Stephanie Foster is a people person. When considering what it takes to succeed in the fintech space, however, it’s not typical to think of “soft skills” as consequential. Many people, especially women, “are under the impression that to succeed in tech fields, they have to know how to code, or be an engineer,” explained Foster, the new managing director of ICBA’s ThinkTECH Accelerator. But tech encompasses many roles, Foster said, with space for many types of skills. “It’s all about your core competencies.”
ICBA brought its ThinkTECH Accelerator program in-house in 2023, its fifth year. It also built its base for innovation in Atlanta. Foster signed on in January and the Accelerator recently shepherded its first cohort (of two planned this year) through the program, with operational changes and interactions designed to better meet the needs of a community banking sector increasingly reliant on fintech partnerships to deliver in-demand customer experiences.
“Part of my mandate when I joined was to work with leadership to determine the two areas of focus for this [first] cohort,” Foster explained. The spring/summer cohort focused on deposit retention and faster payments. In years prior, ThinkTECH cast a broader net to fintechs who wanted to do business with banks, selecting 10 companies that offered a wide array of services. “It got a bit overwhelming for our bankers,” Foster added.
The 2023 cohort is smaller, with a shortened program (10 weeks, down from 16 weeks) with the more topical approach emerging in response to banker feedback. “We look at companies that are between seed stage and series A, as far as their funding, [and] have a product already in the market with a few customers,” Foster said. “[They have] bank-ready solutions, something that is fully deployed so if the bank wants to sign a contract with this company, they’re ready to deliver.”
Foster knows a thing or two about “delivering” — she is a mid-career professional with a hefty resume that encompasses payments, technology, and leadership and development. “People ask what piqued my interest in technology. I say, ‘I grew up in it.’”
An early start
Born and raised in Haiti, Foster moved to the United States at age 15 to pursue college prep unavailable in her homeland. “I had the amazing opportunity to land a college internship even before starting college.” That internship came through Inroads, a nonprofit that focuses on helping ethnically diverse students studying business.
Inroads provided Foster a four-year internship with Western Union, which she parlayed into a 17-year career, first focusing on marketing and event planning but later rising through the ranks at the international money transfer business, focused on the Caribbean market thanks to her fluency in Creole French. “I remember having a conversation with my leader who asked if I wanted to stay in marketing or did I want to go into the general management side of the business?” Foster recalled. “I raised my hand, and said ‘I like management’ and that really catapulted my career into further leadership roles within the organization.”
Foster managed more than a dozen strategic partnerships and a P&L of more than $50 million, as well as leading operational strategy and marketing, at the time of her departure. “I sat at the table across from regulators as well as leadership bankers from across the region to develop our expansion strategy,” she said.
But marriage and children prompted a brief career break, and ultimately a reinvention. Stints at Fiserv and Finastra provided Foster with an opportunity to build a new network as manager for a commercial banking product. “That work led me to get more engaged on the ground in Atlanta,” she said.
Foster helped launch Women Driving Innovation, which was solely focused on increasing the number of women in thought leadership as it related to innovation across sectors. “It was another opportunity to grow my network.” It also deepened her reputation as an innovation leader.
Despite two decades of “accomplishments achieved,” what remained elusive to Foster was that coveted C-suite position. Yet she landed one at the outset of the pandemic, taking Foster and her family far from metropolitan Atlanta, at least by cultural and geographic metrics. Foster joined a Bozeman, Mont.-based wealth management start-up, XY Planning Network, as chief administrative officer. It was an opportunity to build a team from scratch, and who better than someone who was once dubbed the “queen of networking” by a peer who worked in the payments space?
“To be able to lead the organization and help scale it was a great accomplishment for me,” Foster said. “But what I learned was that back office operations is not where I shine. It’s not what gives me joy.”
With a move back to Georgia, Foster reengaged her Atlanta network just as ICBA was implementing its plan to take ThinkTECH in-house, and was building and staffing its Atlanta-based innovation hub.
Connecting people
A robust network, or lack thereof, is what keeps women out of tech jobs, Foster said. “A lot of times it’s the network. Who’s in your tribe? Who are you networking with? Who are your mentors, your supporters? Who will take you along for the ride? Not having the right contacts to sponsor you and provide a seat at the table in these roles, that is a roadblock.”
You get the sense that Foster knows the lay of the land so well these days, that she can clear any such hurdle without breaking a sweat. “What spoke to me about this opportunity is that it brings together two things that I’m passionate about: Working with startup founders/visionaries/innovators, and helping them with their go-to-market strategy,” she said. “I’m not a visionary, but I can execute the vision, so a chance to work with these folks is a passion.
“Also, everything I’ve done to this point in my career prepared me for this, whether it was brokering partnerships or managing account relationships, building products for banks or selling products to banks,” Foster said. “I have all of that experience.”
Deploying her experience will no doubt transform the ThinkTECH Accelerator. Change is already afoot. In addition to reducing the cohort size while increasing its frequency — a net gain for bankers — another new facet taps into the power of networking: The Banker in Residence program gives cohort members access to community bankers who volunteer to lend their expertise by setting weekly themes, leading presentations, even holding office hours to provide an opportunity to drill down on community banking-specific topics, anything from compliance to culture.
Foster likes to think of cross-functional leadership as her superpower. That’s key as she leans on what she calls “the full power of the ICBA” to help run the accelerator program with a staff of three people: Herself, SVP of Innovations Programs Wayne Miller, and Program Coordinator Amelia Wainscott. “They support us and make this program spectacular.”