Tuesday September 8th we (Ohpen) announced the acquisition of Davinci to the outside world which catapulted our company into a different league. Ohpen has now doubled to a team of 350 people strong, offices in 4 countries and 30 nationalities.
On the evening before making this news public, we organized an event “Making History Together” for all colleagues (on location and online) in one of the most unusual event locations in the Netherlands, the Theater Hangaar – home of the longest playing and most successful musical of the Netherlands.
I found it important to address the topic of diversity and inclusion during this evening, especially as we are merging two companies. Two companies with a 10+ and 20+ year history in the financial services and technology industry. Typically not your most diverse and inclusive industries. I was hesitant if I should publish this brief speech, but I believe this topic cannot be addressed enough. So here it goes:
Speech
“I realize that Xiomara and I are the only women on stage tonight. But we are not alone. That’s why you see all our female colleagues behind me (and there is still a lot of work to be done).
About 10 years ago, Ohpen acquired the company I worked at. Ohpen back in the day was a male dominated company where everyone had worked together for over 10 years at BinckBank and they were friends, family even. I was the first ‘newbe’ and the second woman to join.
At first, it was challenging to work with such a tight-knit team. But I was determined to bring in a different perspective and look where we are now. And that was not the first time.
21 years ago, at the age of 21 I moved to the south of Egypt for my first managerial role.
On day 1, one of the men in my team said ‘I do not take orders from women’.
He made a conscious decision to not be inclusive. It shocked me.
But I made an effort to understand. To be inclusive of his point of view. And he did as well, after that first day. When I left Egypt he was one of my most valued colleagues.
Without debating his standpoint or mine, I would like to quote Commander Spock from Star Trek (including a creative add on from yours truly):
“Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, symbolizing the elements that create truth, beauty, creativity and tangible results (1).”
Diversity and inclusion is important for me as a person and in my opinion for the growth of this company.
A diverse mix of voices leads to better discussions, decisions, and outcomes for everyone.
It is important to have different perspectives in our company. To truly be a representation of the outside world. To challenge one’s own perspective. To learn, to grow and to exceed expectations. Of each other, of our clients, of their customers. It is all about having the right mentality.
Bringing together 2 companies, with offices in 4 countries and 30 nationalities will take each and every one of us to have an open mind. Bring in your experience, opinions and dare to stand out.
To conclude I would like to share a source of inspiration for me with you, a few of my favorite books. Books on diversity and inclusion not only gender related but also ethnicity, religion, age, high performance teams, winning mentality, cultural backgrounds etc.
Let this day be the starting point from which we are going to write history together. Diverse and inclusive.”
I have to admit that I was a little nervous when the moment came for me to interview the godfather of the Modern Portfolio Theory, Professor Dr. Harry Markowitz. He had been so kind to agree that I would interview him for the book that my colleague Chris Zadeh and I are writing about the psychology behind our irrational behavior when it comes to money matters. A full hour, that is what we had to make sure we could capture some of his insights and convert it into a valuable contribution to our book.
It was not just me in the interview, but also several colleagues. Carla Martinez (who set up the interview) and Sicco Brakema (who introduced us to Dr. Markowitz), shared the same hint of nervousness for this interview. It is not every day that you get to talk to someone with some pretty impressive credentials:
Economist
Recipient of the John van Neumann Theory Prize
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
Professor of Finance at the Rady School of Management
Dr. Markowitz must have noticed this as he started by casually talking about a previous trip to the Netherlands and before we knew it several perfectly pronounced Dutch words such as “rijsttafel” came our way which made us a bit more at ease.
Change your perspective
In the movie Mary Poppins Returns which stars Emily Blunt as the title character (which she nails), taking care as a nanny of the new generation Banks children, Meryl Streep plays Mary’s eccentric cousin Topsy “a woman who can fix anything”. When Mary visits her cousin with the Banks children, she realizes that it is the second Wednesday of the month. A day dreaded by Topsy as her world literally turns upside down and she is not able to fix anything.
The legendary Mary Poppins stresses that if you change your perspective everything looks better.
Off course Mary is correct and as the Banks children, Mary and Topsy stand on their head, the world looks much better from that angle. Something that is upside down, is fixed. Turning the second Wednesday of the month into the favourite day for cousin Topsy.
Its all about changing your perspective.
Struggling to change my perspective
During the first 45 minutes of the interview I struggled to ensure that I could convert the experience and knowledge of the brilliant mind of Dr. Markowitz into advice and stories that non-Nobel prize winners could relate to. Giving it my all to keep up with his 91 years of (life) experience and him debating numerous topics he is passionate about:
Critical line algorithm, portfolio theory, sparse matrix methods, simulation language programming (SIMSCRIPT incl. Buddy memory allocation method), capital asset pricing model, etc.
As time was ticking, I dreaded more and more that I would fail to take this unique opportunity and convert it into something that I could use for the book which has a more practical and personal approach combined with a touch of research. My excitement about this interview was slowly turning into fear that I would screw it up by not being able to capture a practical lesson learned or piece of advice from Dr. Markowitz who brilliantly debates the most complicated economic theories and models.
