Are you feeling that growing pressure of becoming irrelevant in today's fast-paced FinTech landscape? In this episode, I'm going solo and I'm sharing my battle-tested career development framework - the exact approach that has helped me stay ahead in an industry where yesterday's innovations become tomorrow's table stakes.

I'll show you how to transform that fear of irrelevance into your biggest advantage, building a strategic career plan that keeps you at the forefront of FinTech innovation.

Key Insights:

• Why traditional goal-setting fails and how strategic development planning leads to lasting career growth
• The power of being the driver of your career instead of letting circumstances control your path
• How to identify and leverage growth opportunities in industry, company, and team
• The importance of building distinctive capabilities that make you irreplaceable
• Why visibility planning is crucial, especially for women and introverts

We cover:

(00:00) Welcome to 2025: Why Strategic Planning Beats Goal Setting

(01:00) My personal story: From Big Banks to FinTech Startups

(02:45) The Power of Creating Your Own "Practical MBA"

(04:02) 1: Being Strategic About Your Direction

(06:00) The Importance of Clarity in Career Planning

(07:03) Exercise: Permission to Dream Big

(09:07) Being Honest With Your Self-Assessment

(13:15) 2: Following the Growth

(14:53) Identifying Growing Industries and Companies

(16:00) Analyzing Trends and Their Impact on Your Role

(19:26) 3: Building Your Capabilities

(20:29) Developing Your Value Proposition

(22:14) The Power of Unique Combinations

(24:03) Creating Your Visibility Plan

(26:00) Common Mistakes to Avoid

(27:10) Action Steps for Implementation

Take Action This Week:

1. The Dream Exercise: Give yourself permission to envision your ideal career without constraints
2. Growth Audit: Assess your current skills against where you want to be
3. Value Proposition: Create your unique combination of skills, experiences, and personality traits

Follow for more insights on building successful careers in FinTech and strategic professional development.

👉 Connect with Monica

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicamillares/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@moni_millares
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@moni_millares
• Website: https://www.purposedrivenfintech.com/

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Disclaimer: This episode does not constitute professional nor financial advice and does not represent the opinion nor views of my current, past or future employers. The guest has agreed to record and release our conversation for the use of this podcast and promotion in social media.

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And that gives your power back and it gives a sense of strength and control. You don't need money to do that, nor time. You just need to make a decision and that decision is made both from the mind, from the gut. I'm from the heart.

Happy new year to everyone

And that is instead of working on your. Goals and your new year's resolution. Instead, work on your strategic development plan. Let me go more into that, but first let me tell you a story.

My career, I split it into 10 years in corporate and 10 years building fintech startups. So when I transitioned from corporate, I was in Barclays Bank, and then I wanted to be one of the first joiners in Tandem Bank, one of the very first startups fintechs in the UK. So back then my decision making process was, what do I do?

But anyways, I went with the idea that I was going to join the bank to learn, because I was not going to an MBA, I was going to do a practical MBA. Back then, I met one of my best friends we met in coaching school. So both of us are big believers in personal development and coaching. Every six months, I would sit with her.

This semester is about finance. And I could create my curriculum because I was not going to an NBA, right? So instead, I was. Learning all the things as I was building and that, looking back, was one of the best decisions I could have made back then because I was very proactive into crafting the skills and the experiences that I Needed to have to go to the next level and I was taking advantage of my environment.

E. g. I was living a once in a lifetime opportunity of go and build a digital bank from scratch. I felt like in Silicon Valley like the series back then. I felt oh, my God, but it was true. Like every month, every week, it was an opportunity to learn, but the world is saturating us with information.

In today's episode, it's going to be a solo episode. Yes, you've got me for many minutes. Yoop yoop, And we're going to talk about three things. How to set that strategic direction. Where to do it, and again, what to do to build it, e. g. the capabilities. Let's get into it.

For example, you may be working in product, or maybe you're not working in product and you want to get into product. Maybe you're in corporate. Maybe you want to move into a startup. Maybe you're in startup and you're like, this is not for me. I want to go back to corporate. Or maybe you're like, you know what?

It is time to start a side hustle, or it's time to start my personal brand, or it is time to start that business. It doesn't matter what that thing is, but it has to come from you. You have to be like, hey, where is it that I want to go to? Where is it that I want to be and why this is important. This is important because then it puts you back in the driver's seat.

And that gives your power back and it gives a sense of strength and control. You don't need money to do that, nor time. You just need to make a decision and that decision is made both from the mind and from the heart. I would say even it's like from the mind, from the gut. I'm from the heart.

We can be more proactive about opportunities, spotting opportunities, or creating opportunities. And we can easily say, no, because that doesn't take me where I want to go. And once you have that clarity, it also gives you that je ne sais quoi feeling that sometimes lacks when you just go to a job on a Monday.

So the how we get clarity, three things. Number one, you need to be brutally honest with yourself. You don't need to tell me nor your friends, not your spouse, not your manager, not your parents, absolutely no one, but you need to be honest with yourself. Write down, as of today, what is it that you like and don't like, either about your life or your career.

And we think that they judge us. Some people do, but in reality, no one does. No one really cares. So if no one really cares, the only person that cares is you. So you might ask give you permission to dream and give yourself permission to, live a big life and ask yourself, if money was not an issue, if I could leave anywhere around the world, if visas were not an issue, if money was not an issue, if I could pass all the interviews of the world, if that's what I want to do, get the funding, like if, resources were not an issue.

What could you be doing now?

