In the Suite

5. The Power of Connection with Sasha Pilch, Co-Founder of NYC Fintech Women

May 13, 2020 Tina Powell | C-Suite Social Media Season 1 Episode 5
In the Suite
5. The Power of Connection with Sasha Pilch, Co-Founder of NYC Fintech Women
Show Notes Transcript

Today in the In the Suite guest chair we welcome Sasha Pilch, Co-Founder of NYC Fintech Women. Sasha arrived in the states after working for some of the biggest banks in London and her native city, Sydney, Australia. In just 2.5 years, Sasha went from not knowing a single soul in America to becoming one of the most important women leaders in NYC FinTech.

Sasha’s foray into FinTech in the states was accelerated through her relationship with Michelle Tran, who was considered a Fairy Godmother of FinTech in the city. The two began partnering together after Sasha attended one of Michelle’s events on a cold rainy New York evening. And it’s been magic ever since. The two went on to partner together to grow NYC FinTech and in less than two years, the organization has close to five thousand members, held over 50 events, distributes a weekly content series, and even put on their first FinTech Female Awards. 

Sasha’s story reminds us of the importance of connection and how one connection can change the trajectory of a woman’s life. 

🤩 Thanks for listening, we appreciate your support and 5-star reviews of our show!!!

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📧 Want to get in touch? Email me at tina@growintentionally.com


 Tina Powell  00:08

Hi, this is Tina Powell host of In the Suite where I sit down with top women leaders and some of the biggest names in the financial services and the wealth management industry. Together we'll discover some of their best secrets and top strategies to grow great business build a strong brand and lead teams in the 21st century. I hope you'll enjoy hearing their amazing personal stories of triumph, trepidation and transformation in hopes of becoming better leaders ourselves. The time for you to lead is now and you're In the Suite. This month's episode of in this week begins with a dream, a journey and a woman who would risk it all in the name of FinTech. Her name is Sasha Pilch and She's Co-Founder of New York City, FinTech women. In just two and a half years this courageous and brave native from Australia, who's worked at some of the biggest banks in Sydney and in London has gone from not knowing a single soul and America to being one of the most important women leaders in New York City FinTech. Sasha's mission is to connect, support and sponsor women in order to advance their careers. And in talking with Sasha remotely on a Friday in February, it became very evident that she's one of the best choices of women in FinTech to do it. Sasha also holds a full time role as new business lead at the disruptive corporate card startup Ramp. Ramp helps companies reduce burn by identifying savings and wasted spend. Previous to Ramp Sasha worked for Quovo until it was acquired by Plaid for $200 million, and then Plaid until it was acquired by visa for 5.5 billion. Previous to that she spent almost 10 years working for large banks, including city and RBS in London and CBA and Westpac and Sydney Australia. Sasha's personal story reminds us of the power of connection and how that one contact can literally change the entire trajectory of a woman's life. For Sasha that connection is Michelle Tran, Co-Founder of New York City, FinTech women. And behind these two bolt female leaders, is a dream team of other talented women and men in financial services, and a network that has grown to over 5000 people. New York City FinTech woman holds monthly events in collaboration with top FinTechs such as stache, Plaid, Payoneer and Eddie on as well as enterprises such as Google, Silicon Valley Bank and Deutsche Bank. Understand that this episode was recorded in February, so I encourage you to connect with them on social media. And it New York City FinTech women calm to get on their mailing list and receive the most updates. To date information, and as you'll hear from Sasha, in this episode, New York City, FinTech women may even change your entire life. So I am joined here with Sasha Pilch, who's the Co-Founder of New York City, FinTech, women. And Sasha, we are at the height of the Coronavirus. I mean, nothing to laugh about. It's a serious, serious issue. However, you and I were supposed to be in person today in New York City and and we're not or how are you doing? How's your family doing? Are you okay? Yeah,

 Sasha Pilch  03:40

we're all okay. I'm Australian, so my family's not actually in the US. But my sister's in London. She's fine. And my mom and dad are in Australia and they're doing fine as well. So what about you?

