Welcome to the first of our Masterclass podcast series. Every month we bring together experts from the Tier One People network to discuss a particular aspect of scaling a Fintech.
In this episode Dexter Cousins is joined by two special guests from the world of Talent and People to discuss hiring.
The core to success of every tech business is hiring a diverse group of talented people. The stats show diversity isn't just the right thing to do for society, but it makes a positive impact on a companies financial performance. But with Fintech lagging behind other sectors when it comes to diversity, how can founders go about bridging the gender gap and build diverse teams?
About Emma Jones
Emma Jones has amassed a career in all things talent, spanning more than 25 years across global markets. After building an enterprise channel for tech start-up recruitment specialists Mitchellake Emma joined fast growth SaaS company, Ansarada as Global Head of Talent, scaling to more than double its headcount in two years.
Emma founded Men Championing Change (Sydney & Melbourne) before embarking on her current venture, Project F.
Project F is a for-profit, social impact business helping companies around the world to surface and remove the systemic and structural derailers that cause women to quit tech mid-career.
To find out more about Project F and the 50/50 Program mentioned in the show: https://www.projectf.com.au/program-50-50
Men Championing Change: https://www.meetup.com/Men-Championing-Change-Meetup/
About Sophie Theen
Sophie Theen is a Talent and HR professional with a focus on Fintech. Studying a Bachelor of Engineering at Monash and MBA at Melbourne Business School, Sophie has gained notable experience in Australia and Europe.
As first HR person at Revolut, Sophie helped scale the business from 30-500 people. She then joined 11:FS as Global Head of HR and Talent supporting 300% growth.
Now at Oakam Group as Chief People and Customer Officer, Sophie brings a unique approach and perspective to the role of Talent and HR within tech startups.
Sophie's work is consistently recognised by the Fintech industry as a Standout 35 of the Innovate Finance Women in Fintech Powerlist 2018, 2019, 2020 Diversity Advocate and Leader
You can connect with Sophie - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophietheen/
And find out more about Oakam - https://www.oakam.com/about-us/careers/
Move Bank has become the first bank in the world to shift its entire operation, technology, product, operations and compliance, onto Constantinople's platform. Dexter Cousins sits down with Move Bank CEO Mike Currie and Constantinople co-CEOs Macgregor Duncan and Di Challenor to unpack a migration that cut cost to income by around 30 percent and […]
In 2016, Sam Everington joined Starling Bank as one of its first twenty employees. Starling did not have a banking licence yet. It had no product, no brand, and no customers. What it had was a room full of engineers who believed a bank could be built from the customer support desk backwards, rather than […]
Peter Jones used to be the CEO he now sells to. It's helped him bootstrap a core banking platform that now holds 20% market share in Australia's mutual banking sector, without a dollar of outside capital. We are celebrating the World Credit Union Conference coming to Sydney. Dexter Cousins will be bringing you interviews from […]
Andy Taylor is Co-Founder of Stakk an embedded finance infrastructure solution. On 6 July 2026, ASX-listed Stakk Limited signed a definitive agreement to acquire US document intelligence firm ParaScript for US$63 million. I've interviewed Andy more than once over the past decade, way back when he was just starting to build Douugh out of Tank […]
