These Leading Women Executives are Shaping the Future of Fintech

In recognition of March being Women’s History Month, what better time than now to both acknowledge and boast about some of the women leading the fintech and payments spaces. These executives aren’t just working in the space, they’re leading real change and innovation. They’re overseeing global strategies that embrace new technology, pivoting to shifts as the world tries to get back to normal in a pandemic, and working diligently every day to foresee what’s next for global payment solutions and digitization.

Highlighting those who excel in their field is a privilege and the timing is especially relevant this month as we give thanks to women who are changing the world. Two such leaders we recognize, share the amazing things they are doing, and hear their thoughts for the future are:

Shan Shan Li, Director, Global Partner Marketing - Visa Inc.

Shan Li oversees partner strategy, engagement, and co-marketing execution to and with global partners for Authorize.Net/Cybersource/Visa technology partners, system integrators, solution providers, developers, acquirers, and financial institutions. She helped to lead the development of Cybersource and Authorize.Net’s Global Partner Marketing practice as well as their Diversity and Inclusion work, where she leads and pioneers the collective strategy, initiatives and campaigns driving Visa’s global Inclusion and Diversity objectives worldwide. She continues to grow the program to support our tech ecosystem in providing access and resources to underrepresented communities.

Her work throughout her career has been recognized with the Interpublic Group Organic Growth Initiative Award for B2B consulting and she was Utah State’s first ever recipient of Utah Business 20 in their 20s. She serves in various capacities in the tech industry as a speaker/thought-leader and influencer at global events, B2B/Tech advancement, and universities within her community. She is constantly working to optimize for better solutions for people, communities, and businesses.

Looking to the future: “The world is aggressively moving to digital-first, making digital features a priority regardless of where consumers are shopping. With the robust change in consumer shopping behaviors, being digital first in the fintech space will not only provide satisfaction in current consumer UX environments, but also set you up for what’s coming in the next decade as we see more demand from the market as more digital experiences surface requiring flexible payment solutions for both digital/virtual ecommerce enablement.”

Kim Molinaro, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Clover Connect – Powered by Fiserv

Kim Molinaro has worked in the industry for 20 years and her current role involved several acquisitions including BluePay, CardConnect, FirstData, and now Fiserv. A leader herself, she embraces teaching and creating the next generation of leaders. As Head of Strategic Partnerships, she meets the thousands of partners that work with Clover Connect’s technology platforms.

Looking to the future: “I see the trend of contactless payments continuing to gain momentum, and us truly becoming a cashless society. The advancement of mobile wallets and phone-to-phone payments is only going to increase over time, with leaving your wallet at home becoming the norm because everything you need is on your smartphone.”