Tell us a bit about what you love about the product regulatory practice area or your role in general. At heart, I am a business-minded attorney who has spent her career helping financial institutions, FinTechs and others in the regulated financial services industry solve complex legal/regulatory/compliance issues, negotiate strategic transactions, and grow and scale. I am passionate about designing, developing, launching and supporting best-in-class, customer-oriented, products, services, and solutions, while navigating the multi-layered regulatory environment that I and my clients live in. Working with smart, creative product engineers and business clients on fast-moving, complex, new implementations really piques my curiosity and leverages a career’s worth of experience.
The advent of FinTechs and tech-powered solutions for financial services has been a dream come true for me. Acting as lead product and regulatory counsel for companies driving innovation at the intersection of tech and financial services speaks to my innate curiosity, agile work style, and team collaboration. Product counsel typically are the frontline legal/regulatory quarterbacks and first point-of-contact for product managers and engineers. They play a key advisory role in the design, development, and launch of new products and solutions. Great product counsels learn everything they can about the product/business line that they support, so they understand success factors, can appropriately assess and mitigate risks, and creatively unblock problems. Product counsel may not know the answer to every legal/regulatory/compliance question, but they can identify and understand those issues well enough to proactively bring in other subject matter experts and work collaboratively to help clients reach pragmatic, risk-based, answers that meet business and customer needs in a timely way.
What do you feel are the most interesting developments in the product regulatory area and for the fintech industry as a whole or for your specific business/industry? The regulated financial services industry is in the process of completely transforming itself into a more customer-oriented, frictionless, set of products and services. These new capabilities are better aligned with the digital, branchless, society we live in. Legacy systems are being overhauled and even jettisoned in favor of modern technology. Compliance and risk management are leveraging tech-powered artificial intelligence to drive efficiency, effectiveness, and reduced fraud losses. Tech companies and financial institutions are learning how best to work together to drive toward fast, frictionless, broad-based access to financial services in a customer-oriented and secure environment. Blockchain technology has provided the foundation for completely new asset classes, such as cryptocurrency and NFTs, and is changing the way that we think about information security. All these developments are causing regulators to take a fresh look at what are now outdated laws and regulations and use their crystal balls to imagine how to recraft more adaptable laws and regulations while preserving fundamental protections.
What advice would you give to someone in the legal field trying to evaluate a role at a startup? There are a few critical questions that I suggest asking yourself when evaluating a role at a startup: (i) does the business intrigue and excite you? (ii) are you nimble, adaptable, and comfortable working in a highly changeable environment without well-defined processes or procedures? (iii) do you truly like and enjoy your prospective co-workers? (iv) do you believe in the business’ ability to be successful in your time horizon?
Working at a startup is a unique experience. You likely will find yourself deep in the trenches, working around the clock, with mission-driven colleagues. If you enjoy working in a fast-paced environment and navigating unchartered territory, it is a highly energizing experience that will constantly challenge you to stretch your knowledge and problem-solving skills, and think outside the box. I can guarantee you will learn more than you ever expected and likely make some close friends along the way. Just be sure that you have a clear-headed vision of what you are looking to achieve by joining the startup and continuously evaluate whether you are doing that. It takes a tremendous amount of energy and drive to design, develop, launch, and support a new business/product/solution. Be sure that you are personally committed to doing your part, because your colleagues will be.
My experience working as a lead product counsel at Stripe during a hyper-growth period was one of the most fascinating and rewarding experiences of my career. I worked with super-curious, highly creative, optimistic and positive colleagues who thrived on solving problems at warp speed while building best-in-class new products and services for small and large businesses and their end-customers.
What are the top 3 things that you think will define your industry in the next 5 years? My world is regulated financial services and, more specifically, electronic payments, payment products, and payment solutions. I continue to be amazed at the pace of change and almost complete transformation that regulated financial services has undergone in the past 3-5 years.
I expect that to continue. Tech-enabled solutions and tech-savvy individuals are going to continue to deliver new ways of driving fast, frictionless, payment solutions. AI-driven compliance and fraud mitigation tools will be continuously refined to meet regulatory, marketplace, and fraudster demands.
Regulators around the world are focused on consumer protection, data security, and privacy, as well as understanding and adapting often antiquated laws and regulations to appropriately address legal/regulatory/compliance challenges arising from this new world. The industry and those who regulate it are all intensely focused on improving the financial services experience of consumers and commercial parties and doing that in a way that is safe and responsible. That means rapid and continuous change will continue.
Who are your mentors, how did you connect with them, and what are the top 3 things you learned from them? Throughout my career, I have sought out advice and feedback from individuals whom I respect to serve as non-judgmental listeners, sounding boards and trusted advisors. I gravitate toward people who are perceptive and insightful, business/org savvy, who value and understand me, and who are willing to share their views and opinions and challenge me to think broadly.
I look to those relationships for reality checks, learning opportunities and broad-based advice. I have learned much through these relationships, about myself, the business environment, market opportunities and how to assess them. My mentors have helped me learn how to better navigate internal organizational dynamics and interpersonal relationships and understand what mentorship/sponsorship means. I try to emulate those relationships and give back by leaving my virtual door open to serve as a non-judgmental listener and open-minded sounding board for others.
