The Pattern I Couldn’t Ignore
I’ve been mentoring founders for years now, and when I started working more closely with women, I noticed a pattern I hadn’t seen before that was hard to see at first probably because finance is my bread and butter. A male founder could have zero finance skills and still bullshit his way through investor meetings. But ask a brilliant female founder one finance question and watch her confidence completely crumble.
I’d spent my entire career being the only woman in finance meetings and events. Seriously, I could tell you some stories that would make you laugh and cry at the same time! But being that constant minority made something click for me: if women aren’t in these rooms, how the hell are they supposed to learn this stuff? And when all the financial education is written by men, for men, using jargon that makes you feel stupid, no wonder brilliant women lose their confidence the moment someone mentions cash flow.
My Not-So-Typical Journey
Let me back up and tell you how I got here.
It all started because my family didn’t have much money. I got my first job at 13 waiting tables, but my first taste of income was a car wash business when I was 11. I handled the ‘‘sales’’ while my brother (giggle) did the actual washing. I learned pretty quickly that business is about people.
When I moved to the UK, I couldn’t afford university fees, so I took a reception job at a publication company. Through curiosity and determination, I worked my way into credit control and accounting. Then, in what I still can’t believe happened, I landed a junior management accountant role at Ernst & Young without any formal finance background.
To this day, I think my secret weapon was asking the interviewer, “Why should I work for you?” instead of the other way around. The funny thing is that confident question came from complete ignorance. I had absolutely no clue who Ernst & Young were!
Fast forward through years of learning, growing, and occasionally failing, and I found myself as Global Head of Finance at Reward Gateway. I joined as a product finance manager but quickly saw massive problems with how the finance team operated. They were isolated, wearing suits while everyone else wore jeans, taking two months to produce financial reports.
I can’t stand it when finance is this mysterious, scary thing that no one understands. It’s the heartbeat of the business!
Over four years, I transformed that finance function, was part of the team that helped grow the company from 70 to 350 people delivering 60% annual EBITDA growth and played a key role in a £140 million exit to Great Hill Partners. Since then, Reward Gateway was bought by Edenred in 2023 and valued at £1.15 billion!
What Keeps Me Up at Night
But here’s what really drives me: I’ve seen the crazy world women have to deal with in business, and I’ve also seen their unique brilliance, their creativity, and their strength. I just realized I was done trying to operate in a world built by and for men.
The conversations I have with women are just different. They’re more honest, more open, more real. Women will admit when they don’t understand something. They’ll ask the “stupid” questions. They want to actually learn, not just fake it until they make it.
But the financial education available to them? It’s either:
•Theoretical MBA-level courses that take months
•Generic online content that doesn’t address their reality
•Corporate training that assumes you already know the basics
•Or advice from men who’ve never had to juggle business growth with picking up kids from school
What I’m Building
So I’m building something different. Founded to be Counted is a finance education platform specifically designed for female founders who are tired of feeling lost when it comes to the money side of their business.
We’re talking 5-10 minute micro workshops that you can watch between meetings. Ready-to-use templates that don’t require a finance degree to understand. Coaching that feels like talking to a friend who happens to know a lot about money. Live group bootcamp sessions no more than 5 days at a time where you can power your financial knowledge.
My mission is simple: I want every female founder to feel completely confident when talking about their finances. Whether that’s with investors, their team, or just themselves at 2am when they’re wondering if they’ll make payroll.
Because when women understand their numbers, they build better businesses. And the world really needs more of those.
The Bigger Picture
The Alison Rose Review found that boosting female founders’ financial capabilities could add £250 billion to the UK economy. That’s not a typo. £250 billion! Oh and then there’s the great wealth transfer of $124 trillion set to shift from Baby Boomers to younger generations. Remarkably, around 70% of this wealth is expected to be inherited by women.
We’re not just talking about helping individual women succeed. We’re talking about unlocking massive economic potential that’s been sitting there, untapped, because half the population has been excluded from financial education that actually works for them.
Join Me on This Journey
I’m looking for female founders who are ready to stop feeling like everyone else got the finance handbook except them.
If you’re tired of nodding along in meetings while secretly panicking inside, if you’re sick of feeling like finance is this mysterious thing that other people understand but you don’t, if you’re ready to take complete control of your business finances - then this is for you.
I’ve got the qualifications (CIMA Chartered Management Accountant, Master’s in Business, PhD in Corporate Finance), the experience (20+ years in finance, been part of 3 successful exits), and the absolute refusal to let brilliant women be held back by something as learnable as finance.
But most importantly, I’ve got the understanding of what it’s like to be the only woman in the room, to be underestimated, to have to prove yourself over and over again.
Ready to change the conversation? Ready to stop letting that 2.3% investment statistic define what’s possible?
Let’s build something better. Together.