Author: Business Era

Just 31 percent of board members at Fortune 500 companies are female, and that number drops to a staggering 7 percent for non-white women, new research shows. Of 5,403 board members, 69 percent are male, and 78.5 percent are white. The lack of gender and ethnic diversity among these corporate board members is the basis for the new “Build Better Boards” campaign, launched this week by Mogul, a female, minority-owned business and one of the world’s largest recruiting platforms for diverse executives. Mogul’s Board Diversity in 2022 report found that 16 companies within the Fortune 500 have no ethnic minorities on their boards; three have…

Michelle Perchuk describes her career and entrepreneurial journey as having three distinct chapters: she started out as a traditional recruiter, launched her own company to teach boutique search firms how to operate efficiently, then transitioned into what she calls career and business progression coaching. Each step gave her a marketable and differentiating set of skills that she now uses to help both newcomers to the job market and seasoned executives devise their career strategies. As a recruiter for large companies such as Manpower and Ajilon, Perchuk worked with banks and insurance companies to fill technical positions. With the mortgage crisis, those…

Jodi Daniels of Red Clover Advisors: 5 Things You Need To Know To Optimize Your Company’s Approach to Data Privacy and Cybersecurity Know your Data. When we did a data inventory for a company they didn’t know they had 5 CRMs. Once we were done with our work, were able to clean up their data, lowering their risk for the company and reducing their costs to just one CRM. Asa part of our series about “5 Things You Need To Know To Optimize Your Company’s Approach to Data Privacy and Cybersecurity”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jodi Daniels. Jodi Daniels is…

Hong Kong banker Calvin Choi appears to have amassed an immense fortune at record speed. Less than a month after the 43-year-old listed his AMTD Digital on the New York Stock Exchange, his stake in the digital financial services firm has skyrocketed 14,000% for reasons his firm can’t explain. Now his holdings appear to be worth as much as $36.8 billion—based on AMTD Digital’s stock price at Wednesday’s close. But his stake in AMTD IDEA, which is AMTD Digital’s parent company and through which he holds the shares, is worth just under $500 million, illustrating just how out of whack the stock’s insane valuation…

It’s a familiar story. A big, financially successful corporation sees that firms which have mastered digital technology can move more quickly, operate more efficiently, mobilize more resources, attract more talent, win over customers more readily, and enjoy more elevated market capitalizations. But when they invest in digital technology, the initial results are disappointing. “Many companies struggle to reap the benefits of investments in digital transformation, while others see enormous gains?” say Marco Iansiti and Satya Nadella in their article “Democratizing Transformation” in HBR (May-June 2022). “What do successful firms do differently?” Digital transformation, the authors say, “requires that executives, managers, and front-line…

Johann Bödecker is the CEO and founder of Pentatonic, a sustainable design and technology consultancy firm. He’s seen the gamut of sustainability fiascos in his career. His favorite example, he says, was hearing about a ski jacket making its way to Tanzania, thanks to donation efforts. “A 3XL sized ski jacket in Tanzania. Really?” he says. “That encapsulates what is wrong today.” It’s examples like these that have motivated him to push the apparel industry to be more calculated and nuanced in their approach to “sustainability.” While donating used clothes can be a worthwhile effort, they’re not always landing up…

A Interview with Dan Schawbel: I spoke to Melissa Hartwig, author of both The Whole30 Fast & Easy Cookbook: 150 Simply Delicious Everyday Recipes for Your Whole30 and The Whole30 Day by Day: Your Daily Guide to Whole30 Success, about why the Whole30 movement has taken off, the daily food habits people should adopt to be healthier, how the food we eat impacts our productivity, what she’s learned from her journey and her best career advice. Hartwig is the co-creator of the Whole30, a 30-day nutritional reset program that emphasizes whole foods. She is a Certified Sports Nutritionist who specializes in helping people change…

Payments fintech mx51, which offers a payments-as-a-service platform for banks and embedded payment solutions for merchants, has raised AU$32.5mn. Payments infrastructure fintech mx51 has raised AU$32.5mn in a Series B funding round led by an unnamed “global fintech investor”. The two-year-old fintech offers payments technologies on two different fronts: for banks and acquirers it has a payments-as-a-service platform that leverages their existing legacy tech infrastructure; while for merchants, it provides a suite of embedded payment solutions that allow retailers to create a seamless payment experience both online and in store. Mx51 will use the money to secure “aggressive” expansion, starting in its…

Dave Lewis, CEO and Founder of Ranqx, discusses the role of community banks amid the digital economy and the expansion of fintech Dave Lewis is the CEO and Founder of Ranqx, a cloud-based digital lending platform that automates the SME lending process for banks based in New Zealand. We caught up with him to find out more about the function of community banks within an increasingly global, digital economy. How are community banks fairing in the current climate? Community banks benefit from greater customer loyalty than many of their larger peers. This form of institution currently makes up the majority of the 5,000,…

Mark Hartley is the Founder and CEO of BankiFi – a UK-based fintech that provides solutions for banks and their SME customers Mark Hartley is the Founder and CEO of BankiFi – the UK-based technology company that specialises in Open Banking solutions for SMEs. Prior to founding BankiFi, he operated globally in a range of general management, sales, innovation, and strategy roles in the technology industry servicing the financial services industry. We caught up with him to find out more about launching a startup in the current climate. Tell us about your role and your journey to the position. What are the critical elements that…