Latest / Leaders In Payments / Women Leaders in Payments: Kristy Duncan, Founder & CEO of Women in Payments | Episode 336

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Women Leaders in Payments: Kristy Duncan, Founder & CEO of Women in Payments | Episode 336 · Leaders In Payments

• 0:04
  Greg Myers: Thank you for joining us during this special series running throughout the month of July, focused exclusively on women leaders and payments.
• 0:11
  Greg Myers: We've got great content this month, focused on mentorship, career advice, getting out of your comfort zone, having your voice heard and much, much more.
• 0:19
  Greg Myers: A special thanks to our contributing sponsors, Stacks Payments, Nuve and MAP Advisors, and to our episode sponsors, NMI, DailyPay, G&D and Ingenico.
• 0:31
  Greg Myers: Today's special guest is Christy Duncan, the founder and CEO of Women in Payments.
• 0:37
  Greg Myers: So, Christy, thank you so much for being here today.
• 0:40
  Greg Myers: Welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast and, more specifically, thank you so much for participating during Women Leaders in Payments Month.
• 0:47
  Kristy Duncan: Awesome, it's an absolute pleasure to be here.
• 0:49
  Kristy Duncan: Greg, thanks for having me.
• 0:50
  Greg Myers: Absolutely so, if you don't mind, tell our audience a little bit about yourself, maybe where you grew up, where you went to school, where you currently live, a few things like that.
• 0:57
  Kristy Duncan: Okay, well, I was born in Toronto and now live in Niagara-on-the-Lake, just outside Toronto.
• 1:05
  Kristy Duncan: I grew up on a small hobby farm just outside Toronto, before the days of the internet, so we had to amuse ourselves and go out and play in the barn and, you know, wander in the creeks.
• 1:19
  Kristy Duncan: I have two sisters, two daughters, and love to play in the payment space.
• 1:27
  Greg Myers: Awesome.
• 1:27
  Greg Myers: Well, before we get into the meat of the conversation, I want to do this little icebreaker kind of activity, if you don't mind, where I'm going to ask you sort of this or that question, so sort of like do you prefer early morning or late night?
• 1:39
  Greg Myers: And then you answer and we move on quickly and get through about 10 of them.
• 1:43
  Greg Myers: So tell me when you're ready.
• 1:45
  Kristy Duncan: Okay, sounds fun.
• 1:46
  Greg Myers: Okay, so do you prefer summer or winter, summer, cats or dogs, dogs, apple or Android, android, coffee or tea, tea Books or movies, books, beach or mountains, mountains, chocolate or vanilla, vanilla, texting or calling.
• 2:12
  Kristy Duncan: Both.
• 2:13
  Greg Myers: City or country.
• 2:15
  Kristy Duncan: Both.
• 2:17
  Greg Myers: And finally, pizza or pasta Pasta.
• 2:20
  Greg Myers: All right, all right, great, that was a lot of fun.
• 2:24
  Greg Myers: Thank you for doing that, all right.
• 2:24
  Greg Myers: Well, right, great, that was a lot of fun.
• 2:25
  Greg Myers: Thank you for doing that, all right.
• 2:26
  Greg Myers: Well, let's rewind a little bit and let's talk about you and tell us about your life growing up.
• 2:33
  Kristy Duncan: Well, that's a great question, Greg.
• 2:35
  Kristy Duncan: As I mentioned, I grew up in the country on a small farm.
• 2:39
  Kristy Duncan: It was just 18 acres, and as kids I had two sisters we had to really amuse ourselves.
• 2:46
  Kristy Duncan: So there was no internet.
• 2:49
  Kristy Duncan: There were, you know, board games, of course, but I remember in summer vacations my mother would give us breakfast, send us outside and lock the door until lunch.
• 3:07
  Kristy Duncan: Lunch and so we had to, you know, wander around, go down to the barn and jump in the haystacks and wander down to the creek and look for minnows and pick pussy willows, that kind of stuff, and it was very idyllic in many ways.
• 3:17
  Kristy Duncan: It was also quite quiet, very different from the hustle and bustle of the city, and I was often drawn to the city because I thought, wow, the big city, it looks so exciting.
• 3:27
  Kristy Duncan: And as I got into university and grew up, I spent less time out in the country and more time, you know, interacting with people and learning and the excitement, and there's just so much going on in the city that I absolutely love the city as well.
• 3:43
  Kristy Duncan: So that's why, when you ask if I like the city or the country, I say both, because they both have great attributes.
• 3:52
  Greg Myers: Okay, so when you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?
• 3:57
  Kristy Duncan: My grade four yearbook says I wanted to be a dentist.
• 4:01
  Greg Myers: Nice.
• 4:01
  Greg Myers: I guess being the founder and CEO of an organization in payments is not necessarily being a dentist.
• 4:05
  Greg Myers: Nice, I guess being the founder and CEO of an organization in payments is not necessarily being a dentist.
