Female Executive in Fintech Talks: Saxo Markets’ Head of Public Relations, HK & Shanghai Offers Tips for Career Development

Women's participation in the labor market has been a long and complex story deeply affected by women's family roles, discrimination, the changing economies and technologies, and their own choices.

According to economist Claudia Goldin of Harvard University, when the workforce first saw women's participation in around the 1910s, it was primarily poor, uneducated single women who entered the workforce often as piece workers in manufacturing. Those single women who worked generally exited the workforce upon marriage. In the subsequent 100 years, as new information technologies emerged, scheduled part-time employment became more available, societal barriers to married women continuing to work dropped, women's labor force participation rose substantially driven by married women. Single women also began postponing marriage and childbearing and continuing working. Women began to see their lives and their identities differently, with their professional selves becoming as important as their families.

Today, women make up more than half of the labor force, and all industries have a relatively high female employment. Many of them even outperform men on leadership and move up to the top of the corporate hierarchy. Recently, Fazzaco has reached out to a number of prestigious female executives in the fintech sector for some exclusive insight into women's leadership.

Doris Zhao, Head of Public Relations, HK & Shanghai at Saxo Markets, a subsidiary of Saxo Bank, has great experience in the finance industry. Our interview with her today will have a deep dive into numerous topics, including how to improve career development in an organization.

Fazzaco: Tell us something about yourself that's not on your resume.

Doris: Well, I'm gonna say I'm a self-growth explorer, who constantly looks for inspirations and does a lot of thinking and tries different ways to see a different side of myself, and other people as well. I am genuinely interested in people and the interactions between them. That's actually linked well to my profession, which is to pass information, provoke inspiration, create connections, and make a positive influence and impact. So aside from my profession as a communicator, I also studied psychology and enjoy spending my leisure time on topics related.

Fazzaco: What are the anticipated stories that led you to your current profession?

Doris: As mentioned, I think I've always been interested in people, such as what's going on in their brain, how they receive external information, and how they process and communicate with each other. From a daily life angle, it'll be interpersonal communication. From a more extensive scale or professional angle, it's actually mass communications, public relations, reputation management, and things related. So I studied Advertising as my major for my Bachelor and then Corporate Communications as my major for my Master. And the story is actually nothing drama or unexpected at all. I did my internship with one of the top advertising agencies Ogilvy and then joined the Public Relations industry after graduating. Next thing you know, it's already more than 10 years passed. I've been with agencies serving clients, mostly are financial institutions or listed companies in Hong Kong who needs communication consultancy service facing the capital markets. I've also been with in-house roles for a wealth management firm before and an online trading and investment firm now. The financial sector is undoubtedly one of the major industries in Hong Kong, which has a significant impact on everyone's daily life and long-term life goals. It's not that we all need to chase for money or financial status, but knowing about it and navigating it to earn more free time for ourselves would definitely affect the happiness and achievement in life no matter what real goal you're chasing for.

Fazzaco: As a female leader, do you think it's a challenge to get into the majority-male finance industry?

Doris: I suppose "getting into" is not much of a challenge itself. The real challenge, I feel, is more about staying competitive, earning respect, making our voice heard, and then actually making an impact in the industry. Because there're indeed prejudgments or stereotypes regarding the genders. But the good thing is we have already observed changes, both in people's minds and actions. Taking my current company Saxo as an example, we've launched the WIN (Women Investor Network) initiative to empower women to fulfill their financial aspirations and promote awareness of the growing power of women in the financial industry and in investment. More and more women want to take control of their lives through informed investment decisions and better investment tools. Saxo also introduced the Women in Leadership Theme Basket, which consists of 30 companies with a high percentage of women in their leadership team representing US$1.1trn in market value, as recent research suggests that companies with a higher degree of gender equality in their leadership team perform better both on fundamentals and in the equity market. I mean, If you look back, women just started to join the labor force around the 1910s. Before that, women didn't possess any assets or even were considered their husbands' assets. And if you look right now, the gender pay gap is shown in various researches still. So I would say it's a long way to go, women do not yet get the same level of education, respect, or the resources as men do as a starting point for centuries, so it'd be naturally more complex for women to earn the same thing as men do. And our program is aiming to contribute to the change of this. As I believe, it's not that I am a woman, so I want more rights or privileges for my own gender, it's the equality that will, in the end, benefit the whole system and the whole society, including men. As different gender can provide different perspectives, use different skills and bring different values to the table, the ultimate optimistic results would organically absorb all differences and reach and evolve into balanced results for everyone here. And that's also why our initiative is not just limited to gender equality, but also under this bigger frame of "Diversity", to promote equality and break down barriers between people from different backgrounds.

