In case you missed it, we teamed up with The Chicago RegTech Meetup and HData to celebrate International Women’s Day with some of the amazing women in RegTech.
Through opening the conversation about women in the industry, sharing our hopes and dreams, and discussing ways to overcome challenges to create the world we all want to see, we heard some amazing takeaways that we wanted to recap.
Why is RegTech a Great Industry for Women?
The panel began with moderator Lisa Alvarado, Managing Director at Holistic, opening the discussion about what attracted our panelists to the RegTech industry and how they got their start. Virginia Hunt, Customer Success Director at HData, offered, “There’s a wealth of opportunity in this space right now. Regulations and data standards are ever evolving and there’s a need in the space for qualified professionals.”
Valerie Dahiya, Managing Partner at Perkins Cole, also shared that her start in the industry was a natural evolution from her background in the regulatory side of financial services, which is constantly innovating and leveraging technology for product development, creating efficiencies within the current infrastructure, and also for compliance purposes to streamline compliance and reduce overhead costs.
What Sets You Up for Success?
Alvarado moves on to asking the women what they believe sets them up for success when trying to hit their next goal. Ellen Krueger, Director of Customer Experience at Ascent, explained that she views success in a couple different ways. Whether it’s the small wins or the more long-term career goals, advocating for yourself is important.
“I do think that some younger professionals don’t necessarily feel like they have the ability or capability to do that and I’m realizing that even at the earliest point in your career that you can and you should,” said Krueger. “Making sure that my voice is heard is really important and that’s something that has continued to push me along my career.”
Overcoming the Feeling of Failure
Switching gears in the discussion, the panel is asked about failure and how they overcame the obstacles of what might be considered not succeeding in the traditional sense. Gigi Klotz, Sales Development Representative at Ascent, explains the transition she went through when deciding to let go of her 6 year long career in music education to realizing she wanted to take a different route that was stable and provided more flexibility.
Klotz goes on to say that she felt like that the decision did not need to be justified and that it was the right one to make.
How Do You Find Work-Life Balance?
With being a woman in any sort of industry, comes the balancing act of putting your full effort into your work as well as prioritizing your family. Alvarado opened the floor to the moms of the group asking how they find that healthy balance of a work to personal life ratio. Noraan Sadik, Venture Partner and Co-Founder at FemHealth Ventures, is a mom of two. With one being born pre-pandemic when she worked in an office environment and one being born during a pandemic when she worked from home, she realized just how much working from home has now affected her ability to spend more time with her children and just how important it is to make that a priority.
“It was very difficult to balance (pre-pandemic),” said Sadik. “Now when I think about the future of my work, whether that’s me working from home, or myself or someone else, I want to make sure there’s that opportunity for flexibility even if I’m going back to the office.”
As the panel came to a close, there was no denying that these are smart, ambitious, and eloquent women who have already made such a legacy for themselves. Thank you to all who participated and tuned in for this International Women’s Day celebration!
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