Fintech sector directs Diana Avila to women

Featured Sponsor

Store	Link	Sample Product
UK Artful Impressions	Premiere Etsy Store

閱讀中文版本

Exclusively for HRO, Diana Avila, Global Head of Banking and Expansion, Wise, shares her experience, vision and advice for women looking to develop their careers in the fintech industry.

After moving from Colombia to London what drives Diana Avila, Global Head of Banking and Expansion, Wisemoving from the legal world to the financial sector is the desire to be firsthand in solving problems.

“I worked as a lawyer for four years in Colombia. My role was mostly advising financial companies looking to enter the Colombian market,” recalls Avila. “I felt like I was so many layers removed from having a direct impact on building things.”

While studying for a master’s degree in London eight years ago, Avila came across Wise when she was having trouble sending money to Colombia to pay off a student loan. What he resonates with her is the fintech company’s mission: money without borders; to make the movement of money across borders as simple, cheap, transparent and fast as they would locally.

“My primary motivation was to be closer and firsthand to this issue, to see how companies like Wise were innovating and bringing better products to customers and building those solutions for customers instead of being more in a background consulting role.”

As a woman working in a traditionally male-dominated industry, Avila admits that sometimes the barriers are internal.

“I tend to be the only woman in the room in different situations,” Avila says frankly. “This can be difficult because it takes a few seconds to find your voice and build confidence.” But that doesn’t mean that women can’t speak as loud as, or even louder than, men.

Speaking exclusively to HRO extensionit’s Tracy ChanAvila shares her vision of empowering women at Wise and her advice to other women who are looking to develop their careers in finance or fintech.

Q: Having grown up and studied in Colombia and now moved to London, what is the difference between working/living in both countries? How did your early life in Colombia influence your approach to working at Wise?

My experience working as a lawyer in Colombia was 100% focused on the Colombian regulatory environment. It was very much about a jurisdiction and a set of rules and a regulator. At Wise, the biggest difference is the global exposure of my role and the company: understanding the regulatory environment of 20 or more countries, building experience and making comparisons between what we’ve seen in different countries, and constantly learning and leveraging that knowledge to approach a new country.

I don’t know if it’s just because we grew up in Colombia, as we tend to be quite approachable, loving and relationship building, or how much it’s actually guided by my mother’s example – she is the most amazing and fearless woman I’ve known . I think a key aspect is the ability to literally talk to anyone, without being afraid or shy, and being able to build truthful and impactful connections. Sometimes when you build a team, talk to the CEO, or talk to outside regulators or banks, if you’re able to build these meaningful connections, to explain our mission and why we’re solving this problem, you’ll be able bring them on board and lead these changes.

Q: The financial sector is traditionally dominated by men, what challenges and barriers have you faced and how do you deal with these challenges?

Part of my role is meeting with banks and regulators from around the world to explain what Wise does and understand what they want to see from us to continue expanding our product offering into new markets. One of the challenges that I faced early on, and am still facing many times, is that I tend to be the only woman in the room in many situations. This can be difficult because it takes a few seconds to find your voice and build confidence.

Over the years, the time to build trust has shortened quite significantly, and now it becomes more natural as I recognize that although the situation is still very male dominated, that doesn’t mean my voice isn’t as loud or even louder. stronger than theirs because they are here to solve a problem for our customers.

We are so clear about the mission, we give purpose to these conversations and make them relatable, and so there is no fear or imposter syndrome in being the only woman and trying to drive those beliefs.

Q: What is the most impactful campaign or initiative that Wise has implemented to create a more diverse workplace?

At Wise, we now have 5,000 total people who are 49% female, basically a 50:50 split. Particularly for male dominated roles such as on the product side, we have been increasing the female proportion for years and today over 40% of our product managers are female.

We are very proud to see the diverse division we already have at Wise – not just in terms of women and men in the workforce, but also in country of origin – we have 117 nationalities of people spread across Wise offices around the world. We’re building a product that needs to be diversified to solve problems in many different countries, and we need to talk to banks and regulators around the world. It’s interesting how we can drive that internally by a diverse team.