 Tina Powell  03:52

Yeah, actually, it's funny that you just mentioned London because my son and his fiance just had a flight from London. Then I can literally show you the text. They came back this morning. So before that they were in Morocco. And then they were in Portugal. And so I'm just glad that they're home. And last week I was in in LA I think what's been interesting about this virus is the escalation is there's been like this rapid escalation and heightened awareness and all of a sudden, we went from something that seemed very casual to now feeling like we're in a little bit of a crisis mode here. Are you? Are you feeling the same thing on your side?

 Sasha Pilch  04:34

Yeah, totally. it escalated quite quickly. So we had an event for NYC FinTech women for International Women's Day, last Friday, and we had about 100 cancellations due to Coronavirus. We still had about 150 people in the room which was great because we had a big waitlist, but then it just really escalated off to that. So so many companies have told their employees To work from home. And now, my company that I work for Ramp, we're all working remotely.

 Tina Powell  05:08

So I think I do want to speak to you about a bunch of things, I think, let's let's start off with talking about New York City, FinTech women. And I definitely want to hear what's going on during the virus as well, too. You bring up a lot of interesting points. So you are a Co-Founder of New York City, FinTech women with Michelle Tran. It is an incredible organization. I think you're close to 4000 members in a very, very short time. So why don't we take it from there? How did you and Michelle meet? How did you to start New York City FinTech women? I'd love to learn a little bit more more of that origin story.

 Sasha Pilch  05:47

Yeah, sure. We're actually close to 5000 members now so it's grow rapidly. I think it probably makes sense for me to start off, explaining how I even got to the US. I was working for the biggest banks of the world for 10 years I lived in London, I worked for city and Royal Bank of Scotland. In Australia, I worked for the biggest banks there, Westpac and CBA. And I was starting to get exposure to the rise of the FinTechs in Australia. My last role was at Commonwealth Bank in an innovation lab role. And so we were working with FinTechs that we potentially wanted to acquire or collaborate with. And that's when it really hit me that I didn't want to work for a traditional bank anymore, and I wanted to work for a FinTech company. So I I'm curious by nature, and I love learning. And I was on vacation from the bank, just on a holiday with my friends, and I asked my boss whilst I was over there in Mexico with my friends, if I could extend for another week and go to New York. And she said yes. And it only took me a few days in New York City to realize that there was so much opportunity and I was going to get a job. And so I called my boss back and I told her that I was resigning. And I was

 Tina Powell  07:18

just he probably said, Oh, wait, I shouldn't have said yes to that.

 Sasha Pilch  07:23

Right, though she like was really supportive. And luckily, I did get a role at a FinTech startup called Quovo. And then I was able to stay in the US, which was fantastic.

 Tina Powell  07:36

So you're not at Quovo now.

 Sasha Pilch  07:38

Right? So Quovo was the head to head competitor with another FinTech called Plaid. So Quovo was in New York and Plaid was San Francisco, and at the end of 2018 Plaid raise $300 million and they acquired Quovo for 200 million. So overnight, I became a Plaid employee.

 Tina Powell  08:05

Interesting and correct me if I'm wrong recently, there's been big news surrounding cloud as well, too, right. Were they also recently acquired?

 Sasha Pilch  08:13

Yeah, exactly. So in January of this year, they were acquired by visa for 5.3 billion.

 Tina Powell  08:22

That's a nice FinTech success story. You've mentioned a couple of different firms. And you had mentioned the fact that you were interested in FinTech. Different people define FinTech a little bit differently. And I wanted to know how you think of FinTech and how you would describe it to somebody that listening to this podcast that's maybe heard the word and heard the term before, but how would you explain it Anybody?

 Sasha Pilch  09:01

Yeah, so in my eyes, FinTech is a customer centric approach to helping people with their financial services needs. So the fact that FinTech companies are newer to the market, they are not restricted by legacy systems that banks all have in place after being around for hundreds of years. FinTech companies can really build their approach with the customer at the heart of everything. And they have much more intuitive user experiences that much more efficient, and they deliver better results for the customer.

 Tina Powell  09:46

Yeah, I think you hit upon a really important key, and that is the whole legacy systems. In some ways. I feel that if you're an organization today that the way for you to be nimble, and get that FinTech exposure is either you acquiring or that you're creating a branch to your existing organization that isn't rooted in those types of legacy systems and old thinking, because with technology with smartphones, we have just become an this Coronavirus is an excellent Case in point. Our society is changing, our habits are changing. Now all of a sudden everybody's working virtual. And it becomes we rely much more on technology now than we ever have been.

