Hey, fintech fam 💜

This week, I’m writing about why New York isn’t just a backdrop for fintech — it’s the proving ground.

The place where capital meets culture. Where regulation meets ambition. Where distribution gets mastered. And why, after years of building inside New York Fintech Week, we stepping into the next chapter.

But before we get there, if you’re heading to Fintech Meetup in Las Vegas on March 31, I want to invite you to our Fintech Penthouse series inside the Mandalay Bay, including:

✨ Women Who Prove x Fintech Is Femme Brunch — mimosas, sharp operators at the intersection of security, fintech, and compliance, and a live Humans of Fintech taping in a private penthouse. RSVP HERE.

🌍 Growing Global: An Evening Reception with Fundbox x Fintech Is Femme — cocktails, capital, and a conversation on powering the global SMB economy. RSVP HERE.

If you’re building, investing, or scaling — you’ll want to be in those rooms.

Now, let’s talk about New York. ✨

The first time I attended New York Fintech Week, I was not on stage.

I was in the audience.

It was 2021. I had just quit my 9-to-5 job as a fintech reporter to start Fintech Is Femme. I didn’t have sponsors. I didn’t have a team. I didn’t have a roadmap.

What I had was a ticket.

The morning after I left my corporate job, I walked into Empire Startups Conference and watched the New York fintech ecosystem gather in real time — founders trading frameworks, operators debating product strategy, investors quietly moving deal flow in the back rows.

That night, I went home and reported everything I saw in one of the earliest editions of the Fintech Is Femme newsletter.

And I remember thinking:

Next year, I’ll be on that stage.

So I built toward it.

By 2022, I was moderating at New York Fintech Week alongside industry veterans. I wasn’t a recognizable name yet — but the newsletter was catching fire. We were adding 1,000+ subscribers a week.

By the end of that year, Fintech Is Femme had surpassed 50,000 subscribers.

Not because we were chasing tech headlines.

Because fintech — especially in New York — has never really been about technology alone.

It has been about distribution.

As Shaul David recently pointed out in response to my Forbes column covering HSBC’s research on the $113 trillion women’s wealth shift, fintech is often mislabeled as a technology race.

It isn’t.

The best fintech businesses rarely created breakthrough technology.

They understood the pain points of consumers, startups, enterprises, and finance teams.

They understood how the banking system actually worked.

And they built smarter distribution.

Think Brex for modern corporate finance infrastructure.

Think Betterment for digital wealth management.

Think Chainalysis for blockchain intelligence and compliance.

Think Public for next-generation retail investing.

None of them reinvented physics.

They reinvented access.

That is why fintech is durable.

Because when your product sits in the transaction flow — when it moves payroll, wealth, credit, compliance — you are not building an app.

You are building infrastructure.

And infrastructure belongs in New York.

New York is not just another tech hub.

It is the undisputed global capital of finance.

Here, you have unmatched access to:

This city built Wall Street. It built American banking. It built global capital markets.

And importantly, it built a narrative.

New York is where finance meets media meets culture. Where deals are structured by day and debated over dinner and espresso martinis. Where regulators, founders, journalists, and investors are often found in the same rooms — not just on panels, but in conversation.

You cannot replicate that ecosystem in a Slack channel.

(Though yes — we have one of those too inside The Academy of Fintech.)

And now, as AI reshapes industries, fintech is not shrinking in this environment.

It is strengthening.

At Brex Mode in New York earlier this month, Sruthi Lanka, CFO of Public, said that fintech is “really having a moment.”

Why?

Because while pure software companies worry that large language models will flatten their moat, fintech operates within regulated systems, real-money movement, and transaction flows.

Amazon and Google were supposed to dominate fintech.

They didn’t.

Because when you are moving someone’s paycheck into a bank account, or executing a securities transaction, regulation and trust are not features — they are infrastructure.

And infrastructure is durable.

Lanka said fintech companies born in the last wave have reached scale, real profitability, and are “ensconced in their spaces.”

That durability matters.

Especially now.

AI is raising money across public markets. It is driving valuations. It is changing how work gets done.

But fintech’s opportunity in AI is not speculative.

It is operational.