So I was frantically thinking about how I could change my approach to one of the smartest economists in the world so that he would share a piece of advice that would relate to the general public and was in line with the practical direction of our book. Most likely advice that did not originate from one of his theories or research. But I realized during the interview that this is not something he might generally talk about a lot as everybody probably also assumes he talks about his research and really wants to hear the insights from the godfather of Modern Portfolio Theory in real life (as did I).
Then it hit me: I have to change my own perspective. I should not be discussing his achievements as an economist.
Marry Poppins to the rescue.
I was talking to a highly intelligent man and I was trying to get something highly intelligent from this interview. But I realized that I had to adjust my perspective and ask a far more simpler question that did not relate to what he would typically talk about:
“What advice would you give a 12-year old when he or she first received pocket money or money for chores like washing a car of mowing a lawn?
Super simple.
That was it, and I felt the interview turning…Like aunt Topsy Dr. Markowitz turned from sharing brilliant yet very complicated economic explanations, to sharing a deeply personal story with an exceptional piece of advice. A story everyone could relate to and could potentially be inspired by as it did me at that moment. It triggered me, challenged me and make me decide to change certain assumptions I had made for a part of our book, hopefully making it better (I’ll let you be the judge of that when it is published). By changing my perspective, it turned the interview for the better.
Mary Poppins did it again: she came to the rescue and put a smile on my face.
What can the Financial Services Industry and FinTech community learn from Marry Poppins
After this interview, I realised that I should project this experience more on my daily business, the industry I work in and the people around me. I feel that we have to change our perspective more often.
Our industry is rightfully very knowledge based and driven by specialists. Whether you work at a bank, an asset manager, insurance company or at an IT company like I do, we immerse ourselves in jargon, theories, models, technologies and all the great things that come with our industry and experience. All to make things better! #LoveFinTech
But the question is: how do we keep making it better?
Translate brilliance into simplicity
The answer to me is simple: keep changing our perspectives. You and me, not our professional sides but us as consumers and customers. We are all customers. And a customer is only helped if he grasps what we’re talking about and experiences the benefits (make ‘m happy).
My lesson from this unique experience was that when we translate brilliance into simplicity, so all the knowledge, inventions, strategies, theories, jargon we have and change our perspective, we can achieve that what we were looking for. For me it resulted in a valuable piece of information that we can share and hopefully make a difference. So drop the jargon and think benefits if you want to relate to your customer. Not once, but continuously.
Dutch Delights
At the end of the interview Dr. Markowitz and I exchanged our love for Dutch cheeses from the region Gouda and some other typical Dutch treats.
He concluded the interview by sharing a personal experience from many years back when he was in the Netherlands with Dutchman Erik van Dijk with whom he wrote a paper about “Single-period mean-variance analysis in a changing world”. The last name of his co-author translates to dike (which subsequently triggered me to think of Dick van Dyke who stars in both Marry Poppins movies) and the both of them where standing on a dike eating “maatjesharing” (Dutch raw herring), almost nothing is more Dutch than this image.
We concluded the interview with roaring laughter from Dr. Markowitz. Priceless.
Thank you Dr. Markowitz for giving us this opportunity and thank you Mary Poppins for helping me change my perspective.
Time does fly when you’re having fun! Today has been exactly one year since my “official” move from the picturesque Dutch countryside to “The City”. And what a move it has turned out to be.
When I made the 45 minute jump supported by KLM/Cityjet, I arrived with no team, no FCA authorisation (we’d just applied before making the trip) and no UK client. Did I mention that we didn’t have an office or a bank account either?
Today I want to celebrate our journey over the past year…
In 365 days, we have enough weird, wonderful and crazy stories to make a three-part bestseller [think Lord of The Rings with less elves and more bankers and asset managers]. But we acknowledge that this year only represents one chapter, and we really can’t wait to write the rest of our book with our fantastic team.
So where are we now?
Client – We’ve signed our first UK Client who will use our technology stack and BPO services for their D2C investment solution (sorry, can’t share the name yet).
FCA – The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has awarded us with full authorisation.
Bank – honestly one of the most crappy and frustrating processes I’ve ever had to go through and it should not be in this list [even worse than going to the Dentist], but here it goes: opening up a personal and business bank account. It was such a reality check for me to realise what people in the UK have to go through to get this done (maybe more about this later…but it won’t be a pretty story to share).
Team – We are a team in the making: from flying solo to growing to a flock of 12 likeminded change fanatics whom I can navigate this journey with.
And the latter is perhaps the most important.
A team made up of unique and distinct individuals who differ in every way imaginable and yet share a unified sense of purpose and ambition.
So what’s my goal for next year?
To build one of the most diverse FinTech teams in the UK that just kicks ^$$. A team that lives, breathes and demonstrates our core values: exceed expectations, do more with less and give it all!
Whilst ambitious, I’m well aware that this will be the most challenging goal. So we need help. We are looking to hire about 20 more colleagues this year… are you looking for a new job or do you know someone? Please check www.ohpen.com or mail [email protected].
Thanks to everyone in the UK and our Dutch team who made the first part of this journey possible.
Affecting change isn’t easy (especially in the Financial Services industry). If it were easy, there would be no unique Ohpen UK team, no new office, no highs and lows, no story to tell… but where’s the fun in that?
