Thank you. Thank you very much for the opportunity. So yes, I'm very excited here to speak to you all about my career path and it really starts with the statement that it's never too late to start or pivot your career and I'm living proof of that.Well, today, I'm the chief compliance officer at Clear Street, which is a fintech that's disrupting the traditional financial services industry. I've taken a very nontraditional path to get a seat at the table in a predominantly male industry. I'm hoping that my story can help some of you feel more confident in your career journey and to find your seat at the table. So my story begins in 1991. When I started my career in banking. In the year 2000, I took a five year hiatus from the workforce to raise my Children. And when I was looking for the opportunity to return to work, my neighbor suggested that I interview for a position at his company which was a registered investment advisor and broker dealer that serviced high net worth and private family office clients. I had literally no regulatory compliance experience and very little knowledge about broker dealer operations or investment advisor operations. But I was desperate to return to the workforce. And I knew that I had to be open to any opportunities that presented themselves to me.

Because returning to my career in banking was not a viable option. I don't have a law degree. I have no experience working for a securities regulator. And I didn't necessarily start my career at the right company. I still found a path to high profile roles in senior leadership in an industry that I have come to love. And I recognize that my career journey after a five year break is not typical and outside of working incredibly hard, I've found a lot of luck along the way, but I've also learned some lessons that I'd like to pass along. Firstly, you need to always focus on ways to elevate your career. Even if you're on a break, continue to expand your professional network. Keep in touch with former colleagues and stay abreast of the developments within your industry. If there's an opportunity for remote work, even small project work, consider this as it will help to keep your skill set sharp and finally use this opportunity to see if it might be a great time for you to make a pivot in your own career. I try to remind the individuals that I mentor and even my own Children that you're never siloed into one career path. There are always opportunities to explore new fields to find new interests and to develop new passions.

It's never too late to see where you want your career to develop. As I pivoted into compliance, I had to learn a whole new skill set, but I also had to learn how to thrive within an industry culture that wasn't necessarily set up for women to succeed. Similar to tech financial services is a very technical and male dominated industry and the market making and trading space where I found my home is particularly male heavy, especially in senior leadership. It's been a great experience for me to have the opportunity to have my voice heard in these organizations, bringing a different way of thinking, communicating and problem solving to our management team. I quickly learned that I needed to be intellectually curious in order to succeed in my new roles, I had to learn to ask questions instead of holding back. And I had to allow my colleagues to educate me and help me develop into a well rounded compliance officer as women. I find that we tend to have a natural inclination to want to always be prepared. We want to know the answers without having to ask the questions. But I find that this inclination can sometimes deter us and make us hesitate to ask questions that can progress us forward. We have to recognize this and we have to put that instinct aside if we truly want to grow and become experts in our fields.

In my career, I've learned to ask a ton of questions probably drives the people that I work with nuts. But I've learned to ask these questions to listen carefully to the answers that I'm given and to pro and to really probe the answers. I've become comfortable starting many conversations with the questions. Like, can you help me understand this in more detail so that I can provide better guidance or I'm not understanding how to connect these concepts. Can you walk me through it? I find that my colleagues appreciate my approach and are more comfortable with my guidance. Even when I give them the dreaded answer of no, because they know that I've taken the time to understand their business proposition and that I've thoroughly considered it within the context of the regulatory requirements. This approach allows me to have significant confidence in the guidance that I give my stakeholders. And over time, they've developed that level of confidence in the advice that I give when I started out my career. And just out of college, I was told to focus on two things, one, build your professional network and two find a mentor. Of course, mentors are essential and they can provide that critical advisory role when you're starting your career and when you're searching how to evolve your career.

But I firmly believe that sponsors are absolutely critically necessary to put women in positions of leadership within traditionally male dominated organizations. A sponsor in my mind is different from a mentor as they will find opportunities to put women in places where their voices can be heard and where they will succeed. A sponsor is willing to offer seats and meetings or involvement in projects that allow you to showcase your talents to an influential audience. When I transitioned my career from a small start up broker dealer to one of the largest market making organizations in the United States.

I had the good fortune of finding a sponsor who single handedly changed the trajectory of my career. The General Council knew that I lacked relevant experience and had very little knowledge. But he saw that I was bright that I could communicate effectively, that I could understand complex and regulatory frameworks and that I was very hard working. So he created a unique role for me called the head of corporate compliance. And he appointed me as the compliance officer to several critically important corporate projects, including the build out of our self clearing platform and a project to consolidate six broker dealer subsidiaries into one. These projects enabled me to interact with senior leaders across the organization on a regular basis, not just within the regulatory compliance function. And this allowed me to grow my reputation as an emerging leader within my company. Tech and fintech are still predominantly male industries.

And while women need to support one another, I want to shine a light on the fact that women can and should seek out male colleagues to serve sponsors within the organization. I believe that women communicate differently which can be challenging around the leadership table. We're all very familiar with the typical male to female executive comparisons where he is seen as a boss and she is seen as bossy. But the fact of the matter is men are more loud and forceful and confident in their positions. Typically in a meeting, making it essential for women to find an effective way to communicate and to have their voices heard when I'm in an executive meeting and the discussions getting heated, which it typically does. I like to step in and shift the conversation using different communication tactics and rather than sit back passively, I'm talking in an effective and differentiated manner. And in that way, my voice gets heard, the natural options for women tend to be when they work in male dominated fields, really act like a man and take charge or stay passive and wait to be recognized. I think though with the sponsor's support, you're more likely to become confident in your position, assured in your expertise and role within the organization and thus much more secure in contributing your thoughts and expertise to the conversation.

