In 1903, Maggie L. Walker became the first woman to charter a bank in the United States. That bank went on to earn the title of oldest continuously Black-owned bank in America until its acquisition in 2005.  

In 1967, Muriel “Mickie” Siebert became the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. 

First Lady Abigail Adams was also known for her management of family finances and investments.

And Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to open her own brokerage firm in 1870 (and, as it turns out, the first woman to run for president). 

These stories are just some of many in the line of impressive women leaders who have influenced financial services. Still, while today women make up just over half of the workforce in finance, only about 1 in 4 executives in U.S. financial services firms are women. The numbers are even lower for women of color. 

While many see fintech as an opportunity to increase diversity in financial services, today women represent only about 30% of the entire workforce in fintech, and the percentage in leadership roles is even smaller. 

In addition to the historical and societal structures contributing to this disparity, much of women’s lack of representation in fintech also relates to funding: 65% of U.S. venture capital firms still do not have any female partners, and globally more than 93% of VC deals in fintech are led by a male CEO. 

In light of these statistics, the innovation world is slowly waking up to the need for change and the benefits gender equity holds. Here are a few female fintech founders who are leading the way within the MassChallenge FinTech 2020 cohort.

1) Carla Vanderhoof, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer, addapptation

What is addapptation?

“addapptation is a user experience platform that is changing the way people work in the enterprise. We provide our customers with solutions that solve team-specific CRM pain points by leveraging UX best practices. Our platform provides customizable templates that can be updated using our low-code platform while delivering value 16x faster than traditional consulting.”

Where do you see the future of fintech headed?

“I believe the future of fintech is customer-centric. There is a current shift that focuses heavily on customer and user experience, and organizations are leaning into technology to provide an optimal digital experience. Companies that lead with empathy and focus on their customers’ journey will end up flourishing in the next five years.”

2) Jennifer Linton, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Fenris 

What is Fenris?

“Fenris identifies your best customer and eases their way through the application process for insurance and financial services products. Within seconds, our scores provide insight into propensity to buy, lifetime value, persistency, and profitability for incoming applicants, and our APIs also deliver pre-fill of the application form for ease, speed, and accuracy.” 

What advice would you give a fellow entrepreneur?

“My advice to any entrepreneur is to start right by focusing on the two most vital things: cash and customers. By doing the hard work of proving out some part of your grand vision first, your access to capital and great talent is enhanced. Be ready to embrace customer feedback as if they were giving you a gift to accelerate your products' fit, and don't pay too much attention to would-be competitors, because execution is a lot more important than the idea itself.”

3) Marci Lobel-Esrig, Founder & General Counsel, SilverBills

What is SilverBills?

“SilverBills receives, stores, and scrutinizes clients bills and ensures bills are paid correctly and on time. Clients no longer need to review charges, remember deadlines or process payments.”

What advice would you give a fellow entrepreneur?

“My advice would be to find a real pain point and try to come up with a solution. Early in the process, the entrepreneurial journey can be especially daunting. However, there are many resources that are intended to help female entrepreneurs. Try to participate in as many of them as possible.”

4) Sindhu Joseph, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Cognicor

What is Cognicor?

“CogniCor provides a conversational AI platform offering content-as-a-service for financial services. It can leverage your existing deployments of Adobe AEM or Oracle Knowledge Advanced and help you quickly deploy Digital Assistants for your customers, reps, and support center staff. The platform is designed for business users and helps provide a consistent experience for your clients and advisors reducing call volume and customer satisfaction.”

Where do you see the future of fintech headed?

“The financial services industry is at a tipping point — either disrupt or get disrupted. As start-ups and financial/technology firms entice new and changing customers...existing rules of production, channels of distribution, and consumption are being rewritten. Customer experience has emerged as the central focus for differentiation... We believe the cloud, AI, financial services are undergoing rapid changes on a daily basis and opening up new opportunities for entrepreneurs and innovation-minded intrapreneurs for collaboration.” 

5) Keren Moynihan, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Boss Insights

What is Boss Insights?

“In an era where tech giants have increased the expectations on the consumer front, lenders are challenged to offer complete and personalized solutions. Boss Insights’ Compound Data Platform provides a real-time understanding of the business client to lenders, enabling them to offer customer delight while accelerating loans from months to minutes and proactively offering ancillary services like deposits, cash management, treasury, foreign exchange, and group solutions.”

Where do you see the future of fintech headed?

“Our time is now. Banks, credit unions, and alternative lenders will continue to explore strategic fintech relationships to meet the challenge before them: providing mass personalization and instant gratification in a highly regulated environment. This will manifest in using big data, AI/ML, and UX/UI to anticipate business needs. As interest rates decrease, lenders will shift from a focus on deposits to ancillary services like cash management and card solutions.”

Looking Forward

Fintech has gained a reputation worldwide for shaking up how we view everything from payments to lending to investing. Now it’s time to add gender representation to that list. Women making strides in finance is not new – but now more than ever, the industry must seriously invest in the future by supporting female leaders in fintech.

Luke Lennon is Marketing and Community Manager at MassChallenge FinTech (MCFT) and is a proud ally of women in fintech/finserv. This year’s MCFT cohort is 40% female led; view all 34 start-ups.

For more information on MassChallenge FinTech and the 2020 cohort, sign up for MCFT’s newsletter and follow @MassChallengeFT on Twitter.