Money. Money. Money.

From banking, lending to assets management and investing – the world relies on various financial services. No surprise there! But as much diversity in its users, it’s not always the same case with the individuals behind leading these organisations. That’s why we want to spotlight 4 inspiring leaders and the companies that are leading the way and making diversity a reality.

Meet the 4 companies that are fostering a diverse culture from the top down:

Ninety One:  is an independent, active global asset manager dedicated to delivering compelling outcomes for its clients. 

Funding Circle UK: deliver a fast, hassle-free experience for small businesses looking for finance – powered by machine learning, technology and real SME finance experts.

Pleo: offers smart company cards that enable employees to buy the things they need for work, all while keeping a company’s finance team in control of spending. Simplify bookkeeping, eliminate expense reports, revolutionise your business.

Cardano: a privately-owned investment management and advisory business with a focus on risk and sustainability.

Lucia Pino-Garcia – Ninety One

Lucia is the Chief Technology Officer at Ninety One– an investment management company that offers asset management, equities, fixed income, alternatives, investment strategies, financial planning, and advisory services worldwide. She got her first computer when she was 13 years old as a prize for winning a Maths Olympiad and she started coding using this computer which is how Lucia got into the world of technology. Raise your hand if you also fell in love with tech as a kid?

“The advancement of technology has become vertiginous. In a world where technology is part of everything we do, everybody needs to have a voice and be involved. Diversity of thought is key. There is a strong stereotype about technical people that decreases the universe of possibilities and now more than ever we need to increase representation of women and other groups at all levels in the industry.” – Lucia Pino-Garcia

Meri Williams – Pleo

The Xena CTO Award winner, Meri Williams is an experienced CTO who has led and scaled technology organizations that build & run brilliant products and services, in a range of sectors including medtech, fintech, government, e-commerce, telco and manufacturing. Meri has been scaling up teams, transforming processes and organizations to go from good to great. With great passionate towards technology, building smart multi-functional teams and organizations to develop brilliant products.

If that wasn’t enough, Meri is also a published author, international speaker and chair (co-curator & host) of The Lead Developer conference series which has expanded from starting in London in 2015 to now running in London, New York, Berlin and San Francisco. Meri regularly trains the Be a Brilliant People Developer workshop to level up technologists into excellent managers & coaches – a true Xena role model if you will.

Swati Lay – Funding Circle

Swati, the Chief Technology Officer at Funding Circle, oversees the company’s technology capabilities worldwide. With over 20 years of experience in software development and information security, Swati has worked in larger enterprises as well as high-growth environments. She began her career as a software developer at Merrill Lynch in New York and has since held leadership positions in technology and information security across a variety of industries, such as retail banking at Barclays Bank and gaming at Betfair.

Alison Johnston – Cardano

Alison is the CTO of  Cardano, a privately-owned investment management and advisory business with a focus on risk and sustainability. Cardano is currently re-engineering its platform to be a modern web-based, big data, API driven, open-source environment. Cardano strives to become an active participant in the technical community. Some of the technologies and tools include Rancher Labs, Docker, JavaScript, React.js, Redux, GraphQL, Webpack, Node.js, Github, Visual Studio Code, Atom, Sublime, Jenkins, CI/CD, Analytics, Hadoop, HDFS, R, Trifacta, PowerBI, API management.

Alison has played a big role in leading the enablement of Cardano to continue to grow and scale without requiring new staff. She moved from a thick desktop-based infrastructure to a modern cloud-based web infrastructure and built a strong team to work within that. She is currently leading both the DevOps and software engineering teams. We love to see a leader with a vision!