 Sasha Pilch  10:32

When I'm talking to someone that doesn't really know that much about FinTech, I usually divided into five different categories. So, for example, within payments, and this was something that I was quite shocked by when I first moved to the US. The fact that it's extremely difficult to transfer money between different bank accounts, especially considering there are 14,000 banks and credit unions in the US. I just think that Venmo is so a delight to use. And it's made things so easy and efficient and affordable for the people of America, which is great. Another example in payments is transfer wise. So, before disruptors like transferwise, the only option was really to use a bank, which was inefficient because money would move from the bank to the money transfer bank over to the overseas accepting bank and then to the local bank of the recipient. So that process is really opaque and expensive. transferwise has been able to make a really customer focused, efficient way of transferring money, which is 12 times cheaper than the traditional banks.

 Tina Powell  11:49

And so is that transfer wise I've had is that more for like an international transfer? I've had Okay, yeah. And I guess you have all people because you've but we were born in Australia. Yeah, and now you're here and you've lived in the UK and a bunch of places, I have used Venmo I haven't had the need for anyone to transfer money for me internationally. But it's just great to know. And I do think that because we are a global society and a lot of people like yourself are working in different areas of the country that I can see how that could benefit our a global workforce now.

 Sasha Pilch  12:24

Yeah, and there are FinTechs that really cover all of the traditional banking needs. So in terms of wealth management, now, it's not only available to the extremely high net worth individuals, people can invest with as little as $5 using FinTech such as Stash Robinhood owns. Those companies also provide a lot of literacy and education around investing terms and how investing works. Other retirement FinTechs like Kindur also make the confusing language Around retirement a lot more enjoyable and easy to understand. From a lending perspective there are FinTech such as prosper upgrade insikt opportune that use non traditional underwriting methods instead of the traditional credit score, which sometimes means that alone is not an option for people that have low credit or their only option is to go to extremely high interest rate, no loan shark. So these FinTech lenders are really helping those people that are in that situation. It's not also only for low income people as well. So there's other FinTech such as Nova credit, which has a female CEO, Nicky Goulimis, they just raised $50 million. And their approach is to give people that don't have a credit school a chance. So for example, when I came to the US, I couldn't get an apartment because You know, I was earning enough to be able to afford it month to month, I didn't have a credit rating yet. So those FinTechs are really making a better customer experience for people in need. And then in terms of personal financial management, there's offerings like albot and why nap which stands for you need a budget they will have millions of uses, and they're helping people get control over their financial situations. And then also overseas but I feel we'll move to the US. The neobanks like N26, Monzo, Starling in Australia there is Hay and Ninja that so many and it's a really exciting to them

 Tina Powell  14:48

about you make me just want to go go crazy right now on my phone and the computer to look at all these different companies, all these different FinTech companies. I just want to rewind just a little bit. Because you had said that you break FinTech down into five different classifications. I want to make sure that I got them correctly, because you rattled off a lot of information that I think is really key and thinking about FinTech. So I have payments, wealth management, retirement lending and personal finance. Is that how you would divide the landscape?

 Sasha Pilch  15:30

Yeah, I think that's good. There's other niches out there. But, you know, that gives you the basics.

 Tina Powell  15:36

Wow. And I certainly really appreciate that all of the names. You are an encyclopedia of FinTech. How did you and Michelle meet and when did you start New York City, FinTech women?

 Sasha Pilch  15:48

Yeah, so when I quit my job and moved to New York, I didn't know anyone in America. And it was actually my first sales role. So I knew that I needed to build a network and Very fast. Michelle Tran is like the mother of FinTech. He helped everyone and everyone knows her. Everyone loves her. And I saw her on moon club that she had posted. A women in FinTech event I attended. It was a rainy night in winter, there was only 17 women there. And I really loved the idea of it. So I contacted her after that, and I said, I'd love to help you to continue to grow this. And then since then, it's really taken off organically, and exponentially. So we've now held 51 events. at top New York City FinTech companies, as well as established enterprises like Deutsche Bank or Silicon Valley Bank. We have a weekly content series called FinTech, Female Fridays, where we feature a woman Every week that's transforming the industry at different levels of seniority and different types of companies and different types of job functions. We also had our 50 most inspiring FinTech females awards last year, and we're continually growing out different initiatives.

