Women Leading The Finance Industry: Elena Volotovskaya of Softline Venture Partners On The 5 Things You Should Do To Increase Your Financial Literacy
It’s a huge mistake that we’ve made financial literacy into a skill connected to specific education or expertise in finance, when in reality it’s a matter of common sense and should be taught at schools at the same level as history and science.
As a part of our series about “Women Leading The Finance Industry”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Elena Volotovskaya.
Elena Volotovskaya is the head of Softline Venture Partners, which invests in cloud, cybersecurity, big data, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligent, regtech and fintech. SVP is the corporate venture fund of Softline, a global provider of IT-solutions and services headquartered in London. Elena has been heading the fund since 2008 and has proved the reputation of a strong leader and an investment expert. Elena’s expertise lies in Venture investments, Mergers and Acquisitions and Female leadership.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us the “backstory” about what brought you to the finance field?
I fell in love with math in my childhood. It may sound weird, but I loved solving equations and doing calculations in my mind. So, when I graduated from high school, there was no doubt in my mind about the future major. I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics with honors and in 2006, got a PhD in Economics.
I like to study. It’s a great opportunity not only to learn something new, but also to build a great network of like-minded people that can be useful in professional activities. So, I continued my studies in the US at the California State University (East Bay) and in 2008, I received my MBA.
That same year, I joined Softline. In the beginning, I managed the work with institutional investors, but later I assembled a team of great professionals and became the Head of Softline Venture Partners fund, and I’m proud to have occupied this position up until now.
During my first year as the Commercial Director, I understood that the world of finance is incredibly fast-paced. Not everyone likes it, but there are plenty of people who really enjoy this pace and the multiple daily challenges they have to face. I am one of those people.
Can you share with our readers the most interesting or amusing story that occurred to you in your career so far? Can you share the lesson or take away you took out of that story?
It’s hard to remember one particular story that taught me a life lesson, because building a career in investments, especially if you are a woman, is a heroic act in itself. During intense negotiations you have to deal with various reactions and attitudes. It is ridiculous, but women still have to prove their professionalism regardless of their experience and their position in the company.
And yet, with the help of a naturally strong intuition we can “read the air” and understand the intentions of other people. It helped me to cut my most successful deals. That’s why it’s so important to listen to yourself, act naturally in any situation, openly demonstrate your expertise, and use the soft skills to make successful deals.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
Yes, I think that IT Works business club is exactly this kind of project. It’s a non-profit association that helps startups find international investors or business angels and enter new markets. The investment focus of the platform lies in Cybersecurity, Cloud Solutions, AI, EdTech, HRTech.
Speaking about geography, South-East Asia is currently the region of our major interest. The association will provide assistance to both the startups and investors who are interested in this region.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
An extensive network of partners in more than 50 countries and work with global vendors give our portfolio companies a unique opportunity to exploit active sales channels, as well as test ideas and scale business models at the international level. Moreover, we’ve been working in the VC market for more than 14 years and have accumulated a big expertise in various segments, so now we are ready to share our experience and help entrepreneurs grow.
Ok. Thank you for all that. Let’s now jump to the main core of our interview. Wall Street and Finance used to be an “all white boys club”. This has changed a lot recently. In your opinion, what caused this change?
I am sure that women can be successful in any sphere: finance, IT, science. It has taken women quite some time to achieve certain progress, but a lot still has to be done to achieve parity.
I think these changes became possible for two reasons. First is the feminist movement when women made the public stand for their rights, such as equal career advancement opportunities, equal pay, and an opportunity work in any field. The second reason is connected with money. In order to improve their companies’ financial performance, astute leaders started conducting various studies, among them — related to diversity. For instance, McKinsey’s experts say, “Companies with more gender diversity are 21% more likely to make above-average profits, while companies with more culturally and ethnically diverse leadership teams have the potential to increase their profit by 33%.”
Today we see a growing trend for women to launch their own technological startups and investment funds. But from my point of view, female leaders still face difficulties in starting, promoting, or managing their businesses. That is why female C-levels should offer support and create more opportunities for their fellow female employees to grow.
Of course, despite the progress, we still have a lot more work to do to achieve parity. According to this report in CNBC, less than 17 percent of senior positions in investment banks are held by women. In your opinion or experience, what 3 things can be done by a)individuals b)companies and/or c) society to support this movement going forward?
I’ve heard the stereotype about women being “ineffective leaders” multiple times. But in everyday life women deal with decision making, strategic planning, and other responsibilities of a C-level manager far more frequently than men do. Calculating the family budget, following bill-paying deadlines, managing children’s schedules, balancing household chores with entertainment, achieving career goals, supporting good relations with relatives, planning vacations… So there’s definitely no such thing as a woman’s “natural disability” to lead.
Nobody is born a leader, you can only become one. So, if a woman wants to position herself as a strategic leader, first, she needs to have a strong determination. I would advise women to educate themselves and become professionals in their field with strong expertise, find the courage to make decisions and accept responsibility for the consequences, always analyze their actions, and not take failures and criticism too personally. Nobody has become a successful leader while wallowing in self-pity. Like Rocky Balboa said: If you know what you’re worth, then go out and take what you’re worth!
