The Finance Innovation Lab exists to build a fairer financial system – one in which those who hold power in finance reflect the diversity of those they seek to serve. To realise this vision, we know that innovation must involve and be led by communities and people that have, up until now, been underrepresented in and marginalised by the financial system.
Unfortunately, representation of these identities in our community, and leading financial innovation in general, is still unacceptably low – and we want to do more to address this. In 2018, we started working on supporting women in financial innovation, and in 2019-2020 we are hosting a series of dedicated events and activities for people underrepresented in our community and the financial system.
On 4 November 2019, we started this series with an evening exclusively for people of colour working in financial innovation. Held in partnership with the vice-chair of the Lab’s board, Marsha Taylor-Daniel, the event convened innovators working across the financial system – whether as fintech founders or employees, finance professionals, campaigners, academics, or something else entirely – who support our vision of a fair, democratic and responsible financial system that works for everyone. We were joined by Demi Ariyo who, shared his story as founder of Lendoe, before we moved into facilitated discussion in small groups where we shared our experiences, identified common barriers, and started to generate solutions.
Read a briefing of the learnings and insights from this event here. Read a blog about the event here.