Dora Ziambra

Head of Business Development at Azimo

London, United Kingdom

@DoraziExplora | Dora Ziambra

Please provide a summary overview of your role at Azimo.

My role at Azimo is officially Head of Business Development - which in a growth company changes every day! I always say that my job is to make Azimo bigger and better. That being said, I am involved in most things that do not relate to daily operations, that includes international expansion, banking relationships, strategic partnerships, fund-raising and any other project that I can help with. There is never a dull moment at Azimo but it is worth since we are changing the world one transaction a time.

You study Liberal Arts at university. What attracted you to a career in Finance Services?

I chose a Liberal Arts college because at the time I was not 100% sure of what I wanted to do with my life. I also strongly believe that you don’t have to do your undergrad degree in the exact same field that you are going to end up working in. It is all about education in a general sense, in learning how to analyze things and think critically. I was attracted to financial markets because of the fast-paced environment and its connection to real-time news, politics and not-only. One of my majors was International Political Economy and it was obvious to me that I could not decouple politics from economics.

You’ve worked in the derivatives markets both in the U.S. and in Germany. How has this background impacted your decision to work for a startup?

I worked for three different proprietary trading firms: - one of them was my own startup - and the other two were the European offices of the US parent company so in many ways, they were early startups where you get to do everything. You are the trader, you are the front office and the back office and you get to fix the air-conditioning when it breaks. So, working for a startup has been rather the norm than the exception for me.

What prompted you to join Azimo? You stated you didn’t have an official position when you started.

I joined Azimo for three reasons: one was because I wanted to work for a growth startup. Since I had already been part of small firms with max. 15 people, I was interested in the next stage of the startup lifetime, when you move from 10 to 50 to 100 people and further. I wanted to experience the “growing pains” and play a vital role in the process. There were pretty much 10-12 people when I started at Azimo and now we are approaching 80 in a bit over a year.

The second reason I joined Azimo and the main one was the people, especially the CEO, Michael Kent and the co-founder, Marta Krupinska. I had two conversations with them and we just clicked. It may sound weird but I just got along with them and was willing to start working without a very specific role in mind.

The third reason I joined Azimo is its mission: disrupting the remittances business. Remittances was not intentionally my preferred sector in fintech before I met the company but after I did, I did realize that it is actually creating value and has a positive impact on the everyday lives of hundreds of people and this is paramount to me.

You were the only female trader on your team when you started your career. How has this experience shaped your view of gender diversity in the workplace?

I never gave it much thought when I was younger to be honest: I went to a Women’s college in the US so very early on, I was about equal opportunity, women in business etc. I did not go into trading thinking that I was the only female but it was obvious once I arrived there, especially on the trading floor, where everybody was white, male and twice my size. None of this actually phased me, I have a brother who is 12 years older than me so I was used to being around “boys”. I didn’t do anything differently, I strongly believed that if I was good at trading and treat them with respect, they would respect me back. It did work this way but I also had to have “thick skin” and laugh at silly and potentially sexist jokes as long as they knew the limits. I have gotten more concerned about gender equality as I have progressed in my career, where it is more obvious are paid less, get fewer promotions etc. It is the unconscious biases that we have to fight and not the male/female jokes in the workplace.

Your career spans three distinct financial crises. Do you believe FinTech in general is a catalyst for change for the better in financial services?

FinTech is definitely making financial services better for the end consumer by disrupting the incumbents that have been concentrating on corporate profits (yes, we all want to make money) and forgetting about the consumer. Fintech is improving payments, consumer banking, lending, even introducing new investment opportunities such as crowdfunding. That being said, financial crises will not necessarily be avoided because of the emergence of fintech companies but will certainly be mitigated as the new entrants have very different missions.

Gender quotas are a much discussed and in some cases such as the Nordics, adopted approach to address the gender diversity issue in the workplace. What is your opinion on this practice?

In general, every economist will tell you that quotas are not beneficial - so in principle, I am against gender quotas and it saddens me that we have to resort to such measures to increase diversity in workplace and the boardrooms. Women should be participating because they are capable and can perform as well as men. In order for this to change though, it will take another generation and we might need to start from the simple things, like Barbie dolls and cartoons.

What do you see as the 3 leading future trends for FinTech?

Future trends in fintech definitely

• Mobile - we cannot ignore the way mobile is changing consumer behavior at all levels - banking, lending, trading etc.
• Seamless transactions driven by small/big data - the constant use of mobile gives companies an immense amount of information that will change the way we make financial decision and transactions
• AI - does not only apply to fintech but it will also be deployed in our space and will change everything