Venture Capital from INSEAD Professor Claudia Zeisberger Sep 20, 2021

Claudia Zeisberger is the Senior Affiliate Professor of Decision Sciences and Entrepreneurship & Family Enterprise at INSEAD Business School. Claudia Zeisberger is a published Author and Founder of the INSEAD PE & VC centre (GPEI). Before joining INSEAD in 2005, she spent 16 years in global investment banking.

Professor Zeisberger is actively involved in entrepreneurial ecosystems globally and devotes a significant amount of her time to mentor early stage companies; she was recently invited to join Google Startup Accelerator SEA as an industry mentor.

In this conversation, we unpack Claudia’s insights on the global Venture Capital and Private Equity landscape. Claudia shares her teaching approach to private equity and advice to MBA students trying to break into the industry.

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New CEO in Times of Crisis with Jennifer Palmer, Gerber Finance Aug 30, 2021

Jennifer Palmer is the Chief Executive Officer of Gerber Finance Inc., a bespoke asset-based lending solutions provider fo high-growth companies. Jennifer became CEO on January 1st 2020, a few weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic engulfed the world. Listen to Jennifer speak about her lessons learned from being the new CEO in times of crisis.

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Secrets of Couples That Work with Jennifer Petriglieri, INSEAD Associate Professor Aug 03, 2021

Jennifer Petriglieri is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour at INSEAD where she also directs the Executive Education Management Acceleration Program, the Women Leaders Programme and the INSEAD Gender Diversity Programme.

An award-winning researcher and teacher, Jennifer has been investigating how individuals craft and sustain their personal and professional identities in contexts characterized by uncertainty, such as mobile careers or organizations and professions in crisis. You can learn about the findings of her research in Jennifer’s book, Couples That Work. Published in 2019, the book explores how working or dual-career couples can thrive in love and at work. The book is full of practical tools which stretch beyond just agreeing who does the dishes.

In this conversation we unpack some of the insights from the book, while learning more about Jennifer’s own journey to academia.

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Why all Skills are Relevant for a Successful Career in Finance with Alexandra McGuigan Jul 12, 2021

Alexandra McGuigan is the Global Development Director for 100 Women in Finance, formerly known as 100 Women in Hedge Funds, a global industry association for professionals who work in the alternative investment and broader finance industry. You can hear Alexandra speak about the commendable and very ambitious mission of the organization, and also about her own work with fund managers in the industry to help advance those goals.

A sales and marketing strategist with a specialisation in alternative investments, Alexandra has successfully helped international fund managers navigate and develop a presence in the APAC region, raising over $2.5 billion AUM from institutional investors. Based in Singapore, but a native Australian, Alexandra priorly held senior roles at Tribeca Investment Partners, SHED Enterprises, and Investec, where she was responsible for developing and implementing sales and marketing strategy for products and new business opportunities. Alexandra started her career in Asset Management at BNY Mellon Asset Management. She is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst and a CAIA Singapore Chapter Executive.

I very much enjoyed speaking with Alexandra about 100 Women in Finance, the institutional investing landscape in Australia. Alexandra shared valuable insights on how to draw on all skills you have, such as communication and acting, to build a successful career in finance, and why learning what you do not want to do is just as important if not more than learning what you do want to do.

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Keys to a Successful Career in Finance and Lessons Learned from Global Financial Crises with Pilar Junco Jun 28, 2021

Pilar Junco is a Managing Partner and the Chief Strategy and Client Officer at Altamar, a leading global asset manager based in Europe and the largest one in Spain. Before joining Altamar and relocating to her native Spain in 2019, Pilar spent 13 years with Blackstone in London where most recently she was a Senior Managing Director and Head of the EMEA and APAC Private Wealth Management and Retail business. Earlier in her career Pilar worked at the Financial Times, JP Morgan and the Boston Consulting Group.

In our conversation Pilar shares how being perseverant, hard-working, and proactive opens new learning and advancement opportunities at each step of your career. Pilar shares several valuable insights, including two major lessons learned that are bound to occur in the aftermath of a major crisis affecting the industry.

