More than 3 billion people worldwide do not have access to formal loans. However, they have access to technology and all-time connectivity. Thus, with the dream to provide people without a formal credit history, access to small loans, Veronica Crisafulli, Chief Commercial Officer and CoFounder created MO Technologies in 2016. Without the need to know the identity of the user, MO processes numerous data points and calculates a credit score within seconds, pre-approving the user. The technology enables MO Technologies to serve credit to personal or small businesses and to deliver and service via any digital channel.
Strategic Plans for Diverse teams
Anyone in Veronica’s family has plenty of stories about how social, full of energy, and positive she was as a little girl. She still remembers that she had also been considered as a focused, dedicated and potential future leader at school, as well in all of her further studying experiences; from the undergrad at Bocconi University in Milan, city where she was born and grew up, through an exchange at Carlos Tercero University in Madrid and a master between ESADE, Spain and CBS, Copenaghen.
Then, she suddenly found herself in the business world where she worked for strategic consulting companies such as Bain & Company, Delta Partners and Mastercard Advisors where she led projects in South Africa, Argentina, UK, Brazil, Turkey, Czech Republic, Spain and Colombia for the major telecommunication and financial services companies. For these companies, she developed various strategic plans and different types of advisory projects as well as scoring models for their customer base being responsible for different and very diverse teams.
In Veronica’s latest position at MasterCard Advisors, she was responsible for major strategic projects in the Caribbean region and Colombia, developing the most transformational deals for these countries. She was mainly focused on financial inclusion, digital wallet, and loyalty strategies.
The know-how, the experience both in telco and financial services, the willingness to do something good for people and to be independent helped her to co-create, together with Paolo Fidanza, her first fintech start-up at the end of 2016: MO Technologies, which is now present in 8 countries with 80 Movers.
Since Veronica joined the working space (more than 10 years ago), she has been dreaming to start her own innovative business to help people move socially, create the right team and working environment as well as be an example for women in leadership and for her family. This was a dream, and now she believes that it is her greatest professional achievement, because she achieved it and founded people who believed in her since the beginning of the journey.
There is a long way to go but she has all the energy and commitment to help shape the future in fintech and keep creating and expanding current or new businesses.
Understanding Business and Risks
Veronica Crisafulli is extremely passionate and ambitious about what she does. Passion is what motivates and drives her to be a businesswoman and entrepreneur, and ambition is a very important trait for women in the business world.”I am worthy, this is what I think about myself. In my journey, I also find it very important to transmit confidence to the people I work with or for,” says Veronica. She adds, “I’m accountable, and this helped me to grow faster in my career through generating trust. The same applies to my team. In my current business, I also feel the social responsibility to democratize the credit industry using our revolutionary technology that should enable anyone to get a nano or micro-credit. I believe that success cannot be achieved without sacrifices and time/ dedication/ effort invested into what you believe.”
Decision-making Process
When Veronica was a consultant, the major challenge she faced was about a strategic plan she delivered to a very important client, and that was never realized. During the project, the team had many discussions because opinions were very different among the stakeholders involved and after days and nights of work, the team finally decided the strategy to follow. For many different reasons, the strategy did not succeed as expected.
Main challenges to Overcome:
- How to deal with different opinions and how to manage stressful environments
- How to accept if your strategy fails
- How to understand politics and power in the decision-making process.
What she can say is that she learned a lot on how to manage such kind of challenges and the key is to understanding hierarchies but making your point clear on what you would do, always do your best and learn to accept mistakes at a personal level and then communicate them to third parties.
The biggest challenge to move from being an employee to become an entrepreneur was to manage uncertainty. Veronica is still dealing with living in a roller-coast trying to find the best approach, but she’s definitely improving.
Empower more Women
Veronica was lucky enough to work for companies where the women’s cause was part of the DNA. Both at Bain & Company and Mastercard, she had been part of women empowerment activities such as women recruitment at universities, talks about women, empowering women entrepreneurship, and others. Finally, today, at MO, she always pushes to empower more women, and it’s harder because, in technology (Front End & Back End development) and data science, “there is not as much coming out from universities so, we have to start working at the root-cause which is education. We participate in all “girls in tech” initiatives, and my wish is to build a women empowerment initiative at MO in the years to come”, says veronica.
Ultimately, her career path shows how a woman can emerge in the business world up to being herself an entrepreneur. Having clear objectives, focusing on her own path without compromises, not taking shortcuts and putting in the hardwork along with a positive mindset and just being a good human-being has allowed her to create good working relationships that have helped shape her way. For such reasons, Veronica feels she’s a great example of women empowerment.
Traditional Credit through Offerings
Augmented and Virtual Reality, Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation, Blockchain, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, Big Data are some of the technology trends that are currently ruling the planet. The technology has transformed a lot and there is a long way to go. Each of them has to set their eyes for the upcoming trends. And this is what Veronica does: keep an eye, learn, brainstorm on if and how to apply it, define what to do, and try to create new trends. Only this way she will be able to move at the same pace. At MO, the company currently uses Big Data, AI and Machine Learning to define the creditworthiness of consumers and merchants, although MO is completely separate from other credit reporting agencies, it can help customers build traditional credit through its credit offerings.
Additionally, the company has everything in the Cloud, which is vital for them. And it is, as well, working for the future with one of the newest trends. The idea is to never stop learning and to create future technological trends.
Creating the Best Product
In today’s business world, it’s imperative not to stay still for too long, even more in the fintech world where technology is moving faster and faster. So, as a company, we focus on solving the specific needs of each of the target audiences. MO’s core business is an innovative, patent-pending credit scoring technology and loan management platform. This loan management platform uses Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to provide credit products for merchants and consumers without a traditional credit check. MO’s objective is to give anyone, independently of their credit history, the opportunity to access a credit product.
The company has two business models: B2C, taking advantage of the open banking systems, and the other B2B/ B2B2C that it calls Partnership and Alliances. MO believes that their customers and partners shouldn’t have to adapt to its products, so instead, MO listens to their needs and creates the best product for them. So, having the best offering for the target audience is a strategic focus for the company, and the MO team works hard to make it happen.
Maintaining Position in the market
The path to strategize effectively:
- Following the technological and market trends to make sure to be the best option in the fintech field.
- Creating the best product for the target audience and keep innovating faster than the market to deliver the best product year after year.
- Building the perfect eco-system with the right partnerships in place to grow faster than competitors.
- Having the most sustainable and adaptable pricing model to have a successful win-win situation with partners and/or clients.
- Being able to change the game fast enough to maintain the leadership or unique position in the market.
- Hiring and developing the top talented people.
Future Objectives
Veronica’s objectives in the short-term are:
- Put all her effort and time to ensure MO continues to be the most innovative company in segment, driving social changes to achieve the returns expected by investors and partners.
- Create a space where MO is one of the top companies to work for
- Keep dreaming up new ideas and realizing them
- Helping others achieve their goals
- Be an example that inspires