Work at Fintech aims to increase diversity

by James · July 4, 2022

Summer Trading Network 2016

Work in Fintech launches NFTs for Good, the first non-fungible token collection aimed at companies, with the proceeds used to provide chain learning and work experience for young people with different backgrounds who want to work in fintech and web3.

Matthew Cheung, CEO of fintech ipushpull, and Ying Cao, former head of digital products at Barclays Investment Bank, are co-founders of the social project. The artwork has a diversity theme and is supervised by Benyamin Ahmed, the 13-year-old creator of Weird Whales and other NFT collections that have earned $ 20 million in sales.

Cheung told Markets Media that his parents were immigrants and he went to a public school in England where only three or four students from the whole year went to university.

Matthew Cheung, ipushpull

“I had no family or friends to help, and there was no career guidance at school,” he said. “I have been lucky and ended up setting up two companies, but there were little things that would have been easier if there was someone who could help me along the way.”

As a result, Cheung began mentoring students at his old school and helping to provide work experience in all aspects of fintech or Web3, not just development.

His “lucky break” came from finding work experience with a local stockbroker when he was 15 years old after watching the movie Wall Street. He returned every year and an introduction from a person in that office resulted in Cheung getting his first job in London City.

Cheung has a day job leading ipushpull, and about a year ago he realized he needed help with his mentoring project. He interviewed Ying Cao, CEO of the executive coaching platform Liyt, for his podcast on fintech diversity, and they found that they had a lot in common.

Cao grew up in China and came to the United States 16 years ago to study for a master’s degree in economics at Yale, but still found it difficult to find a job on Wall Street. She explained that a total stranger helped her get her first role by submitting her resume.

Ying Cao, works in Fintech

“This person changed my life and it inspired me to be that person for someone else,” Cao said. “A little thing can literally change a person’s life.”

Cao became interested in fintech when she worked in credit trading and saw that most of sales and trading wrote orders manually in notepads. She then helped create a new group in Barclays to review the bank’s digital strategy.

She went on to say that as a woman of color, she had to be different to succeed on Wall Street. As a result, she became a board member of WIND, Women in Derivatives, which was launched to increase diversity and now has around 6,000 members. “A new industry does not want to recreate a similar problem,” Cao added.

Tokenizing experience

The funds collected via the NFTs will be used to offer students, graduates and young people who want to work in fintech and web3 work experience and internship programs (1-6 week courses), as well as access to coaches and mentors.

Cheung said: “The reason we raise money is that we can hire people full time and do it properly, instead of doing it in our spare time. There is so much demand to help young people get into this. industry. “

The proceeds will also be used to build a blockchain-based gamified and tokenized learning, training and mentoring platform that is open to all. Cho explained that success comes from curiosity and passion, but these qualities can be difficult to demonstrate.

I strongly believe that it is our responsibility to help guide and inspire young people, give them opportunities and help them push them beyond their boundaries.@WorkinFintech characterizes NFTs @NFT_NYC to help fund free fintech and web3 learning for students from any background 👇

– Matthew Cheung 🚀 @ NFTNYC (@Matthew_Cheung_) June 17, 2022

“We can observe how students interact with our platform, how many times they contribute, what kind of content they produce and what projects they are interested in,” said Cho. “We can codify this behavior and make suggestions to the hiring companies, which is a unique approach.”

Companies can use the proof of work on the platform to assess a candidate’s abilities, instead of just relying on resumes or personal recommendations.

Cheung continued that every time someone uses the platform that will be tokenized and eventually provide a visualization of their experience based on their login information on the chain.

“It’s linked to your identity,” he said. “The very long-term vision is to provide chain credentials for learning and work experience.”

He described the NFTs as the first B2B product to offer more than just a work of art.

“We see them as the building blocks for DeFi, and it has been a hot topic in financial services,” he added.

Work in Fintech will use public blockchain books to clearly show how the income from the increase will be allocated in the interest of transparency and accountability. The income will fund work experience programs, internships and career fairs in 2022 and 2023.

Get in touch if you are a young person reading this @WorkinFintech and join our thriving community. If you are a business and want to give back, sponsor us, help young students achieve good things, or just want to get involved, please get in touch.#fintech # web3

– Jobs at Fintech // workinfintech.eth 🚀 @ NFTNYC (@WorkinFintech) June 17, 2022

Cho said that since fintech is a new industry, there are no standardized hiring processes, so Work in Fintech will also help companies develop best practices.

“In the short term, we want to help people find jobs in a more innovative way,” she added. “Ultimately, we want to create a metaverse to work in fintech.”

The NFTs have already generated strong corporate interest, with sponsors and partners including Adaptive Financial Consulting, Blockchain.com, ipushpull and one of the world’s leading inter-dealer brokers according to the project. They will be launched on June 20 at NFT.NYC, the annual NFT industry event in New York.