Nicole Anderson

CEO at FinTech Circle Innovate | Partner at Circini Partners | Founder Redsand Partners

London, United Kingdom

@nicoleanmo | LinkedIn Profile

Please provide a summary overview of FINTECH Circle Innovate.

We are a dedicated FinTech innovation advisory working with financial services companies, corporates and international venture arms helping to accelerate innovation and investment returns by connecting them to global FINTECH ecosystems.

You are originally from South Africa and began your professional career there. What prompted you to leave and how did you decide on London?

Circumstances which prompted the move to London were, when I think back, swift, spontaneous and unplanned. At the time I worked for a global software company and applied for a London post as an experiment. I fancied the idea of 3 years gaining international experience. Before I knew it, 1 year and turned into 6 and now a total of 15. London has that affect on you. It’s a transient but in an intimate way. Networks can be built very quickly and there is always somewhere to go, something to learn or do. You never tire of it.

Would you ever consider returning to corporate life now that you’ve founded a company?

For anyone making the transition into entrepreneurship after many years of a corporate career, the reasons are pretty compelling. The push or pull to do something else is normally way stronger than then the fear of failure. And once you make it through the ‘valley of death’ 12-18 months on of pivoting, refocusing, working all hours to break-through, there really is no going back. The moments of ‘am I mad doing this’ tend to be far fewer.

If you are passionate about what you do, the call of charting your own cause no matter how uncertain keeps you going. Building value and meaning is priceless if you have found something you can make a difference with and love what you do.

What do you consider to be the top challenge in working with large scale clients and likewise, with fintech startups?

The list is a long one but simply, I would summarise them as follows:

For start-ups working with corporates the lack of urgency and pace is constantly a frustration. The complexity if decision making can mean months of perpetual selling to hit the right sponsor. And then there is the process and hoops to jump through that in themselves can be even greater ‘engagement pain’.

I think the challenge for the corporate working with the start up is mostly tied up in cultural gaps, immature understanding of agile and lean processes and appetite for risk. But in fairness, many startups lack commercial maturity. The have great ideas which find their way into technical design, but there is frequently an inability to measure the commercial scale and opportunity.

I am also constantly surprised at the lack of market validation undertaken - competition, customer need and how they have misjudged the length of time it takes to fund raise. Those founders that have worked with corporates generally have a better time selling and preparing themselves to work.

What do you think makes London such a unique fintech hub as compared to NYC, Silicon Valley, and the other cities?

London enjoys a very close FinTech community. I talk about the one-degree factor. For now the circle of experts and influencers is such that it if you don’t know someone directly, you know some one who does. Policy maker, FinTech companies, corporates and investors share through various active programs and a vibrant event calendar. The layout of London is a huge factor too. It’s a small big city. We also have the only FinTech trade body in the world which supports collaboration. San Francisco has a different tone. Start-up is a business model where the ecosystem feels so sophisticated and huge, that you really have to be at scale or have a mature network to be noticed.

New York, has it’s own quality. Fast paced and specialised. The investor community works at scale. I do think it is still somewhat fragmented and lacks the community feel and gateway nature of London, but a Titan, nevertheless.

You’ve run multiple marathons. What personal lessons from either training or actually competing in these grueling events apply to the FinTech space?

The lessons of physical endurance have been metaphors for me in life as an entrepreneur. Testing your body, trains your mind to go beyond where you think you have a perceived limit. For every barrier broken, the mind is reinforced and I do believe creates a baseline mentally for success.

FinTech is much more like an obstacle course than a marathon to be fair. The pure mass of innovation, investment interest and global activity demands that you are able to understand cross industry trends, new entrant business models, regulation and the opportunity for the incumbents. It’s an assault course for those who entering it now - full of surprises, fierce competition and you have to be prepared to be tested daily, no matter what ‘your competency’.

You’ve been a mentor at both Startupbootcamp and Level 39. Why is mentorship so important to you?

I believe anyone who has run a start-up has some value to bring to a new business. Your lessons are often replayed with huge appreciation to a young company as the challenges for a new business are unsurprisingly similar - commercial modelling and fund raising, technical scalability and brand positioning are the most common calls for help.

At the end of the day, I believe that I can act on behalf of my corporate clients with credibility. I live in this ecosystem daily. I understand how to draw out the best in a business and that all adds to how I offer a quality service. I believe running a run a start-up and regularly mentoring has built my own empathy and skill base in connecting the two worlds.

Who(m) do you believe has had the most influence with respect to your own career?

The single biggest influencer in my life was my aunt. She was a software developer and a business owner. Unheard of 40 years ago. She was an avid traveller and taught me the value of networks. Her dedication, work ethic and attention to detail set her apart in her field.

But she was also huge fun. She didn’t take life that seriously and brought humour into life and work every day. She still works and has her own business. She has taught me to not buckle to conformism and to trust my gut in all aspects of my life.

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

Already Blockchain is on everyone’s lips. I think the real power of Blockchain will be where it blends with identity management, smart contracts and cyber security. This has relevance across the global financial supply chain from country treasury functions through to our pockets as consumers. The technologies combined have the power to formulate new risk models at a retail and institutional level and the onward power of data scrubbed, modeled and acquired - will bring new products and services to market, never imagined but with the inherent transparency our world craves.