Carey O’Connor Kolaja, CEO of AU10TIX — Fostering Identity Literacy

In today’s episode, Anirudh Singh sits down with Carey O’Connor Kolaja, the CEO of AU10TIX.

They discuss:

Carey’s Background:
Carey has spent the last two decades working at the cross-section of payments, financial services, technology, and disruption. Prior to joining AU10TIX, she spent 13 years at PayPal and 4 years at Citibank. Carey found that in the world of financial services, and particularly in financial crime, it is crucial to accurately identify who different players are. Carey became obsessed with solving this problem and along the way picked up some great leadership lessons, including:

• Solve the most difficult problems that no one else wants to
• Follow the money and understand how your businesses are making money
• Work yourself out of a job

Identity Literacy:
Carey originally became interested in the democratization of access to money. As she worked through this problem and worked on spreading financial literacy, she realized that the solution is inherently tied to spreading identity literacy and fighting financial fraud.

Fraud is an incredibly global, organized, and interconnected activity. Last year alone, $750B were lost because of fraud, up 40% from 2019. To combat this activity, we need to spread identity literacy, which involves thinking through the implications of the data you are sharing online. Carey envisions a future where users consciously decide who they share their data with and when.

Carey mentions a few areas of fraud prevention that should see significant improvement in the coming years. In particular, she believes it is crucial to bring private and public sectors together to solve authentication. For example, there were $200B of misdirected or misused unemployment loans in 2020. This problem can be solved by applying existing private sector technologies to the public sector.

Transitioning to CEO of AU10TIX:
Carey found the role of the CEO to be inherently different than any other role she has had. As CEO, she has placed an emphasis on balancing long-term goals with short-term targets. Carey has seen that startups are frequently incentivized to get to market quickly and prove product-market fit. However, for companies that believe in their product and have a well-defined vision, taking a long-term view can help the company avoid organizational, product, and technology debt.

Rapid Fire Round:

• What is your favorite book?
• What interview question do you always ask?
• What is your favorite product and why?
• Who do you admire?
• What is one item on your bucket list?
• What was your first job?
• What does success look like for you?

And more!

___

Carey O’Connor Kolaja
Carey O’Connor Kolaja is an entrepreneur, investor and global leader focused on redefining how “trusted access” is granted to individuals and entities. Throughout her career, Carey has been known as an innovator, disrupter and operator who can drive from start-up to scale-up.

A thought leader in the financial services and payments industry, Carey has been exploring the intersection of payments, identity and adaptive technologies for more than 25 years and is on a mission to create a more inclusive and secure world.

Carey is chief executive officer of AU10TIX, the global leader in automated identity intelligence and cyber fraud prevention. In this capacity, Carey is responsible for establishing and driving the overall business strategy and day-to-day operations, leading a team charged with enabling companies to onboard faster, prevent fraud, meet compliance mandates, and establish trust with their customers.

Prior to AU10TIX, Carey was the global chief product officer at Citi Fintech and vice president of global consumer products at PayPal. In these roles she was responsible for the global product vision in service to hundreds of millions of consumers around the world. She led international teams charged with designing, deploying and operating global product and commercial strategies for consumer products to effectively serve the local needs and interests of customers in the 200+ markets they serve.

Carey has a B.S. from the University of Indiana Business School and is an executive program graduate from Stanford University.

___

For more insights from FinTech leaders, follow:
Wharton FinTech
Twitter | Medium | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram

Anirudh Singh
Twitter | LinkedIn

___

About the Author
Anirudh Singh is a second-year MBA Candidate at The Wharton School, where he is part of the Wharton FinTech Podcast team. He has a passion for economic development, venture capital, financial services, and all things FinTech. Don’t hesitate to reach out with questions, comments, feedback, and opportunities at singhan@wharton.upenn.edu.