Even as women land executive roles, they get put in situations where they're asked to take on the administrative tasks. I've experienced this firsthand during a senior leadership meeting at a previous firm, I was asked to take the meeting notes and I had to stick up for myself very tactfully and recommend an alternative solution. While I was one of many executives sitting around that table, I was the only female and I knew that I had to take this as a teachable moment. You have to advocate for yourself and act as if you belong at every meeting in executive level positions. Getting in the room is one hurdle standing up for yourself. Once you're in the room is another hurdle. When it comes to women's careers. There's one topic that I am extraordinarily passionate about and that is compensation equity. It's ludicrous to me that women continue to be paid less than men. And the lack of lack of transparency around this practice makes it even more concerning I have continually heard throughout my career. Well, men are the breadwinners. It's an institutional bias that we're still working very hard to break through. Equivalent performance should be rewarded with equivalent compensation. I have made many mistakes in my career when it comes to my own compensation.

I didn't do enough research and really understand the salary benchmarks for the positions that I've held and I didn't prioritize speaking up about this and advocating for my own work. The first time that I was named Chief Compliance Officer of a major organization, I was thrilled to be recognized, felt great about myself until I found out that I made nearly 50% less than the man who had occupied the role. Just before me to say I was shocked was an understatement. I like many women chose career advancement over compensation. I prioritized the role, getting the accolades and earning the respect assuming that the money would naturally follow. But after a certain amount of time, I want to caution you that you're only cheating yourself. You're losing out on savings and earnings that can't be negotiated or replaced. That is why it's necessary to know the companies and your roles salary benchmark. Even if you're just starting out, you need to know it going in so that you can know that you're asking for the appropriate compensation and you'll know where you can negotiate. Coming back after my five year break from the workforce, the companies that I interviewed with asked me what I last made at my last job five years ago and most of the time they were only willing to match the compensation that I left the workforce at, despite the fact that I was interviewing for and being offered roles with significantly more responsibility as well as personal liability for those responsibilities.

Um But I didn't know any better because I hadn't done the research and I didn't understand the industry benchmarks and how much responsibility I was really taking on in these roles. And so I was unable to truly negotiate a fair starting salary for me myself and starting at an off market salary really follows you for the rest of your career, even though you might advance very quickly in it, you're still kind of set behind where you should be today. There are more women in senior positions which I'm thrilled to see as my career has progressed. I, I am thrilled to see how many new women we get into the financial services industry, but there's still a lot to be done to bring significant change and uh representative diversity to the industry. Right now, the finance industry is having trouble recruiting female talent and this is where I think that fintech can create significant cultural change. Sitting at the intersection of finance and technology. We're creating recruiting packages that are designed to appeal to both employee populations and some of the natural ways we're doing. This is really through work life balance and remote work arrangements, work life balance and remote work are both vital to building strong female representation in the workforce.

As, as society, it is harder for women to live up to the expectations of behavior for work life balance. How do we work? 40 to 60 plus or more hours at work and still have time to be present for our families. This is where tech and the fin tech industries are creating measurable change. We need to get out of the mindset that work only happens when we're collectively in the office. Not everybody needs to be sitting in the office to be productive. My sponsor that I spoke of earlier in the talk, recognized this. And quite frankly, he let me work from home one day a week. Even when I was brand new to the position, I didn't have to prove myself. He trusted that I would act appropriately and continue to work on the day that I work from home. Flexibility and working from home allows women to stay in the workforce and to continue to advance during these critical earning years that typically coincide with when they're starting and taking care of their families. As we all know, the pandemic has hit women the hardest.

But a lesson we've learned really is that remote work is possible even in industries that have traditionally posited, that work only occurs within the four walls of an office. I hope that these recent experiences will break open the doors for women and that they will be afforded more flexible work work from home schedules to help them advance their careers while they're still raising their families. Even now, I see some big banks are rushing to get their employees back to the office as quickly as possible. It's indicative of their culture. But Fintech has been able to recognize that flexibility in work life balance really can be assets when you're trying to recruit talent to your organization. I hope that my stories and sometimes the hard lessons that I've learned along the way will help you as you continue your career journeys. And finally, I want to leave you with one last important and passionate note about women in fintech. Fintech is a catalyst for change within the financial services industry. Most fintech companies are founded with the mission of accessibility to new and diverse customers.

It's a growing industry and quite frankly, we are looking for talent and diversity and talent and, and differences in the voices that come to the table. We're excited to see more diversity within our workforces and we are thrilled that we have more women sitting in our leadership table.

I really look forward to seeing y'all there.

Thank you so much Christy and you are in the perfect amount of time too, wrapping us up and I love the no slides because you just get to focus on you, you know, and hear exactly what you're saying. And at the end there, when you were getting to the importance of remote work and ensuring that we have the this flexibility tool allow women to enter all these different careers. Really speaks to me so much on a normal day. I'm the head of community at Toptal, which is a remote freelance network. So we get it. Um And, and totally everything you're saying really resonated and, and you could see that in the chat too. Lots of thank yous coming through for everything that you said today.

Awesome. Well, thank you for the opportunity. I really appreciated it. Thanks Christy. All right, bye bye

bye.