NYC FinTech Women Co-Founders, Michelle Tran & Sasha Pilch — Promoting Gender Equality in FinTech
Gabriela Ariana Campoverde sits down with Michelle Tran and Sasha Pilch, Co-Founders of NYC FinTech Women to learn how they founded a community of 7,000+ members on a mission to connect, promote and empower women to advance their careers in FinTech.
Since 2017, the organization has hosted monthly events in collaboration with fintechs such as Adyen, Stash, and Plaid as well as institutional enterprises such as Deutsche Bank, Google, Shearman & Sterling, and Silicon Valley Bank. Over the past year, NYC Fintech Women expanded its reach by building an online platform to reach out to members nationwide with educational and networking opportunities. Most recently, they also launched Talk of Her Town, a podcast which features inspiring women in fintech.
In this episode we discuss:
- What motivated Michelle and Sasha to grow this network: “It’s just the age old story, right? In financial services and tech, I was typically the only female in a 10-person meeting, where it was primarily male. I personally struggled with finding women in fintech to connect with, to build my network with because we all know in order to really have success, it’s your network that helps you with that. We’re big proponents of building your network and building your own personal board. For me I couldn’t find the right home. I went to a number of women in tech events, and I had to search through the crowd for that one female in fintech. Or, I went to a number of fintech events and had to search through the crowd of men to find the female — you know, the five females who would be attending. I think that story has really changed in the past 4 years not just because of our work but because of how the market is doing. I found that there was really an opportunity for us to organically create a community where we can really help each other with our careers and help each other when we think about how we impact this industry, too. I don’t want to be the only female in the room. I want to be in a room with at least half females or all females. I want us all to have an equal say.”
- NYC Fintech Women’s humble beginnings: “One day I had gotten really frustrated with the fact that I couldn’t find a [female] community, so I made one up. I decided to start a MeetUp. I paid my MeetUp dues. I found a bar that would take us. We hoped we’d have a lot of people. On a rainy Tuesday in New York in Flatiron, we had 16 amazing women come to our very first MeetUp. That’s where I thankfully met Sasha. That’s the story of how we’ve grown from 16 women to now 7,000 and really helping to transform a lot of lives, which is what’s really important at the end of the day.”
- Opinions on what’s hot and exciting in fintech today: “I see this opportunity [Pinwheel] as a huge one right now. I have lots of near bank clients like a lot of the ones that Michelle mentioned. They’re using payroll aggregation to quickly capture direct deposits, so instead of having to send a form to HR, which is full of friction, they can just do it in seconds now. On the lending side of things, rather than having to upload papers and pay stubs and do all that annoying stuff to get a loan or a mortgage, it can all happen in seconds by connecting your payroll account. The use cases are pretty endless. I just applied for a new apartment. I had to do all of those verification things. All of that becomes easily done in a click rather than wasting all this time. I love the fact as well that it ties into what Michelle was talking about earlier. It’s really mission-driven in terms of how we can potentially give loans to people that had no alternative but to go to a loan shark or a payday lender that was giving them insane interest rates. Now we can do much fairer lending, and I just feel like this is something that I wanted to stay invested in for many years!”
- What’s next for NYC Fintech Women: “This year we launched a podcast, so we’re super excited about that — as we’re talking on a podcast. Part of our podcast, and that’s headed up by Nicole Newlin — her whole goal there is to shine a longer light and a brighter light on women in fintech. We do our FinTech Female Fridays, but that’s just like one article, and we want to really dig into their journey and a lot of what they’re doing in the space. The podcast gives us the ability to do that. I think what we want to do going forward is continuing to have a bigger impact outside of location. That’s where being able to go virtual has allowed us to do that. We’re going to keep this hybrid model of virtual and in-person most likely. We’re definitely going to expand out physically to other locations in terms of physical events. So, look out, San Francisco, we will be doing something probably soon-ish! That’s our goal. It’s really how we can have the biggest impact possible because in order for all of us to succeed, we need to do it together. We need to build that network together. We want to be a big part of that story for a lot of people if we can, and we’re so fortunate to be part of that story for a lot of people.”
- And much more!
Full interview → Spotify | Soundcloud | Apple
Michelle Tran
Michelle Tran is a Co-Founder of NYC Fintech Women.
When she is not managing NYC Fintech Women, Michelle is an advisor for Harness Wealth, a wealth tech platform for individuals with complex financial situations to gain access to a curated network of industry-leading financial advisors, CPA, and trust & estate attorneys. She is also a founding member of Dreamers // Doers, a highly curated, female-focused collaboration and co-mentorship community, consisting of an ever-growing powerful network of entrepreneurs, investors, and advisors. She is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz where she studied Politics and Economics. She also holds a Certificate of International Business from the University of Cambridge.
Michelle currently resides in San Francisco. To follow her on Twitter visit twitter.com/fintechmichelle.
Sasha Pilch
Sasha Pilch is a Co-Founder of NYC Fintech Women.
Aside from managing NYC Fintech Women, Sasha is the Sales Lead at Pinwheel, a NYC VC-backed startup company, building the infrastructure that will power the future of finance. She has worked in Sales in multiple start-up companies, including Ramp, Plaid, and Quovo. Sasha also has international work experience, having worked in the United Kingdom and Australia in banks including Citi, Commonwealth Bank, and the Royal Bank of Scotland. She is a graduate of the University of Technology, Sydney where she studied Management and Marketing.
Sasha currently resides in New York. To follow her on Twitter visit twitter.com/sashafintech.
About NYC Fintech Women
NYC Fintech Women connects, promotes and empowers women in their professional advancement in the fintech industry. For additional information on NYC Fintech Women, please visit nycfintechwomen.com | Twitter: twitter.com/nycfintechwomen
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