Fintech companies are already built on data sophistication and regulatory discipline. AI accelerates those strengths rather than replacing them.

And New York — with its density of financial institutions and institutional customers — is where those experiments get validated fastest.

This city doesn’t reward vaporware.

It rewards traction.

Which is why New York fintech has always thrived under pressure.

After 2008.

After funding contractions.

After valuation resets.

New Yorkers don’t panic when markets turn.

We adjust.

By 2023, I was hosting my own New York Fintech Week event alongside industry icons like Sallie Krawcheck, Sarah Levy, Lule Demissie, and Dani Fava.

That same year, I returned to the Empire stage — this time as a “Jedi Master” — sharing my framework for audience growth and, more importantly, for owning your distribution.

By 2024, we made history.

We launched the first female-led, female-directed fintech summit with a 100% female speaker faculty — a first for the industry. We opened the official week interviewing the Titans of New York Fintech, including Amy Nauiokas, founder of Anthemis and one of the earliest backers of several household fintech names.

And something crystallized.

Fintech didn’t just need more events.

It needed sharper storytelling about the leaders building the global economy.

It needed stages obsessed with substance and value delivery — not vanity metrics.

It needed intentional rooms where capital, operators, and founders came to transact, not just network.

By 2025, when there was no longer a clear anchor conference holding New York Fintech Week together, the ecosystem felt the gap.

Founders flew in from Germany, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Florida and told me directly: they came because of the Leadership Summit we hosted — 500 attendees at The New York Times Center.

Not because it was trendy.

Because it felt like a true dealmaking home for the fintech leaders defining our industry.

And when something feels like home — you don’t rent it.

You build it.

In 2026, after years of investing in this week, shaping panels, hosting summits, and helping define its narrative, we are officially producing it.

FTW: NYC, the official New York Fintech Week Conference.

Anchored by:

New York deserves a fintech week that reflects the sophistication of its ecosystem.

Fintech needs to lean into what makes it distinct: regulated innovation, distribution mastery, and customer fluency.

And no city embodies that intersection better than New York.

Fintech is entering a new era.

AI is accelerating workflows.

Women are poised to control $113 trillion in wealth.

Distribution models are shifting.

Capital is consolidating around durable infrastructure players.

This is not a side-show moment.

It is a structural one.

And if you care about where fintech is headed next — the companies that will define the next decade — you need to be in the room where finance, media, and culture intersect.

I started in the audience.

Now we’re building the stage.

New York is not just a backdrop.

It is the proving ground.

And fintech’s next chapter belongs here.

Early bird tickets for FTW: NYC increase on March 31.

If you’re interested in getting involved, reply to this email, and I’ll connect you with our team to explore the right fit — whether that’s group ticket packages, curated executive dinners, private networking salons, or a mainstage role.

New York doesn’t wait for permission.

Neither should you.

Let’s build.

FTW: NYC is a three-day, high-impact convening designed to shape what fintech builds next.

We’re bringing together the industry’s most influential founders, operators, investors, CISOs, and global brands across three focused summits — innovation, leadership, and security — all under one roof in the global capital of finance.

This isn’t another conference.

It’s where strategy gets sharpened.

Where capital meets operators.

Where real partnerships — and real deal flow — take shape.

Early bird tickets increase on March 31.

And I just confirmed new keynote speakers who are… next level. The kind of leaders who don’t just predict where fintech is headed — they actively move markets.

More very soon.

If you care about where this industry goes next, you’ll want to be in New York.

And if you haven’t seen our latest promo video yet, check it out here!

📰 Share this newsletter with a friend and start growing your network.

🔗 Connect with me on LinkedIn for daily insights on leadership.

🤝 Grow your business through content & community by partnering with me.

📣 Promote yourself to 50,000 subscribers by sponsoring this newsletter or the Humans of Fintech podcast.

🎤 Host an epic event by booking me as a speaker, moderator, or emcee.

📚 Increase your expertise by ordering your copy of my book, Fintech Feminists: Increasing Inclusion, Redefining Innovation, and Changing the Future for Women Around the World.

That’s all for now! See you on Thursday.

Love,

Nicole 💜