Calypso Harland
Founder of Fintech Fringe and Myforte
Please introduce yourself, your background, and your company
I’m the founder of Fintech Fringe and Myforte, I set these companies up to help fintechs scale and grow. With Fintech Fringe, we hold events and run a monthly series called “Rise and Shine” in partnership with Barclays. We also run a flagship event during London Tech Week and recently launched a platform called Forum, to connect fintechs with experts and support across the UK. I set myforte up because I thought the consultancy model needed a rethink. I believe scaling businesses should be able to access best-in-class verified, practitioners at market-value rather than being charged extortionate rates. Our expert network is set up to deliver support across the business, we have all bases covered from regulation and compliance, to branding and fundraising.
I’ve had a long career in tech and have led teams across marketing, partnerships and global expansion, working at every layer of the stack helping tech companies disrupt the status quo. For the last five years, I've worked extensively with fintechs, designing and running international scaling programmes. I find working in this space incredibly exciting and dynamic. Fintech, for me, is the underlying foundation of everything, whatever business you have.
What's your experience as a female in these industries? Any challenges to share?
There have been plenty of challenges, for sure! But overall, I consider myself lucky. I grew up in New Zealand, where everyone is on a relatively equal playing field, so that helped massively coming to the UK, where having less of a notion about barriers is extremely helpful. I worked my way up to a senior level fairly quickly,and often I was the only woman in the management team. Knowing how to manage up, communicate results quickly and link it to the bottom line was crucial to getting the respect from my peers.
As a woman in tech, remember to lean into your soft power. Behaving aggressively or unkindly, doesn’t win you any allies. People will always remember how you treated them, what you achieved becomes irrelevant over time. Remember to support, elevate, and lift each other up, especially those people who are not in the room. It's a relief to see a much more nurturing environment for female entrepreneurs and a more supportive sisterhood. There is still a lot of work to be done but we’ve come a long way.
In your opinion, what can the fintech industry do to empower women?
Strive for gender balance and diversity at the top. Develop growth plans for future leaders with internal advocates. Actively promote and support initiatives to help female founders fundraise.. The numbers don’t lie - women-led businesses have a greater success outcome and often much higher exit values. Let’s see more of that.
Make sure people are supported in important life decisions like maternity or adoption leave. Subsidised child care and similar initiatives, common in many large companies, should ideally be supported by government subsidies and potentially matched by employers.
What qualities should women leaders embrace?
Be kind, be respectful and be honest. Set an example of managing healthy boundaries, be an advocate for work-life balance and don’t make unreasonable expectations of people.