 Tina Powell  17:21

Wow. Well, you went from not knowing anybody to having 5000 friends pretty, pretty quickly. That's impressive. What I really am hearing from you, too, that I really like is that there's this blend of old and new coming together to support this initiative. And that clearly, there's traction, you've got almost 5000 members now you've had all of these events, what specifically in again, and this podcast was a planetary Coronavirus. But now what happens a lot of the work has gone virtual and a lot of events have been coming virtual As well, are there plans within New York City FinTech women, to bring some of these events to create more of a virtual component to take this baby existing and then make it virtual? What is the next I guess few weeks look like in lieu of Coronavirus and all of these events being planned out?

 Sasha Pilch  18:18

Yeah, that's a great question. We did have a discussion at our monthly meeting about what we're going to do during Coronavirus. We did come to the agreement that virtual events are something that we want to explore something that is really powerful at our events is that we have created a culture that's extremely approachable. We set the rule that everyone has to meet at least five people at our events and they can blame it on me or Michelle walking off and saying Sasha told me that I will see you like third person. So it is A very interactive environment we're doing now is using this time to focus on the foundations and processes and strategy of NYC, FinTech women. A good problem to have right now, which is that we post an event on our website, and it fills in an hour. So usually have off to the first day 150 people RSVP and about 100 on the waitlist. So we are getting some feedback from our members that the events sell out too quickly. So this is a great time for us to work on looking at the data within our member base and building out a strategy to be even more targeted in terms of our events so that we can accommodate more events, and we can accommodate the demand.

 Tina Powell  19:56

Yeah, and a couple of questions around that. So it's obviously New York City, FinTech women are events just located here in New York City area? That's question number one. And question number two is out of that. 5000. Do you have any men that blog today are sitting FinTech?

 Sasha Pilch  20:14

Yeah, we got you. In terms of the location. The 51 events that we've done so far have all been in New York City. My Co-Founder, Michelle has recently moved to San Francisco. And she had the first San Francisco event lined up for this week just gone. However, due to Corona virus, we've postponed it, but she's very much setting up and progressing with the San Francisco chapter. We've got a new logo for that chapter and everything. So we're all set to go.

 Tina Powell  20:51

Oh, that's so and look, Michelle and I go back years and I know that if she's involved in an initiative over there, that'll be successful. I really love how you both have taken your passion. You've combined it your passion for people, obviously, I love what you just said about the five people. I think that's so important. networking events could be so awkward, especially if you're new. And I love that you really set the tone about, hey, these are the guiding forces here beat at least five people because it brings a different, it brings a different customer experience to the event to the event itself. And it's great to hear that you do have men belonging to both, I guess now you're going to be expanding into another area as well, too. So what about I want to talk a little bit about whether or not that you've noticed certain segments within New York City, FinTech women. This podcast is geared more towards women after 40. And so I want to hear from you. What does that membership look like? along different generations, again, the male and female component, even the traditional versus the non traditional, because while all of us would love to work at a sexy startup, it's not. We can't necessarily ditch our jobs and and go and go work for that. So what would you say about the complexion of the environment and how it's changing?

 Sasha Pilch  22:24

Yeah. So, in terms of the split between our member base, we ran some analytics recently and discovered that 30% of our members are women like me, that now working in the FinTech space at either an early stage or an established FinTech, when we have about 10 years to 15 years work experience. There is another large segment so another 30% of women that again, experienced in their career 10 years plus, but us that they're working for traditional Banks whether that's Goldman, UBS, Citi, Wells Fargo, etc. We do have a small percentage of very young members. So graduate level which is about 5%. We have 15% more senior mental women that 40 and older and then the remainder male allies and also people who are not currently in FinTech but are in some of the kind of tech whether that's ad tech or media or companies like Spotify and things like that.