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The Journey in between being a Macroeconomist, Hotelier, and Writer with Oana Aristide Jun 17, 2021

Oana Aristide, a macroeconomist by background who started her career at the Romanian Central Bank where she also worked with the office of the Romanian Prime Minister. She has worked as Chief Economist at Dun & Bradstreet in London before leaving it all to manage a boutique eco-hotel on the island of Syros in Greece. As if the refurbishment project of turning a heritage villa into a hotel would not have been challenging enough, the global pandemic delayed the formal opening of Hotel Aristide by one season to the 2021 summer season.

Oana is also a published author, with her debut novel (Under the Blue) being published by Serpents Tail in March 2021. A page-turning climate dystopian novel, Under the Blue is a literally thriller about a pandemic and the rise of AI.

In our conversation we follow Oana’s journey from a Romanian emigrant growing up in Sweden, to being a macroeconomist in Romania and London, to being a hotelier and a published novelist. We talk about what it means to lead the refurbishment project behind Hotel Aristide during a global pandemic, which is incidentally one of the main themes of Oana’s first book.

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University Endowment Investing and Mentorship in Finance Careers with Lois Cox May 24, 2021

Lois Cox is the Chief Investment Officer of the KSU Foundation, where she leads the investment team of the endowment pool of her Alma Mater the Kansas State University. Lois has spent over 30 years in investment management working with endowment, insurance, pension, and family office investors.

In our conversation, Lois shares insights into endowment portfolio management and fund manager selection. We also talk about mentorship, why it’s helpful and more importantly how to get access to mentorship-like guidance.

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Private Equity and Venture Capital Fund-of-Funds Investing with Lai-Song Man Apr 27, 2021

Lai-Song Man is a senior investment professional at CAM Alternatives, a partner-led investment management firm focused on alternative assets and headquartered in Cologne, Germany. With over €4.5bn assets under management and a team of 40, CAM Alternatives offers a range of products from comingled funds to bespoke solutions.

Lai-Song gives an insight into the firm’s investment philosophy and speaks about how both emerging and established fund investments are evaluated. We also talk about personal and professional lessons learned and Lai-Song provides some excellent reading recommendations.

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Impact Investing and Global Multi Asset Portfolio Management Insights from Alifia Doriwala Apr 13, 2021

Alifia Doriwala is a Managing Director and Partner at RockCreek, a leading global investment management firm that applies data-driven technology and innovation to investing. Alifia is a member of the firm’s Investment Committee, co-CIO on multi asset class portfolios and is involved in portfolio management, asset allocation and investment decisions across alternative and traditional asset classes. An active investor, she sources, directs, and manages relationships with top-quartile public and private investments on behalf of endowments, foundations, and pension funds. Building on a life-long interest in advancing mission-oriented work, Alifia integrates impact, ESG, and diverse investment opportunities across various portfolios managed by RockCreek.

A key topic in our conversation is impact investing and Alifia shares valuable insights on working with institutional investors and on measuring impact across the portfolio. We also discuss the importance of internships as means to deep your toes into unknown waters, maybe such as finance and institutional investing.

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Early Stage Venture Capital Investing and Lessons Learned from Entrepreneurship with Jenny Lefcourt Feb 04, 2021

Jenny Lefcourt is a General Partner at Freestyle Capital, a San Francisco-based seed-stage venture capital firm. As an entrepreneur, operator, board member, advisor and investor, Jenny has worked in and around tech companies for the past 20 years. Jenny is a co-founder of the AllRaise, a nonprofit initiative dedicated to accelerating the success of female founders and funders towards a more prosperous and equitable future.

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Hedge Fund Investing and Finance Career Insights with Nadine Terman Feb 01, 2021

Nadine Terman is the Founder, CEO and CIO of Solstein Capital, LLC. Nadine oversees both investment and operations functions and leads the firm as a Managing Member. With over twenty-five years of experience, Nadine manages tactical, global portfolios for institutional, family office and high net worth clients.

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