• 4:10
  Kristy Duncan: Yeah, it's funny because even in high school, when I was applying for university, I remember my application was late, so I ran down to the office to hand it in and the principal of the high school was the only one at the office at the time and he looks at it and he goes okay, so you want to take sciences?
• 4:29
  Kristy Duncan: Why do you want to do this?
• 4:31
  Kristy Duncan: I said, oh, because I want to go into dentistry.
• 4:32
  Kristy Duncan: He said do you really want to stare in people's mouths all day, every day?
• 4:37
  Kristy Duncan: I said no, but I want to make good money.
• 4:40
  Kristy Duncan: And he said well, with sciences you could go into engineering.
• 4:46
  Kristy Duncan: It would be so much more interesting.
• 4:47
  Kristy Duncan: You get to do projects and travel and meet people and solve interesting problems.
• 4:55
  Kristy Duncan: I thought, oh, yeah, I could do that.
• 4:57
  Kristy Duncan: So I took the same science background and applied it to engineering and then went into banking.
• 5:03
  Kristy Duncan: Who would have guessed that I'd be doing women in?
• 5:05
  Greg Myers: payments, right, right.
• 5:07
  Greg Myers: Well, when you were young, what was your very first job?
• 5:11
  Greg Myers: I'll tell you mine.
• 5:12
  Greg Myers: I ended up, I think it was before I could drive, so I think I was like 15.
• 5:16
  Greg Myers: My mother worked at a university, a small college, and she got me the job of washing the pots and pans in the cafeteria.
• 5:24
  Greg Myers: So that was my first paying job.
• 5:27
  Greg Myers: What was your first job?
• 5:28
  Kristy Duncan: I love it.
• 5:29
  Kristy Duncan: Well, besides babysitting, which I think lots of kids do growing up, it looked kind of informal.
• 5:35
  Kristy Duncan: My first job was not too dissimilar.
• 5:39
  Kristy Duncan: I ran a halfway house on a golf course because, living in the country, it was the only job I could actually walk to.
• 5:48
  Kristy Duncan: Yeah, it was fun.
• 5:49
  Kristy Duncan: I cooked hot dogs and served drinks to all the people who were golfing on their you know, the halfway point of the golf course.
• 5:57
  Kristy Duncan: So that was fun.
• 5:58
  Greg Myers: Yeah, that's cool.
• 5:59
  Greg Myers: So, as we mentioned earlier, you're the founder and CEO of Women in Payment.
• 6:04
  Greg Myers: So, if you don't mind, walk us through your career journey and what led up to you starting it.
• 6:09
  Kristy Duncan: Yeah, great question, greg.
• 6:10
  Kristy Duncan: So I got an engineering degree and then went to work at a big bank in Canada and thought, you know, as long as they keep me interested and challenged, I will stay.
• 6:24
  Kristy Duncan: And I ended up staying there for 13 years and I really, really enjoyed it.
• 6:28
  Kristy Duncan: There were so many learning opportunities.
• 6:30
  Kristy Duncan: I worked for some time in finance.
• 6:33
  Kristy Duncan: I worked for a time in operations and got to see different parts of the bank, and then where I landed and spent the most time was in the cash management group running the product team for payables and receivables, and I loved that.
• 6:51
  Kristy Duncan: As an engineer, I got to build things and maintain them and improve them.
• 6:55
  Kristy Duncan: But it also got me out into the industry to work on some industry committees to build new things, work on some industry committees to build new things.
• 7:03
  Kristy Duncan: So I was involved I'm going to date myself here as involved with putting together the EDI capabilities for banks in Canada way back when, and I worked on NACHA's cross-border council again way back when, when we were just putting together a facility to connect the domestic payments between Canada and US and Mexico.
• 7:29
  Greg Myers: So that was really fun After time.
• 7:32
  Kristy Duncan: I then worked for a couple years in the Treasury Department of the bank, so managing the bank's books themselves, which was kind of fun, and settling with their Bank of Canada account every day that was interesting.
• 7:45
  Kristy Duncan: Managing the interest rate risk, that was very, very eye-opening and I saw a different part of the bank.
• 7:52
  Kristy Duncan: But then I really found that because I love the payment space so much, I wanted to get back into that.
• 7:59
  Kristy Duncan: So I ended up going on my own to consult in the payments market and I loved the work with that.
• 8:09
  Kristy Duncan: Didn't love the marketing so much as the introvert that I am, but I loved the work and I really enjoyed getting out into the market to see how different organizations you know, how they were challenged and how I could help them with my expertise or do some research to help inform their strategies, and that was always really interesting.
• 8:28
  Kristy Duncan: And then from there I started Women in Payments on the side of my desk.
• 8:35
  Kristy Duncan: I thought we as women don't typically get the opportunities that men do in this industry.
• 8:42
  Kristy Duncan: I saw it in spades where I worked at the bank, where I consulted in other organizations, and even when I attended conferences and industry committees, that the women were notably absent, or at least underrepresented, in all of those settings.