 Tina Powell  23:43

Wow, that's really that's really cool. So you have the the membership kind of sliced into And dice like that, which makes a whole lot of sense. I think it's really interesting that you have people from companies who are maybe in a tertiary industry that are coming to events. I never even really thought about that. One of the other things that has appealed to me with New York City, FinTech women, is how you've been able to network. How if I'm a member, and whether or not that I belong to any of those five groups, is that in some way that just by virtue of belonging to New York City, FinTech women, that I'm going to meet someone new, and then I'm at least going to expand my network by a factor of five. So what would be your advice? Again, you're somebody that came in here from a totally different country, and now you've grown your network exponentially. What advice would you give because so many women and men but particularly women are trying to do networking, right? Will it be your guiding principles?

 Sasha Pilch  24:55

I think that it's it's something that is so important. So the connections that I've made have opened so many doors, whether it's getting new clients, getting a promotion, getting a new job, I really think that having a strong network also builds your personal brand and your reputation. So it can lead to Speaker opportunities or panelist opportunities, which will like further enhance your network. The more people that know that you're a talented, likable, hardworking person, then the more people they will tell, and they'll be your sponsor in situations when you're potentially not in the room. And I think it's so much harder to progress, if not many people know how brilliant you are. So I'm a big fan of networking. And I think that there's something interesting about everyone, and so no conversation is a wasted conversation and people are willing to talk to you. As long as you're kind and approachable person, and you've done your research in terms of happening in the industry and you have something of value to say, then I don't see any reason why people would do.

 Tina Powell  26:15

And so what do you also to doing on LinkedIn? Is there a group New York City, FinTech women on LinkedIn? And how are you encouraging your members after an in person event to stay connected and to leverage those relationships and connections in a way that you just explained whether or not it's getting another job, or speaking opportunities, or even just saying, hey, it was great to meet you.

 Sasha Pilch  26:40

So we encourage people to connect right then and there at the event. So I don't know if you know about the code that's like a scannable QR code within the LinkedIn app. So we always tell people about that and everyone does that. At our events. We do have a big presence on LinkedIn or what We have an amazing woman, Larissa Carrera that runs all of our social media. So she's constantly producing beautiful content for LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. So that group is very active. That's where we promote our events. That's where we promote the women that are part of our FinTech Female Friday's series. That's why we promoted all the winners of the top 50 inspiring FinTech females list. So yeah, it's very active social media channel. And we find that our members continue the relationships that they have made it our events on their own. I was at invest, which is a conference in New York, and I saw one of the women that is a member of FinTech women, I knew she was looking for a new role. And I went up to her and said, Hello. And she said, Oh, I actually got a ticket to this event. Then through someone that I met at your event. Wow. It's right that with with bolstering these relationships between women and men that are helping them progress in their professional life.

 Tina Powell  28:13

Yeah, I think a story like that then it comes full circle. And it does create the opportunities. What is needed for a membership is that's question number one. Question number two is are you for profit or nonprofit? I know that there's a ton of work that your organization right now is doing. You just mentioned the social media, is that just a volunteer position.

 Sasha Pilch  28:38

So we do get a lot of amazing women volunteering for us. And we're so grateful for that. We have registered ourselves as a full profit, because we do want to continue to build our organization and the impact that it is going to have and that it continues to have. So we do charge Our sponsoring companies and full that service, we get the right people in the room for them. We design the panel, we invite the speakers from our network. We do speaker briefing calls, and we do all the social media for them as well. We're looking at a not for profit arm as part of our incorporation, and that will allow for donations and things.

 Tina Powell  29:29

Yeah, and so what's needed for membership? You had explained before that I don't necessarily have to be working at a FinTech startup or even a FinTech firm that it could be working at a conventional bank. But do you have any prerequisites for a membership and how much does membership cost?

 Sasha Pilch  29:45

We don't charge for membership. We think that the way the organization works best is if our events are free to attend and the membership is also free. To become a member. You go to our site nycfintechwomen.com. And there are a series of questions so that we can ensure that we totally understand our member base. So things like where you have worked, if you're looking for new opportunities, how much experience you have, what's your area of expertise? Is it marketing, product, sales, engineering, etc.