One of the initiatives we have at Wise is what we call “WiseWomenCode‘. We support the training of early stage women to develop their skills as software developers. We have also implemented a program in London and Tallinn where we get women and non-binary people who are just starting out in the industry to join Wise for a week to learn what it’s like to work in the company and work with the tech team to deliver some of the product. What they can get is not only experience in technical work, but also exposure to working with others in a team to build their confidence.

Another initiative that I have been carrying out for a couple of years is ‘Wise Women in Social’. One thing I’ve learned, and maybe referencing these aspects of sometimes being the only woman in the room, is that it’s so important for us to build strong bonds among women and support each other. We need a safe space to talk about our areas of development and what we’re struggling with, and ultimately be able to network with other women. We try to have these relaxing social events at least once a quarter. We invite external speakers and do Q&A most of the time, then we network among women, providing a space for women to share their experiences.

Q: As a female leader, what changes would you like to introduce in the finance sector?

The first aspect is specifically the product itself. The key change I want to make in the financial sector is to make finance fairer and more transparent for all through new products and innovation. Today, people and businesses move around £11 trillion across borders and lose around £180 billion a year to hidden fees. At Wise, we’re saving clients £1.5bn every year in fees, so there’s still a long way to go to fix this huge problem.

The second aspect is more about culture: how we can build diverse teams and foster a more inclusive culture at work. Obviously I would like to incentivize more women to enter the financial sector. For me, not only have I joined, but I continue to have the power to make decisions to drive change.

We have several technical education programs for women. As an engineering and product driven organization, we have seen how these teams tend to be more male dominated. This is why we are investing and putting our efforts into helping and supporting more women to train as engineers, and also by opening up some ways for them to experience work at Wise, try building products, and make decisions to continually motivate them to join to the fintech industry.

Q: Looking to the future, what types of talents and skills are most needed for Wise’s international expansion?

The problem we are looking for is how people manage finances internationally. This means that we have to be present all over the world, not just in one or two countries. Therefore, we need the ability to identify and understand the local particularities of each market, including different regulatory requirements, how different payment systems work, how we can build a product on top of them, and how we can integrate them as part of the products we are building in Wise.

Secondly, from a skills perspective, we expect and incentivize people to be very autonomous and absolutely empowered. I truly believe that the people closest to the problem are best placed to make decisions and drive change.

More traditional companies tend to be more top-down driven where a big boss or a few committees decide very specifically what needs to be done in each country or in each division of the company. In Wise’s case, we have a culture that empowers people to make decisions.

Q: Any advice to share with other women who are looking to develop their careers in finance or fintech?

The first, which has been very helpful in my case, is finding a company and product that you truly relate to and believe in. This is what has motivated me for so many years and makes me really proud of what we have achieved so far at Wise.

Secondly, as women, we may sometimes hold back or fall into imposter syndrome. We are not sure if it is correct to say what is on our mind at some point. Leave those fears behind and be fearless! This takes work and sometimes doesn’t come naturally. I think it’s important to clearly define and develop these goals and be intentional about them.

The third piece of advice is to always keep learning and developing skills. Specifically, in the fintech sector, things move very fast. In the case of Wise, there have been cases where I learned about this particular product and spent many months understanding the regulatory environment in country A, but two weeks or even two months later, we are already thinking about another product or we are looking to expand to country B.

You must have the ability to change. Keep an open mind as if every day were the first day. Be open to continuing to learn and challenge yourself.

Q: Any big plans in Wise or personal plans in the next couple of years?

At Wise, we intend to continue to focus on our mission and continue our expansion in the APAC region in particular. Personally I am very excited. From a team building perspective, we will continue to engage with more people who are willing to come to the technology and join forces to lead Wise’s mission. For example, in Singapore, we now have 400 people and we will continue to grow our team by inviting more female engineers to join us. A more diverse team brings better products that we will be able to deliver to customers.

---

Thanks for reading our story! Please leave us a comment if you like our content – take ours 2023 Readers Poll here.

---

Photo / Provided