• 9:02
  Kristy Duncan: So I thought we, as women, need to have those opportunities.
• 9:06
  Kristy Duncan: And how can I?
• 9:07
  Kristy Duncan: How can I make that happen?
• 9:09
  Kristy Duncan: So I started Women in Payments on the side of my desk back in 2012.
• 9:16
  Kristy Duncan: We're now going into our 13th year here in Canada and we've been growing this global community over all these years and have built a community of thousands and thousands of women and our male allies who work across the industry to help them to have career opportunities.
• 9:44
  Kristy Duncan: And we do that through our conferences in each market, through networking events, through mentorship and leadership programs, through awards and recognition.
• 9:56
  Kristy Duncan: We have leadership development opportunities through our various committees in each market.
• 10:03
  Kristy Duncan: So it's really blossomed into a platform for women to find mentorship and camaraderie and peers across the industry and around the world.
• 10:17
  Kristy Duncan: So it's been really rewarding career and always kind of with the theme of payments threading through it, which has been really fantastic.
• 10:26
  Greg Myers: Okay, so let's talk a little more about the Women in Payments organization.
• 10:30
  Greg Myers: If you could sort of maybe summarize a mission statement, what would you say?
• 10:35
  Greg Myers: That is?
• 10:36
  Kristy Duncan: Well, we have taken the time to articulate our mission, vision, purpose and values, and the mission is to offer career growth opportunities for women around the world of payments.
• 10:49
  Kristy Duncan: I think we've done that pretty well.
• 10:52
  Kristy Duncan: We're always open to new ways that we can do that.
• 10:55
  Kristy Duncan: I think we've done that pretty well.
• 10:57
  Kristy Duncan: We're always open to new ways that we can do that.
• 10:58
  Kristy Duncan: Our vision is gender parity at leadership levels across payments and fintech and financial services organizations.
• 11:04
  Kristy Duncan: Our purpose is to offer a safe space to promote what I call the gender agenda, and our values are those of inclusivity, empowerment, connectivity and trust.
• 11:18
  Kristy Duncan: So that's what we aspire to, and it's lovely to be able to work on those and engage our community as we deliver those to the market.
• 11:31
  Greg Myers: Okay, so obviously you are talking to women leaders all day, every day.
• 11:36
  Greg Myers: So what are some of the biggest challenges that female leaders face?
• 12:00
  Kristy Duncan: boils down to three main areas.
• 12:00
  Kristy Duncan: So one is there's gaps that women face in our industry and in many industry, and that's a couple of ones that I'll point out.
• 12:03
  Kristy Duncan: One is, of course, the gender pay gap, which I think we're all aware of, and that kind of comes in two forms.
• 12:11
  Kristy Duncan: One is equal pay for work of equal value.
• 12:14
  Kristy Duncan: So if you have two jobs that are just the same, then are the people in those jobs all being paid within the same range?
• 12:22
  Kristy Duncan: That's reasonable and equitable for the experience they bring to that.
• 12:27
  Kristy Duncan: But the other is the overall average pay for an organization, which, for you know, for men versus women, and that can be different for men versus women at an average, at an aggregate level, because two reasons One, because typically the senior, more higher paid positions tend to command a higher salary and those positions tend to be usually 70%, give or take, more men than women, so you don't have enough women in those higher paid positions.
• 13:03
  Kristy Duncan: But then also because typically women aren't as well paid for the same roles when they are performing them.
• 13:10
  Kristy Duncan: So that's one is the gaps being the gender pay gap, but also the authority gap that I've recently tapped into, and I love this concept because it's very true that women and men can say the same thing seriously and paid more attention to and given more credit for than women, and that's a challenge when we're delivering the same message but not getting the same reaction and the same credit for it.
• 13:45
  Kristy Duncan: So we need to work on both of those in our organizations to be able to recognize and actually tap into the amazing talent that we enjoy from women across the industry.
• 14:01
  Kristy Duncan: Another is the idea of I'm going to call them phenomena Things like we've probably many people have heard of the glass ceiling, where there's this level that women typically bump up against as they ascend in the corporate ladder and it's hard to break through that glass ceiling to get up to that CEO or C-suite a C-suite job that's.
• 14:38
  Kristy Duncan: You know, in a state of, you know the organization's in a state of flux or crisis, they might put women in there because they're almost setting them up to fail and then when they do fail, or if they do fail, they say, oh well, it's a woman, she wasn't up to the task, and that's really unfair and we see that happen time and time again.
• 14:56
  Kristy Duncan: The last phenomenon I want to include in this is that of the sticky floor, and that's when you look at the entry level of an organization of bringing in 50% men and 50% women.
• 15:14
  Kristy Duncan: So at the entry level it is absolutely equal, but then so often the women are hesitant to put up their hands for that promotion.