 Tina Powell  30:22

And one of the things that I love that you've incorporated are the job posts. Can you speak a little bit about that aspect of New York City, FinTech women? Again, if I'm a member, if I'm looking for a potential opportunity, how do I go about finding one through New York City, FinTech women?

Sasha Pilch  30:41

Yeah, so we do have our jobs page where we have been asked to post jobs from some of the top index in New York City. We also utilize our network to send good people directly to those employers. So whenever people tell me that they all looking and what the expertise is, I do have quite a strong list of women that I send around personally to different CEOs in New York.

 Tina Powell  31:12

That's awesome. I really love to hear that because it's one of the most important aspects of working in this field is creating these opportunities around new work and around diversity inclusion. Do you also notice that those efforts have ramped up as well as a result of New York City, FinTech women and the work you're you're doing? In other words, are you aligning yourselves more with organizations that embrace that methodology? Or is it just happening more organically that you just seem to be attracting the right type of organization and the right type of speaker because of how you're culturally aligned?

 Sasha Pilch  31:51

Yeah, it's actually exceeded our expectations tenfold. We have never gone off. To a company to work with them. It's been completely inbound. And so we've had even more demand to work with companies than we've been able to handle. If it weren't for Coronavirus, we would go to events every month until October that already booked in. So I was just very impressed and kind of taken aback by how many male CEOs have reached out to me and said, I want to work with your organization. I want to show that I'm supportive of women. I want to hire more women, and I want to have more female clients. And that's just been so delightful to hear that they take this very seriously and want to make a difference in their own companies.

 Tina Powell  32:49

And I'm sure that there's many, many more listening to this podcast right now that are going to want to do the same thing. So how does a male or female CEO reached out to Sasha Pilch to, again become part of the network here at New York City FinTech women. I think that there's going to be a lot of questions around that.

 Sasha Pilch  33:12

The best way is a greater outside, have a contact our form, which goes to info at NYC, FinTech. women.com.

 Tina Powell  33:22

Okay, so that's great. So they go to the site, New York City, FinTech women calm. They send an email, which goes to info at New York City, FinTech women calm and that someone from the steering committee will reach out to them. Where are the best opportunities for those CEOs? Is it to host an event? Is it to, I don't know, bring in New York City, FinTech women speakers to maybe an event or a conference that they're doing. It seems like I would want them to do a little bit of pre planning before they reach out to you. So what would your advice be?

 Sasha Pilch  33:58

yet? The way We can work together. If the company has an office space that is adequate for hosting an event, we would love to host an event there. We have had some other companies that have rented a space on larger events in those type of venues. There's also the opportunity to post jobs on our site, and to have women within their organizations featured in our FinTech, Female Friday's book series, and over suggesting their top women to be on other FinTech women panels. And we get asked all the time, by logic conferences if we no good women to speak on those panels. So we would definitely love to put women within different organizations forward for that.

 Tina Powell  34:56

Thank you very much for that information. That was that was that's That's terrific. There's a lot of opportunity there again, if male or female CEO is listening, to really put effort into diversity to put action and effort and execution into diversity inclusion, and it's what I love about the work that you're doing and why I wanted you on this podcast, I feel that if we're going to truly support this as an initiative, we're actually doing things around it. We're not just talking about it. I want to ask you, who's been you've had all of these events, who has been one of the most inspiring either female, I guess, let's let's let's apply the question. Who's been one of the most inspiring female leaders that you've that you featured at your events? And and the same question goes for for males? I'm just curious. Yeah.

 Sasha Pilch  35:52

I try to think about like limiting down to one will have been so many fantastic women. Just going to mention a few of them. So, there's a woman named Elle Carter and Lita at an insurance, FinTech called Jetty. And she's so approachable. She's a great communicator. She's excellent advice. I learned so much from her even though she's younger than me. So she's definitely a standout that we've had. Another key contributor is Lindsey Davis, who is a senior analyst at CB insights. And for those of you who don't know that organization, they provide FinTech reports and act as a research consultant for the FinTech ecosystem. And she, her knowledge is just incredible. So having her on a panel was fantastic. She's arguably one of the most informed people about FinTech globally. I feel really grateful to have had her involved within tech women from Male Speaker perspective. I have to say that the best speaker that we've had is Lowell Putnam, who was the CEO of Quovo, and is now the partnerships direct at Plaid is very wide. It was great to get his male perspective. And he's also laugh out loud, hilariously funny.