Or joy or creative expression or security doesn't matter. But why is that impact? Joy, security, creative expression, freedom important to you? What could that enable you to do with your life? That's why honesty with yourself is super important. So we've set roughly the direction, right? And we've anchored that in the why it's important to us.

Probably I'm stricter with myself. And then basically I assess myself against two pillars. One is what are my skills? Whether that it's like soft or hard skills and what are the experiences that I want to have? For example, if you are someone who wants to get into public speaking, which are the experiences that you need to start?

iN those experiences that you want to leave just because you want to leave them because you're going to gain something from that. It's not Oh, I want to go and take a certification because that's the skill that I want to need. It's like that is like very it's very badly, but at the same time, it's like very dry, rational thinking, like genuinely think about what are the experiences that you want?

And then again, go deeper and ask yourself, why could that be important? Okay. So now that you've identified, what are the skills and what are the experiences that you want? Then look at your environment and look at your current role and be like, Hey, this is what I want.

Once you have identified that, for example, it could be strategic thinking, problem solving, communication skills, learning AI, learning how to code getting closer to P& L, learning product growth. Pick one. Thank you. The one that will have the most impact that will get you closer to that dream life. And then, basically, create a plan to build that capability.

You know the direction. So let's go with part two. Where, should you go and build this? And I'll come back to my initial times in startup. I had a mentor. He, is a very special person in my career because I learned a ton from him and I'm extremely grateful for his time and his wisdom.

So what I'm doing now, it's I'm, just passing that to you because like it made a massive difference to my life, my career. So one of the things that you want to think about is. Where do you want to go and build this, career, this life? And his advice was like, Hey, money, you want to be in a growing industry, in a growing company, and ideally in a growing team.

You have some that are established. They are more like scale ups now. They, are growing, but they are established and others, they are just getting started and they make a ton of promises, but you don't know what, are the financials behind them? So just do your due diligence before you jumped into this one, because it's Hey, it's a growing company.

So let's go a little bit deeper now. How

do I know that this is a growing industry if I already work in FinTech? So one thing is you need to identify what are the next big trend that you'd like. So for example, if we think about FinTech industry, we have AI is huge, stable coins, cybersecurity, fraud, identity. For example, out of those be like, hey, which ones do I like, right?

What that means is, hey, for example, I work in FinTech and I see that the trend is AI. I've done an analysis of This is how I think product management may change because of AI, and then my analysis of this is how I think customer behavior and expectations when it comes to financial services will change as a result of using AI.

Therefore, if I am my boss, then it's like, Hey, I would love Monica, who is in the product team, who's leading the product team, I would love her to come up with a strategy on how we are going to change our ways of working incorporating AI and how we should shape our roadmap, whether that is in experiments or big bets, such that we incorporate AI.

So I'll stop here and I'll recap. Number one. Have a clarity on where you're going because it gives you that sense of direction, ability to say no to things that are not in your path, ability to say yes to opportunities or create new opportunities. And then number two, identify an area like a growing industry, a growing company, a growing department and find the trends and basically analyze.

To do, to have the most impact. So now let's be very, practical.

Section number three, you need to build your capabilities. And this is where the magic happens. In other words, you need to take action. So basically, if you think about it, your peer, whether it's in your company or the company next door, your peer is doing exactly the same thing as you.

Right now, everybody's thinking about their career, their development plan, their goals, how they can be better. So you need to ensure that you're really good, so good that people can't ignore you because competition is harsh. So you want to be able to be put in the room with the best and still be recognized as one of the best.

Once you create that list, then basically you have the core of what is your superpowers. And please do notice that I did mention personality. So it's maybe you are an introvert that loves, Quiet thinking time, deep thinking. Maybe you're an extrovert that talks, that loves connecting with people.

And it's more the relationship management side. Maybe you are a numbers wizard. And basically what you love is thinking for all the rationale behind each number, this, the other, like all of us have unique personality traits that then translate into our strengths and talents that then we translate into work.

And for these, I'm going to wear my glasses. So these glasses give me a different perspective, right? I used to have A, this is my set of skills and experiences that I want to build. B, this is my unique body preposition, my set of traits, personality traits and experiences that I have that make me unique to solve strategic problems with these glasses, e.

I had to put on the glasses. If you are listening on that, you have to go to YouTube and check on the glasses. But anyways, these, new lens will allow us to develop. That differentiating strategy. That's why I said it's a strategic development plan, a strategic career plan, and we choose the one thing, one thing that we need to do well after we've analyzed it.

the work that you're doing, that's it.

And they need to know

the value that the work that you're doing brings to the organization. Sometimes they may not understand what you do. Sometimes they may not even know that you do. Sometimes they'll be like, hey, but we need to do this. And you're like, I already have it, but no one knows about it.

That's happened to me multiple times. So don't worry. It's it is normal. It's not a gender thing. It's just like the world is very complex. So ensure that people know your value, know what you're doing. And this is not about bragging. It is not, but we live in an ecosystem where you need to communicate your value.

And so you keep upgrading your product, e. g. yourself, but if the market, if your customers don't know about the product and all these amazing things, you need to ensure that you have a strategy on how you're going to ensure that you communicate the amazing things that you're doing within your team at work.

And I urge you to consider building your personal brand online because That's it. We live in an online world.

And then with these new set of inputs, wear the glasses, have a new lens, expand your vision and say, therefore, this is the one thing. That I want to work on this year, be strategic about it and go for it. That's it. Be confident about it. So that's it for today.

Go and find that one thing that will help you elevate your preposition to an upgrade premium preposition, and then go and build your visibility plan. That's it for today. Everyone have an amazing day, week, month, and year ahead. Sending you much love. Ciao.