• 15:24
  Kristy Duncan: The men are more than happy to put up their hands, so typically the men get promoted faster.
• 15:32
  Kristy Duncan: Usually it's about twice as fast or even 70% faster.
• 15:37
  Kristy Duncan: So what ends up happening is women get stuck at the bottom of the organization while the men continue to ascend.
• 15:45
  Kristy Duncan: So that sticky floor is another phenomenon that we struggle with.
• 15:50
  Kristy Duncan: And the last thing I want to point out is these syndromes the imposter syndrome I think many people have heard of that.
• 15:59
  Kristy Duncan: Typically women face more often than men, where we feel underconfident about our skills and our ability to deliver and it holds us back, it makes us question our abilities, it makes us hesitant to put up our hands to apply for promotions, and it's unfortunate.
• 16:24
  Kristy Duncan: I think all of these things point to opportunities for our organizations to promote differently.
• 16:32
  Kristy Duncan: I think we need to be reaching down proactively, reaching out to and reaching down to women to tap them on the shoulder, to encourage them to apply for roles that we think they're ready for.
• 16:45
  Kristy Duncan: I think we need to be doing more mentoring and coaching to get women to be more confident in their abilities and to encourage them to get to that next level.
• 16:56
  Kristy Duncan: So lots of challenges that women face.
• 16:59
  Kristy Duncan: Men face challenges too, but I think these ones are typically more often faced by women.
• 17:05
  Greg Myers: Okay, and I think you know, as we move through this podcast, there'll be topics that we talk about that will address some of those that you just mentioned, so I look forward to that.
• 17:15
  Greg Myers: But obviously you've had a successful career.
• 17:18
  Greg Myers: What are your guiding principles?
• 17:20
  Greg Myers: Great question.
• 17:21
  Kristy Duncan: I really had to think about this, greg, because I don't get this question very often.
• 17:25
  Kristy Duncan: I like it.
• 17:26
  Kristy Duncan: So I thought kind of three things.
• 17:28
  Kristy Duncan: One is I want to be always, always adding value, so, you know, bringing my expertise to the table, to, you know, add where I can.
• 17:40
  Kristy Duncan: And often I start out by just asking questions, always saying, okay, well, what is the problem we're trying to solve for here and how can I, you know, bring my previous experience to perhaps approach things differently, bring different perspectives and try to add value in those situations.
• 18:00
  Kristy Duncan: But the other thing that I like to do and I only clued into this maybe 10 years ago as I was starting to build Women in Payments but building your network, because your network can add so much value to your career but also to other people.
• 18:17
  Kristy Duncan: And it's lovely because it's this double-sided benefit where you can help others and they can help you.
• 18:26
  Kristy Duncan: And I find that I network for a number of reasons.
• 18:29
  Kristy Duncan: I network to find out who's who in the zoo, who does what in the industry or in an organization, and then if I have a question I know who I can ask, because clearly we can't all be omniscient and know everything.
• 18:44
  Kristy Duncan: But also to find opportunities, because often your network presents opportunities to you, be they speaking opportunities, job opportunities, opportunities for learning, but also to help other people find opportunities or to find opportunities for your team or for your organization.
• 19:07
  Kristy Duncan: And that network can help you do your job better.
• 19:12
  Greg Myers: Because, oh my God, I don't know anything about.
• 19:14
  Kristy Duncan: AI.
• 19:14
  Kristy Duncan: Who can I call to get a primer or take for coffee to get a little bit of insight onto how they see AI or how they see AI impacting our industry, or what I should be looking out for in that regard?
• 19:28
  Kristy Duncan: So that network can be hugely valuable for us.
• 19:32
  Kristy Duncan: It can be a sounding board for when you want to bounce ideas off other people in terms of what you're doing or personal growth or industry questions, and it's just been invaluable.
• 19:47
  Kristy Duncan: The last thing I would say is constant feedback.
• 19:52
  Kristy Duncan: I'm always, always trying to get feedback from customers, from colleagues, from mentors, from people in the industry.
• 20:01
  Kristy Duncan: What's going on in the industry?
• 20:03
  Kristy Duncan: How can we do better?
• 20:04
  Kristy Duncan: How can we add value?
• 20:06
  Kristy Duncan: How can I learn?
• 20:09
  Kristy Duncan: How can I do better as a leader?
• 20:11
  Kristy Duncan: So that ongoing feedback, leader, so that ongoing feedback that, the constant curiosity, constant learning is always been something that I enjoy, and I remember one of my very first bosses in my on my very first summer jobs was this old she was a battle axe woman.
• 20:31
  Kristy Duncan: I'm sure she's long since dead now, but she was the head cook.
• 20:35
  Kristy Duncan: I had a job as an assistant cook at a lodge up in cottage country north of Toronto and I said we were cooking rice.
• 20:45
  Kristy Duncan: That day I said, oh, cooking rice waters.
• 20:48
  Kristy Duncan: Twice and she said, oh, I didn't know that.