 Tina Powell  37:33

Oh, that's great. That's such great information. Thank you so much for that. And and again, when you're not busy with New York City, FinTech women, you're working full time, as well. Right. So how do people get? Well, I do have one more question for you. But But in the meantime, how do people get a hold of you through New York City, FinTech women.

 Sasha Pilch  37:55

So you can definitely add me on LinkedIn, Sasha Pilch come to one of our Events I'm always there meeting lots of people who I'd love to meet to listen to podcast. And you just said I do FinTech women on the side. So my full time role at a company called Ramp we are a corporate card offering which is in competition with the likes of American Express about helping companies reduce their burn and have control over their spend. So we we have a extremely easy to follow user experience and we proactively identified and spend food companies

 Tina Powell  38:41

and so that's Ramp that's what what is the URL for that? What's the domain?

 Sasha Pilch  38:45

Try ramp? tryramp.com. 

 Tina Powell  38:51

Okay, tryramp.com. And one of the last questions and I'd love to end the podcast like this again, a lot of us find ourselves in situations That we need a little bit of that super hero power that we have some sort of physical object, the more and more I talk to all of these women, it's so funny that we all have something some sort of physical object that brings us as greatness. And that has special significance in our lives. So what is that for you Sasha?

 Sasha Pilch  39:22

So mine's a little bit interesting. I actually don't have possession of this physical object anymore. But it was a very big part of my life and I, I still have photos of it, and I still remember it daily. So it's a diamond necklace that I got the year that I started working at a bank when I was 21 years old. And it was with me for my whole career in banking. When I ended up moving to the US, I had a bit of a cash flow problem. So I had quit my job, without a job. It's quite expensive to, to move to NYC without any friends or family. So it did get to a point where I had to go to the diamond district and sell my diamond necklace to buy cans of beans to be able to love the fact that that object helped me get to the next stage in my life. So it's definitely something that's important to me.

 Tina Powell  40:25

Yeah, I think and that's what it's about. And I really, I commend you and I applaud you what incredible courage that you had to not know anybody here and within I don't know, I guess it's within how long now have you been in the US permanently and in New York,

 Sasha Pilch  40:43

Two and a half years,

 Tina Powell  40:44

Two and a half years within two and a half years. You have completely changed your life. And not only that you will be back to the diamond district to buy or your boyfriend will be back at the diamond district to buy you diamond necklace that's even that much more Well, maybe even he finds the original. Maybe you go back to the original merchant where you where you sold it and maybe they can tell you where that is it is and maybe you buy it back and then some of that you get a bracelet and that a ring while you're there. That's an incredible story. Well, I think that you are so, so inspiring. I Wow. I mean, what you and Michelle out what you've created for New York City, FinTech women. I want to thank you because I'm part of the ecosystem as well here. And luckily, I'm right across the river in New Jersey, and only 30 minutes outside of New York City. So I really applaud the work that you're doing. I'm grateful for it as I know that the five other thousand people who belong to New York City, FinTech women, and our podcast listeners right now for that and thank you very much. For all of the work, the effort, the thinking, the passion, the care, and and just your commitment. I it means so much to our industry and what you're doing to help women leaders. I just I appreciate it beyond words right now, especially with with Coronavirus and everything else that's going on. Thank you for creating a community around all of us.

 Sasha Pilch 42:27

Thanks Tina. I do want to also shoutout to our team of women that make all of these possible. So it wouldn't be what it is today without them.

 Tina Powell  42:38

Thank you. Thank you to them as well.  You're listening to In the Suite, a podcast that shares amazing stories of women in business and in the financial services in the wealth management industry. This podcast is proudly sponsored by C-Suite Social Media, digital marketing and social media consultancy for C-Suite leaders in finance and technology. You can visit csuitesocialmedia.com. To learn more, and for show notes from today's broadcast. And if you would like to share the name of a successful woman in business, we should interview on a future episode. Please send it to me at tina@csuitesocialmedia.com and thank you so much for listening. I hope this episode with Sasha Pilch inspires you to join New York City FinTech women, and to take that once in a lifetime journey.