About a year ago I had a thought. While I was fulfilling my emotional needs via my personal blog, Girl, Disrupted, which tends to explore my inner thoughts, outer failures and minor moments of brilliance 😉. But from a more practical point of view I needed to see what I could offer – what ‘products’ I could produce, what value I could deliver. How could I use my skill set and experience to find what I was passionate about? Once I found that I needed to find a platform and a home in which to create it.
After 24 years in Fintech I have attended my fair share of conferences – I have put together events, round-tables, webcasts and meetups. I could whip up an agenda looking at payments in my sleep. I’ve interviewed, drank with, and engaged with on social media anyone who is anyone in Fintech. Because of that I know what needs to be changed. My thinking always ends up on the same road. The idea that events, media and community need to be … wait for it … disrupted.
While this ‘grand vision’ was in the back of my head, life and work and personal responsibilities marched on. Then during Money 2020 in Amsterdam this year I sat down with (well shared a bottle of wine with) Lisa Moyle and Victor Cruz of VC Innovations – a company, started last year, with the goal to take the traditional ideas around events, media and community and … wait for it … disrupt it.
We all looked at each other, over wine and hotdogs (bought with Google tokens) and said, ‘why haven’t we thought about joining forces?’ The more I learned about what VC Innovations had planned and the ambitious goals and projects Lisa and Victor (and the rest of the team) were working on, the more I thought ‘I want to be part of that too!’
A few calls and an additional meeting (this time without wine and hot dogs) and we hashed out an idea on how we could all work together. On June 25, 2018 I walked into Plexal in Here East near the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park to start building a new adventure.
Over the next few weeks we plan on creating a new series of bespoke events tailored to the specific needs of the innovation community. We will be building new content streams – that take advantage of video, audio and written content. Anchoring all of this will be our exciting festival format – staging and developing large scale innovation and technology experiences. FinTECHTalents 2018, due to launch at the end of October, will create an interactive forum for Fintech professionals looking to discuss the impact of digital, innovation and transformational change on talent, skills and entrepreneurship.
Additional large scale innovation and technology experiences are currently in development and will be announced soon. As I settle into my new home, overlooking a Hackney canal, it is notable to mention – it has been sunny practically every day.
