As we continue our celebrations for International Women’s Day, we’d like to introduce you to five female Freetraders who work across our Customer Support, Web Design, Brokerage Support, Customer Onboarding and Product Design Teams.
Three of the five have recently been promoted to reflect their significant contribution and a relentless focus on their development over the last 12 months.
In fact, of all promotions at Freetrade so far this year, 58% of them have been achieved by women 🎉
Suzana, Amy, Nari, Linda and Caitlin speak candidly about what Freetrade does well and where we need to improve to support, champion and enable women at work and in our customer community.
Suzana: To work for a company that recognises the value women bring to technology. This means pushing the boundaries associated with women in Fintech as well as genuinely debunking myths associated with investing to get everyone doing it.
Amy: To be proud to work in a company that supports and encourages personal and professional growth whilst also being a pioneer in the Fintech space.
Nari: Being able to perform at my best in a fast-paced environment. I can honestly say that everyone I’ve encountered at Freetrade is willing to get stuck in and work towards a shared goal, no matter their seniority level. It’s a nice feeling to have, when everyone is committed to achieving the highest possible standard.
Linda: Being able to pursue personal and company goals and passions whilst having the freedom to voice your opinions.
Caitlin: To me, it is the opportunity to be part of a company that is opening up investing to those who struggled to access it before and as a result, learning how to take control of your financial future.
Suzana: As a home-based member who joined only seven months ago in the middle of a Pandemic, I’ve not been part of face-to-face events held to celebrate the women in our community. I do, however, frequently refer back to my first “Wetrade” Zoom meeting. Wetrade is an internal forum created for female and non-binary Freetraders. From that first meeting, I was excited to see how the company would continue to ‘stay connected’ and embrace community. I’ve been glad to see that Zoom meetings have continued and I’m looking forward to seeing this grow. This will give Freetrade a platform to develop allyship and provide more opportunities to celebrate women publicly. This will showcase Freetrade as a place where women who are yet to join our mission recognise the company as a ‘safe place’ for women.
Amy: Freetrade supports women in the company to run our own meetups and events. This creates a strong support network for female Freetraders, where we can celebrate each other's achievements and learn how to develop allyship as we progress.
Nari: I really appreciate Freetrade celebrating this day despite the pandemic! The IWD Zoom event is really important because it helps to showcase the achievements of women at Freetrade. Not only will this echo the importance of gender parity but it will also help to strengthen support amongst women with their personal and career developments.
Linda: Every year it’s important to celebrate this day, which is why Freetrade do so every year! It’s great to see. But this year it is even more crucial to do so because most of us haven’t been able to see each other in person for so long.
Caitlin: I've always felt that our achievements have been well celebrated within the company, though on top of this we also really support each other. We often have "Wetrade'' catch-ups which give women in Freetrade a chance to discuss how we can better support each other and an opportunity to address any challenges we may have succeeding as a woman in our business.
Suzana: Continue to recognise the achievements of women and the impact they’re having in Fintech more publicly; be that via the website, the app or using our social media platforms. I think this will help to encourage more women to get involved in investing. Also continue to honour the work of women and contribution women are making with specific benefits and/or activities.
Amy: Within my team and the teams I work with, I really feel that Freetrade celebrates all genders equally.
Nari: Amy, our Head of People, kindly runs the regular gatherings of female Freetraders. We have an opportunity to get more people involved in this meeting (not just women) to celebrate the achievements of women.
Linda: I think Freetrade can continue to recognise women’s achievements and highlight them across our platform but also add onto our benefits and activities to honour the hard work. I was so pleasantly surprised two years ago when I joined Freetrade and it was International Women’s Day - we went out to a yoga class and we spent the evening together talking over drinks and dinner. It’s not possible to do that this year but I’m proud to see women at Freetrade participating at our Women in Tech event and claiming their rightful place in the Tech space.
Caitlin: The biggest thing we can do is to encourage more women to get into investing by championing those who are. We have seen a slight gender shift in our customer base this year which is encouraging, though women still only make up a fraction of it. We do really try to work with female investors to support our content and get them encouraging others, though this can be challenging as most investment content is still skewed towards males.
Suzana: Being one of the first members of the Plus team and first home based staff members at Freetrade and helping build the team. A first of its kind for want of a better phrase!
Amy: Being responsible for building and designing everything on our corporate site and seeing the impact that it has on the growth of the site performance. Also, working within our technical Growth Vertical and contributing my skills within a broader team to execute projects like the Free Share web landing page.
Nari: I was able to be part of granting the Tesla free share to one lucky customer in August 2020. Being able to see the result of this makes me a proud Freetrader as we really do care about our customers.
Linda: My proudest moment as a Freetrader was launching our product on Android nearly 2 years ago, when I first joined. It was the very first major company achievement I got to be involved in and I witnessed the wonderful celebration that followed!
Caitlin: For me, it is growing the product design team. For quite a while I was flying solo, so I've been so fortunate to have had Chris and Kat, 2 Product Designers, join in the last 6 months. Aside from this, I think the biggest impact I have had on the app was redesigning the order flow to include limit orders and stop losses, as well as a lot of the features around Freetrade Plus. There were a lot of moving parts to that part of the app, and I'm really happy about where we got it to!
We hope you enjoyed reading the stories from some of our amazing team members.
If you're interested in joining the team, check our our latest opportunities now.