• 20:51
  Kristy Duncan: And she said, see, even people at my age can learn.
• 20:55
  Kristy Duncan: She said I know the day I stop learning is the day I die.
• 20:58
  Kristy Duncan: And I thought that's a great, great way to live life.
• 21:02
  Kristy Duncan: So that's one of the things I try to live my life by.
• 21:06
  Greg Myers: Yeah, thanks so much for sharing those, and I think throughout our careers we've all had these pivotal moments or experiences that kind of shaped our path, and they could be anything like you mentioned then, like feedback Sometimes feedback can help, sometimes job changes.
• 21:23
  Greg Myers: I mean it could be a lot of things, but what were some of those pivotal moments or experiences that helped shape your path?
• 21:28
  Greg Myers: Great question.
• 21:30
  Kristy Duncan: So one story that I tell often and I'll give you an abbreviated version of it is it was actually kind of a difficult situation.
• 21:40
  Kristy Duncan: I was fairly young in my career I don't know 30 years old and walked into it was fairly new in my job and I walked into a meeting with I was in the product management team and we're meeting with our IT support team and the manager of that group.
• 21:59
  Kristy Duncan: I give him my business card.
• 22:00
  Kristy Duncan: He goes oh Christy, I see you're an engineer.
• 22:03
  Kristy Duncan: What kind of engineer are you?
• 22:05
  Kristy Duncan: A household engineer, oh God.
• 22:07
  Kristy Duncan: And I thought oh boy, is this what we're up against?
• 22:12
  Kristy Duncan: And you know this was back in, is this what we're up against?
• 22:19
  Kristy Duncan: And and you know this was back in, I guess the early 90s.
• 22:20
  Kristy Duncan: And I thought, yikes, are we still dealing with this in the 90s?
• 22:22
  Kristy Duncan: And that's a long time ago.
• 22:23
  Kristy Duncan: So that kind of set the stage for me to realize that as women we don't get the same respect and we don't get the same recognition for our accomplishments, and so we do kind of have to fight harder and work harder and really deliver above and beyond to get the same opportunities and recognition as men do.
• 22:49
  Kristy Duncan: So that was kind of a pivotal moment in my career and it taught me to really learn to believe in myself.
• 22:58
  Kristy Duncan: And that's really important trying to overcome that imposter syndrome, but also being able to ask for help when we need it.
• 23:08
  Kristy Duncan: And the asking for help I remember after Women in Payments.
• 23:12
  Kristy Duncan: When I launched in Canada after a couple of years I said, ok, I want to try this in the US, but my network and industry in the US was much smaller than my Canadian network.
• 23:24
  Kristy Duncan: I thought, ok, I am going to need to ask for help and as a very shy introvert, that was really hard for me.
• 23:34
  Kristy Duncan: But I thought, ok, well, how can I do this?
• 23:37
  Kristy Duncan: Well, I can do it in an email rather than face-to-face.
• 23:39
  Kristy Duncan: That might make it easier, give people time to think about it before they respond.
• 23:43
  Kristy Duncan: So I did.
• 23:44
  Kristy Duncan: I sent out emails and I was certain they were going to say no, no, no, no, no, we don't have time for this, we can't help you, chrissy.
• 23:51
  Kristy Duncan: But they all came back very supportive and very positive and I thought, oh, I can ask for help and people are happy to give it.
• 24:01
  Kristy Duncan: It's not costing them anything other than a little time and sharing their networks.
• 24:05
  Kristy Duncan: I thought, wow, this is like the power of the network and how we can all support and help each other.
• 24:12
  Kristy Duncan: So that's been kind of a nice way that I learned from my network but also learned to pay it forward to other people and help them build their networks.
• 24:24
  Greg Myers: Yeah, I think that's a good segue into the next topic, which is getting out of your comfort zone.
• 24:28
  Greg Myers: So can you share an experience where you had to step out of your comfort zone to grow, and maybe what impact did that have on your professional development?
• 24:38
  Kristy Duncan: Yeah, great question.
• 24:39
  Kristy Duncan: So, yeah, I go back to that example, greg, of starting the Women in Payments in the US and trying to build and tap into that network.
• 24:49
  Kristy Duncan: Because for me as an introvert, it was really hard that my comfort zone is sitting in my home office doing emails, maybe the odd conference call, but having to, you know, get up onto that stage it became a global stage was definitely beyond my comfort zone and what I found is that with practice it actually does get easier and that is wonderful.
• 25:20
  Kristy Duncan: So now I'm much more comfortable I mean, I still don't love it, but I'm much more comfortable tapping into my network, getting up onto a stage, speaking to an audience, and I think that's really helped me build my career.
• 25:37
  Greg Myers: Well, let's talk about mentorship.
• 25:39
  Greg Myers: You mentioned it earlier.
• 25:40
  Greg Myers: I know that's a big part of your organization, so did you?
