Sarah Hollyhead
Managing Director at Funding Xchange
Please introduce yourself and lead us through your background in finance and fintech
I'm the Managing Director of Funding Xchange, a fintech driving digital transformation in business lending. My career in finance started at KPMG, where I spent a number of years consulting and advising businesses, I then moved into investing for a period before embarking upon the hardest but most rewarding job of them all…..becoming a Mum! After having my first child, Max, I had a good reason to reflect on what I wanted to do next. I had always loved contributing to building businesses and so when the opportunity came up to join fast growing Fintech, looking to chart a new course in business lending, I decided to take the plunge.
What challenges have you seen and experienced as a female in finance and fintech?
At the very start of my career, I used to listen to senior female colleagues talk about how difficult it was to balance being a Mum with the demands of the job - I saw many talented women, take, what seemed like a compromising, step back to focus on raising their families for a period and equally, we welcomed back a number of women into the team returning from periods out of the market for the same reason. I remember - naively - thinking at the time, why is it so hard, why is a sacrifice needed, can’t there just be more flexibility and compromise to enable women to stay in the team in front line roles if they want to. Fast forward 15 years, as a Mum to two amazing little people with a demanding Executive role, and I feel all the same pressures as those women did then and things are a lot better now!
I think issues like diversity take a generation for change to feel material. If I look back at my Mum and my Nan before her, things have changed dramatically for women’s ability to pursue the careers that inspire them. I would like to see similar strides being made across other forms of diversity. Socio-economic diversity, for example, appears quite far behind - I thank my former employer KPMG for shining a spotlight on the issue in recent years. Have diversity of thought and experience round the table can be transformational for innovating and building a business. How does somebody from a different background approach this issue? What perspective can they bring to the table?
What’s the best way to promote diversity in fintech, in your opinion?
Mentorship is a topic that’s been discussed a lot. The problem, in my view, is access to this tool. It’s quite easy in my leadership position to use it. But what about people who are much earlier on in their careers? We need to find a way of providing relevant access to those who want / need it.
What personal or professional qualities should female professionals embrace to succeed in fintech?
First, it’s realising that you’re never going to be able to perfectly balance everything in your personal and professional life and trying to get your head around that being sort of okay. There can be times when you feel torn and like giving up but continuing to push on is key and accepting that you don’t exist to make other people happy but to be brilliant at being you.
Building confidence is another thing. In my experience, one way to grow confidence is to do things that you don't naturally find easy. When I first started work at KPMG, I used to have to go to lots of networking events, and often I wouldn’t know anybody there. It’s absolutely not my cup of tea. Slowly but steadily, 6-12 months in, and I wasn’t afraid of it anymore. The more you do it, the more you watch other people do it, the more natural it will become. I do think its important for women, in particular to build and project confidence. I still have a natural tendency to wait to be invited and as you get more senior you can be waiting a long time if that is always your approach. But don’t get me wrong, balancing confidence with humility is also a strength.
