As a part of Finovate’s commemoration of Girls’s Historical past Month, our Girls in Fintech column options Laurie Winger, Chief Monetary Officer with TruStage. Previously generally known as CUNA Mutual Group, TruStage is a monetary providers firm that gives insurance coverage, funding, and fintech options to people and companies.
Winger has been praised by colleagues as a visionary and results-oriented, cross useful chief. At TruStage, she has helped remodel a decades-old insurance coverage firm into a contemporary, technology-driven enterprise.
In our Girls in Fintech dialog, we focus on her origins in fintech and monetary providers, present traits that she has her eye on, and why it’s vital for monetary providers firms to take a position each human and monetary sources into the fintech area.
Inform us about your position at TruStage and your journey into the fintech area.
Laurie Winger: I began my profession as an accountant at TruStage, beforehand CUNA Mutual Group, greater than 30 years in the past. I spent the primary half of my profession in numerous finance roles – Funds Supervisor, Vice President of Finance, and so forth. – after which shifted my focus to credit score union market technique within the mid-2010s. At the moment, our firm was seen within the market as an insurance coverage somewhat than a expertise firm. Our purpose was to vary that notion and one of the best ways to take action was to get extra concerned in fintech. This was once I first dipped my toes into the fintech area.
One in every of our first investments was the creation of our Ventures Portfolio, TruStage Ventures, which funds innovators centered on enhancing the monetary providers trade. A couple of years later, we additionally acquired Compliance Methods, a fintech supplier of digital and dynamic compliance documentation, and CuneXus, a consumer-facing portal that includes monetary providers for credit score unions. As Chief Product Officer on the time, I used to be very concerned within the technique and the execution of that acquisition. Since then, I returned to my finance roots as Chief Monetary Officer whereas holding an in depth eye on TruStage and TruStage Enterprise’s fintech acquisitions and investments, in addition to being a member of varied fintechs’ boards.
Not too long ago, I’ve dipped again into the fintech aspect of our enterprise by overseeing our Fintech Options workforce as a part of my position as CFO. This workforce is concentrated on creating and implementing our Digital Storefront e-commerce platform (based mostly on our acquisition of CuneXus talked about above) which offers monetary establishments with the power to lend, generate deposits, and open accounts in a completely on-line expertise – all centered round a shopper’s particular person banking wants.
It looks as if you had a robust position in constructing TruStage’s fintech technique. Why did you see a necessity to offer extra holistic help to credit score unions?
Winger: I’ve at all times been an enormous fan of credit score unions as a result of their mission is in keeping with ours at TruStage, particularly the need to assist individuals who would in any other case not get entry to monetary merchandise. Sadly, within the digital period, credit score unions are having a more durable time than ever competing with bigger monetary establishments and digital banks, and lots of are closing their doorways or are being acquired. We realized early on that if we needed to actually assist credit score unions compete, we wanted to offer extra holistic help. By investing in and making fashionable, end-to-end expertise options obtainable to credit score unions of all sizes and serving to them meet their members’ wants – we’re in the end serving to customers on their shopping for, borrowing, and saving journeys.
What modifications have you ever seen within the fintech area within the final couple of years and the way would you advise fintechs to react to those modifications?
Winger: I’m studying together with our complete group that the present fintech market may be very totally different than it was even only a 12 months and a half in the past. The excessive inflation surroundings has triggered valuations to go down, so many fintechs are struggling to draw curiosity and lift cash from third-party buyers. They should discover new methods to generate capital.
One of the simplest ways to do that is to take heed to credit score unions’ ache factors and pivot their focus and/or messaging to fulfill these present wants. In the mean time, rising deposits, discovering methods to deepen current relationships, and buying new members are on the prime of the precedence listing for many credit score union management groups. Fintechs which can be closely selling lending applied sciences are most likely having a tough time discovering prospects, as many credit score unions are working into liquidity challenges and will not be in a position to lend as a lot as earlier than. Pivoting their focus to answer market wants, or tweaking their messaging to raised enchantment to potential prospects, will assist fintechs keep afloat. The important thing to success on this financial surroundings is to take heed to market demand, keep versatile, and be prepared to take dangers.
How are you and TruStage serving to advance ladies leaders within the fintech and credit score unions areas?
Winger: As an organization, we’re very happy with the TruStage Ventures Discovery Fund, which invests $5 million yearly in early-stage fintech firms led by BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and girl founders. We created the fund to deal with inequities within the monetary sector and help underrepresented entrepreneurs, a lot of that are ladies. Personally, I additionally attempt to communicate with the feminine founders who’ve benefitted from the fund and construct these relationships.
Within the credit score union market, I’ve additionally had the chance to be a mentor as a part of the Credit score Union Girls’s Management Alliance (CUWLA) teaching program. This system pairs senior feminine leaders with ladies CEOs of credit score unions with asset sizes of $300 million or much less, offering a channel for help and the alternate of insights. I attempt to generously share my profession experiences, successes, failures, and learnings with different ladies leaders as usually as potential, as I believe it’s one of the best ways to assist different ladies advance and reach each the fintech and credit score union industries.
Lastly, as a Chief Monetary Officer, why is it vital to take a position firm sources (funds and other people) into the fintech area to energy future/tech-driven technique?
Winger: In the end, all of it comes all the way down to remaining related. Monetary providers in the present day function in a fast-moving, aggressive market with ever-evolving shopper calls for for seamless, digital-first transactions. Regardless of how effectively capitalized, any firm that needs to compete on this area have to be prepared to allocate investments in the direction of improvements with the buyer expectation on the heart. In the event that they don’t, even essentially the most venerable firms threat being handed by fintechs, start-ups, and the trade as a complete.
Photograph by Josh Sorenson on Unsplash