• 25:44
  Greg Myers: It's kind of a two-part question.
• 25:45
  Greg Myers: Did you have mentors who influenced you?
• 25:48
  Greg Myers: And then, how important do you think mentorship is overall to emerging leaders?
• 25:53
  Kristy Duncan: I love that question.
• 25:54
  Kristy Duncan: I think mentoring is it should be, can be a huge part of the success of a career.
• 26:04
  Kristy Duncan: And I actually struggled earlier in my career because I didn't have mentors and I think part of that is because I was very shy and also partly because I was in a quite a male dominated field where the men didn't necessarily volunteer to mentor younger women, and so I struggled with that and I think that mentorship and sponsorship can play a huge and a pivotal role in helping people to learn, because so much of what we learn is not from the textbook, it's not from the manual, it's not from the corporate policy.
• 26:43
  Kristy Duncan: It's learning about culture.
• 26:45
  Kristy Duncan: It's learning about you know how to treat clients nicely, how to you know run a meeting effectively, how to tap into your corporate culture, and that is hugely important.
• 26:59
  Kristy Duncan: We here at women in payments run a mentorship program that typically we have about two or three hundred participants every year, mentors and mentees from around the world.
• 27:12
  Kristy Duncan: Our mentees are our women, our mentors are both men and women and we love to be able to share that in a formal program.
• 27:22
  Kristy Duncan: We've got a whole mentorship toolkit and we run facilitation calls to get feedback and to share best practices and mentorship, I think, can occur on a number of different levels.
• 27:35
  Kristy Duncan: You can have typical mentor-mentee relationship, but what I love about that is the mentor can also be mentored by the mentee, in the respect that they can learn from the mentee.
• 27:51
  Kristy Duncan: They can learn about their own leadership style.
• 27:54
  Kristy Duncan: They can learn about their own corporate culture.
• 27:57
  Kristy Duncan: They can learn from the mentee.
• 28:00
  Kristy Duncan: Whether both of those things resonate with that next generation of talent that's coming up the ranks.
• 28:07
  Kristy Duncan: You know, is our corporate culture, is my leadership style appropriate and resonating and landing on this next generation?
• 28:15
  Kristy Duncan: They can learn about new technology.
• 28:17
  Kristy Duncan: I often learn about new technology from people younger than me because clearly I'm old school I'm not a digital native, so there's so much that we can learn.
• 28:30
  Kristy Duncan: I also want to talk a little bit about sponsorship in this conversation, because sponsorship can be quite different from mentorship and mentors.
• 28:39
  Kristy Duncan: Mentors tend to play a role of providing guidance and advice in your career, but a sponsor is someone who will actually speak up and speak on your behalf when you're not in the room, and a sponsor can put you forward for a promotion.
• 28:55
  Kristy Duncan: They can put you forward for a promotion.
• 28:56
  Kristy Duncan: They can put you forward for an opportunity.
• 28:59
  Kristy Duncan: They can perhaps guide and coach you in getting ready for that opportunity they can.
• 29:07
  Kristy Duncan: Sometimes I've heard of sponsors convincing people to take on an opportunity.
• 29:13
  Kristy Duncan: Often when people say they're not, oh, I'm not ready for that, oh, I think you are and I'm going to coach you through that.
• 29:21
  Kristy Duncan: And I'm going to coach you through the interview process and I'm going to coach you through the negotiation process and I'm going to coach you even after you're in the job on challenges that you might face, so that you don't feel like you're alone and you have no one to call when you have a big dilemma.
• 29:37
  Kristy Duncan: So I think sponsorship can also play a really important and meaningful role in our careers.
• 29:46
  Greg Myers: Thinking about this mentorship and sponsorship that you're talking about.
• 29:49
  Greg Myers: One of the reasons that I put this show together is so that people can learn sort of what works and what doesn't.
• 29:56
  Greg Myers: Is so that people can learn sort of what works and what doesn't.
• 29:57
  Greg Myers: And if I'm a medium-sized company, small company, growing company maybe I don't have any kind of formal mentorship programs.
• 30:04
  Greg Myers: How important is that to like a company?
• 30:07
  Greg Myers: Do you feel like companies need to have a formal program or is it sort of okay that it's a more casual program?
• 30:14
  Greg Myers: I mean to me you know, the bigger the company, the more the chances they're going to have a formal program, but I don't think that means medium and small companies can't have something.
• 30:23
  Greg Myers: So what is your kind of view on that?
• 30:25
  Kristy Duncan: Oh, great point, Greg.
• 30:27
  Kristy Duncan: For sure we can have informal mentoring and I think we should try to mentor each other and make it constructive so it doesn't come off as criticism.
• 30:37
  Kristy Duncan: But there's also another concept that I really love called I call it peer mentoring where we can actually mentor our peers and that can be really valuable as a sounding board for ideas, as a safe place to present challenges that we're facing.