Companies are miniature versions of societies, so the next thing relates to both. I would advise making decisions and judgements about people based on their skills, experience, subject expertise, human qualities, cultural context, and their goals and intentions, rather than gender, sex, skin color, age, and other factors that have no influence on the quality of work. The idea is simple and logical, but it will take decades to overcome stereotypes because it requires humans to change their mindset, and this is a very slow process.
Let’s now turn to a slightly new topic. According to this report in Fortune, nearly two-thirds of Americans can’t pass a basic test of financial literacy. In your opinion or experience what is the cause of these unfortunate numbers? If you had the power to make a change, what 3 things would you recommend to improve these numbers?
The foundations of financial literacy should be established in childhood. If parents manage the family budget wisely, children can learn through positive examples and later can expect useful financial advice. It has nothing to do with investments or bank loans, but about shopping discounts, lending and borrowing money from friends and classmates, and managing pocket money in order to buy something expensive.
One only begins to understand the true value of money when one starts earning it. So it’s a great idea to offer a child an opportunity to make his/her own money. Lawn cutting, baby sitting, seasonal farming jobs, distributing flyers, helping with family business, etc. will give a teenager a way to influence personal income, plan a budget, and learn to set priorities no matter whether the purchase they are going to make is worth spending the saved money, or there’s a better way to use it.
Schools also play an important role in the development of financial literacy. During my school studies, each year we used to have a big module on making calculations with percentages and fractures. The problems we solved had an everyday life context, starting with calculations of discounts in various scenarios and ending with bank operations and loan rates when at high school.
So, if one understands the worth of money since childhood, knows how to earn it, and has learned the basic calculations with percentages and fractures at school, such a person has fewer chances of wasting big sums of money and will think carefully before taking out a bank loan.
You are a “finance insider”. If you had to advise your adult child about 5 non intuitive things one should do to become more financially literate, what would you say? Can you please give a story or example for each.
It’s a huge mistake that we’ve made financial literacy into a skill connected to specific education or expertise in finance, when in reality it’s a matter of common sense and should be taught at schools at the same level as history and science.
But if I were to give advice on effective money management, there are only two importants points to make. The first thing I would recommend is to be 100% conscious about all financial operations you make, even buying a chewing gum at the gas station. When thinking of an expensive purchase, ask yourself the following questions: do I really need the thing I’ve been collecting pocket money for or is it just a desire? If I borrow money from a friend, how much time will it take to pay it back with the current level of income? And so on. In my opinion, these questions with minor modifications are absolutely relatable to all adults.
The second recommendation may sound ridiculous, but it’s absolutely necessary: learn to use a calculator.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I’m extremely grateful to my parents. First of all, they encouraged discipline and fostered a sense of responsibility for the consequences of all my actions. If we think about outstanding people in business, art, politics, or any other sphere, they all have a high level of self-management in common and tend to follow particular rituals at work. In my opinion, this is the key to success in business, sports, family life, and personal relations as well.
A freedom of choice is the second thing I want to thank my parents for. Of course, I asked for their advice, especially when making big decisions, but there was never any pressure from them. Such an approach provided me with two valuable lessons.
- If you have the freedom to choose your own path with its ups and downs, you become more conscious and careful when taking each new step and making each new decision.
- Every choice we make is a risk that inevitably leads to certain consequences. It can be really scary to make a decision, especially if the cost of failure is high. But with every new decision you grow a risk muscle, so gradually your fears will fade.
Besides my parents, throughout my career I had met and had a chance to work with many strong professionals, and each of them taught me something and contributed to my professional growth, so it would be impossible to pick only one.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I would quote the whole Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand if I could. But the lines which I agree with most, are the following ones: “Do you know the hallmark of a second rater? It’s resentment of another man’s achievement. Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone’s work prove greater than their own — they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal — for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire. They bare their teeth at you from out of their rat holes, thinking that you take pleasure in letting your brilliance dim them — while you’d give a year of my life to see a flicker of talent anywhere among them.”
From my own experience, the higher you climb, the more difficult it is to find a worthy “rival,” an interlocutor with whom it would be interesting to argue. People around us change when we change. Fortunately, I still have room to grow and people to focus on.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I try to inspire as many people as possible towards technological entrepreneurship. Despite the difficult times, I still believe that innovation is the driving force of the modern world. A startup idea begins with a problem that needs solving. In the process of searching and improving, you face many limits (time, money, energy). From time to time, it’s important to have someone around to “force” us to do what we can. In the venture capital world, there is a term “smart money.” It means that the investor helps not just with capital but also with expertise, networking, etc.
Nonetheless, sometimes the founders just need psychological support and a sense of not being alone on this path. Each week, I take time for a call with portfolio companies to see how they’re doing and to help if they need the assistance. I want to believe I am doing my part of the work to make the lives of many people around the world easier and more comfortable.
Thank you for the time you spent on this interview. We wish you only continued success.