Fazzaco: Reportedly, the first year of the pandemic knocked 54 million women around the world out of work. Of the women who lost jobs in 2020, almost 90 percent exited the labor force completely, compared with around 70 percent of men. As an experienced female leader, what's your advice for those women who are striving for excellence in the workplace?

Doris: I'm one of the 54 million, and your question makes me feel not so bad about it now. I would say it's not necessarily a bad thing. It gave me time and space to step back and look from a distance to see a bigger picture and see where the issues are. It's a good opportunity to ask oneself, is this the job I want to do and spend my life on? Is this the value I share and pursue? Is there anything else I want to do instead? What are the things I actually enjoy? Of course, we all need to pass through the stage we feel doubt about ourselves or disappointed when going on countless interviews but still no offer. But my suggestion would be to take it as a hint, as an opportunity, no matter the reason that makes us out of work, it's clearly not the best fit for us, and it's time to find and try something different. And even you decide to exit the labor force, nothing wrong with that either. You just need to see your values and then spend your efforts on them. There're always paths if you are willing to step further. And if we look from another angle, based on your figures in the question, 90% of women got this exciting opportunity to rethink their life, but only 70% of the men got it. Also, please don't assume that it's our fault for losing a job. The situations coming along with the global pandemic are out of anyone's expectation. It inevitably hurts the economy, hurts the employment rate, and fundamentally changes many things in our lives. But compared with people who lose their lives or their loved ones in the pandemic, losing a job is just a tiny bump. What we can do, other than having faith in ourselves, more realistically would be managing our financial situation better, so we could be more resilient under the circumstances and risks.

Fazzaco: As a minority female leader, have you found any differences between men's and women's perspectives when making a strategic decision or a decision related to profession?  

Doris: I find this question a bit hard to answer because when I wrote down some observations, I felt it was all stereotypes, and I can already think of some exceptions in my head. I'm more believed that every individual is different. Even though I have observations such as, men tend to be more rational, they always compare pros and cons, they constantly evaluate the cost not just to invest in some projects but also to exit some projects; meanwhile women tend to be more understanding, they are better at communicating and expressing their emotions, which also actually pretty valuable if you use it in the right way in a professional setting as we're just all human beings, even though all that, I actually think these are not the difference between men and women, these are the difference between how people perceive men and women. So men and women try to fit in their roles and be good at what they are supposed to do. I hope this can be changed in the future, and everyone can forget about the gender stereotypes and simply be themselves. Quoting Samuel Taylor Coleridge's saying here: "A great mind must be androgynous."

Fazzaco: Could you give some advice on how to improve career development in an organization?

Doris: First thing first, understand the business well, not just one's own function, but the overall business, and the aspiration and ability of the founder and management team. This would give you a good idea of your own position in the organization, where you could fit in, what value you could provide, which path you can pursue, other than just constrained by the job title/dept.

Second, do your own thing well and keep improving. That's fundamental. Even though you don't get a promotion in this company, the ability, the achievement, and the experiences you accumulated will always follow you when you join another company.

Last, be open-minded. It's not suggesting we take everything in, but more of a positive attitude towards different opinions, then we select the one really matters or helps. The person who can do this is the one with real strength because you're not afraid of being challenged. Your reaction to differences or even attacks is not getting defensive but keeping being open-minded to see if there's anything worth listening to. This is one important way to achieve growth and make friends instead of enemies.

Fazzaco: Tell us your secrets to balancing work and personal life.

Doris: Choose the job that allows you to have balance, and choose the partner that respects and values your balance. And, try not to compare yourself to others. There're always people seem to achieve more than you do or more balanced than you do, but the truth is you don't know everyone's real life, and everyone does have a different path to balance, to success, to happiness. Some paths might seem longer or harder, but we see more views along the way.

Fazzaco: What do you want to achieve this year?

Doris: Work-wise is helping my current firm to gain more exposure in the region, as I do believe this is a good firm, so I want more people to know about it, enjoy the services it provides, and share the value it believes. And second, hopefully, there'll be more interviews or initiatives like this, and not just on Women's Day, so we can help with women's voice to be heard, we can help with the whole gender equality and all equality to make this a better world.