• 30:59
  Kristy Duncan: It could be dealing with colleagues or clients, it could be trying to manage a product or an implementation or something that we're dealing with within our work days.
• 31:11
  Kristy Duncan: So I think there's so many opportunities for mentorship on a formal or an informal basis, but also even, I think, outside our organizations or even outside our industries.
• 31:24
  Kristy Duncan: And once I heard of a woman who was at a large organization, who was volunteered for a cross-industry mentoring program.
• 31:33
  Kristy Duncan: She thought well, you know, she was working at a big bank and she was paired with somebody at a totally different industry I don't know what it was packaged goods or something like that and she said what am I going to get out of this?
• 31:44
  Kristy Duncan: And she said, all right, fine, and they were both at quite senior levels, I don't know SVP or so and she said, ok, well, I've been signed up, I better at least go for a coffee.
• 31:54
  Kristy Duncan: And so they scheduled a coffee and she went.
• 31:58
  Kristy Duncan: She said two hours later she came out of that coffee meeting and she said for the next six months they were texting back and forth because they discovered through that conversation that she was about to do a reorganization of her team and it was a fairly extensive team and she'd never done one before.
• 32:18
  Kristy Duncan: But the person at the packaged goods company had, and so she was kind of getting you know, some guidance and advice from a peer in a different organization, different industry, non-competitive, on how to navigate every org and I thought, wow, what a great opportunity to learn, you know, in different ways from people who might be at our levels within our insider organizations, and we can do that as peers or as mentor to mentee.
• 32:50
  Kristy Duncan: There's so many different ways that we can mentor.
• 32:53
  Greg Myers: Yeah, absolutely.
• 32:54
  Greg Myers: Well, you know, we often don't talk much about significant failures or setbacks, so let's talk about that a little bit.
• 33:04
  Greg Myers: Maybe can you share an instance where maybe you faced a failure or a setback, and then how did you handle it and what did you learn?
• 33:11
  Kristy Duncan: from it one, and this is requiring me to dig deep and to get really vulnerable here.
• 33:17
  Kristy Duncan: So thanks for that, greg.
• 33:19
  Kristy Duncan: I had gosh.
• 33:22
  Kristy Duncan: It was 2014, 2015, so 10 years ago.
• 33:25
  Kristy Duncan: I had a life situation which really changed the course of my life significantly and I had gone to south kore my at the time husband.
• 33:38
  Kristy Duncan: He got a big promotion and was posted there and we took the whole family there.
• 33:43
  Kristy Duncan: It was this great Asian adventure and his contract was for three years and it was all very exciting, and a year into it, for a whole bunch of reasons, we decided to get divorced and that was a really big life changing moment for me.
• 34:02
  Kristy Duncan: And I came back to Canada.
• 34:04
  Kristy Duncan: I felt very, very alone, but I also had had to structure my life.
• 34:10
  Kristy Duncan: I was not allowed to earn income when I was living in Korea, so I had kind of taken my job over there.
• 34:16
  Kristy Duncan: So I had kind of taken my job over there, but it was still very small.
• 34:23
  Kristy Duncan: My business and I came back to Canada without my family and had to rebuild my life and my career basically from scratch, and that was a huge setback.
• 34:33
  Kristy Duncan: I felt very, very much like a failure.
• 34:36
  Kristy Duncan: I failed my marriage.
• 34:38
  Kristy Duncan: It was actually my second marriage and, you know, looking deep within myself.
• 34:42
  Kristy Duncan: But what came out of that for me was a whole bunch of resolve and resilience and hard work and grit and the need to dig deep and believe in myself.
• 35:00
  Kristy Duncan: And I worked like a dog for five years 70-hour weeks for five years until I could build this company Women in Payments to the point where I could build a team to support me and build out this company and our global community.
• 35:21
  Kristy Duncan: And you know, now I feel I finally got to a point where I'm not working 70 hour weeks anymore Yay and I'm actually able to take some time to start writing.
• 35:33
  Kristy Duncan: I've got four books dancing in the back of my head, which is really exciting, so that was something that you know.
• 35:41
  Kristy Duncan: It also forced me to dig deep into my network and ask for help, and it was a real life-changing, pivotal point in my life.
• 35:53
  Kristy Duncan: So thank you for asking.
• 35:55
  Greg Myers: No, thank you for sharing that, and obviously those 70 hours for all those years has paid off because you've built quite the organization.
• 36:04
  Kristy Duncan: Thank you, thank you.
• 36:05
  Greg Myers: Yeah.
• 36:06
  Greg Myers: So I asked this question in all of my interviews, not just during the Women Leaders in Payments Month, because I think everyone brings it kind of their own unique experience to the answer.
• 36:15
  Greg Myers: And it's, let's say, young woman's coming right out of college.
• 36:19
  Greg Myers: She's interested in payments or FinTech and she sees it as a great industry to be in.
• 36:25
  Greg Myers: What advice would you give her coming right out of college to help her to be successful?
• 36:31
  Kristy Duncan: Well, yay that we've got women coming into FinTech and this industry, because it's a fabulous, exciting, dynamic industry and I'm so glad I'm in it and I think for young women coming into this there's so much opportunity.
• 36:45
  Kristy Duncan: So what I would say is number one continuous learning.
• 36:49
  Kristy Duncan: We learn so much in college and there's such value in our education, education but there's lots, lots more that we need to learn and we'll need to keep learning as we travel our careers in in this industry.
• 37:05
  Kristy Duncan: So definitely, continuous learning, that curiosity, the endless curiosity.
• 37:11
  Kristy Duncan: Ask questions and when you've asked 10 questions, ask 10 more, dig deep, because you learn by asking questions and making mistakes.
• 37:23
  Kristy Duncan: I remember when I was learning to speak German.
• 37:25
  Kristy Duncan: I worked in Germany as a summer student in university one year and at the end of the summer I said you know what?
• 37:32
  Kristy Duncan: I've made so many mistakes.
• 37:34
  Kristy Duncan: I've learned a lot.
• 37:35
  Kristy Duncan: So, asking questions, making mistakes Don't be afraid of making mistakes.
• 37:40
  Kristy Duncan: That would be my number one is the continuous learning.
• 37:42
  Kristy Duncan: My number two would be to find a mentor, or even perhaps a peer mentor group who can guide you and give advice and help you navigate your organization, navigate the industry, point you to places where you can meet other people and learn and really grow within this industry.
• 38:08
  Kristy Duncan: And that kind of dovetails in with my third piece of advice, which would be to build your network.
• 38:13
  Kristy Duncan: And we can build our network in so many ways, certainly the people we deal with day to day, but we can build it across the organization by, you know, going to people in other departments and saying, hey, you know, I'm really curious about what you do.
• 38:32
  Kristy Duncan: Do you mind if we go for coffee and you can tell me a little bit more so I can be more effective and perhaps support your department or your role in a better way?
• 38:40
  Kristy Duncan: Or I'm curious to know what your role or your department does, so that I can help understand this organization and plan my career.
• 38:52
  Kristy Duncan: Or learning about what people do in other parts of the industry, so that you get a bigger picture of how it all fits together.
• 39:01
  Kristy Duncan: So building that network, I think, is really key.
• 39:04
  Kristy Duncan: That'd be my third piece of advice.
• 39:06
  Greg Myers: Yeah, I think all three are spot on and great advice, so thank you so much for sharing that.
• 39:11
  Greg Myers: Well, christy, let's wrap up with this one final question who or what inspires you to keep pushing forward in your career and your job and growing?
• 39:20
  Greg Myers: The Women in Payments organization.
• 39:23
  Kristy Duncan: Thanks for that question.
• 39:24
  Kristy Duncan: So two answers I have, if I may.
• 39:27
  Kristy Duncan: One is the global community of women and our male allies that I have had the absolute privilege and honor of meeting and serving over the years, and I go around the world of payments quite literally a couple of times every year and get such a fabulous opportunity to meet them and learn from them and be inspired by them.
• 39:55
  Kristy Duncan: It's just so wonderful, and anything I can give back to the community, I'm very happy to do so.
• 40:00
  Kristy Duncan: The second group that pushes me forward and inspires me is my two daughters and watching them build their careers, and it's funny.
• 40:12
  Kristy Duncan: I used to feel so guilty about not spending enough time with them and not being home for them, and as much as I would like to, but I told one of my daughters that just six months ago she said mom, no, no, don't feel guilty, because what you did was you taught us to follow our passions, you inspired us and showed us that you can do great things if you follow your passion, and so I now feel much better about not spending enough time with my daughters when they were growing up and feel like I was able to be a role model for them to build their own careers and follow their passions.
• 40:53
  Greg Myers: Great, well thank you so much for sharing that, and Christy, this has been an amazing episode.
• 40:55
  Greg Myers: I just want to thank you so much for sharing that, and Christy, this has been an amazing episode.
• 40:58
  Greg Myers: I just want to thank you so much for being on the show.
• 41:01
  Greg Myers: I know your time is super valuable, so thank you so much for being here today.
• 41:05
  Kristy Duncan: Oh, it's an absolute pleasure.
• 41:06
  Kristy Duncan: Thanks for the opportunity, Greg.
• 41:08
  Kristy Duncan: It was a wonderful discussion.
• 41:09
  Greg Myers: Thank you so much.
• 41:10
  Greg Myers: You are so welcome, and to all you listeners out there, I thank you for your time as well, and until the next story.
• 41:16
  Greg Myers: A special thanks to our sponsors for helping make this month possible, especially our contributing sponsors, stacks Payments, nuve and Map Advisors, and to our episode sponsors NMI, daily Pay, gnd and Ingenico.
• 41:32
  Greg Myers: To learn more, visit wwwleadersinpaymentscom.