"When I graduated from university with an international development degree, the only career path presented to me was within the UN and non profits. Although I found purpose within that world, I equally found myself questioning if this was it: if this was what impact looked like. If this was the environment where I thrive. If this was fulfilling to me."
Describe an experience in your life formative in shaping your view of the world.
My upbringing — I’m born to parents of related yet wildly unique cultures: West African and Caribbean. They themselves have been exposed to cultures beyond their own for their entire lives: from DRC and Djibouti to Mumbai and Cairo to Los Angeles.
I was born in Switzerland, raised in South Africa, studied in Canada and the UK where I now live. All before 22.
We live in such divisive and conflicting times. As I’ve approached the age where everyone seems to be getting married or engaged, I’ve heard of countless stories within my friend group and beyond around how exclusion permeates their adult life — how their parents don’t approve of their partner because of their race, their culture, class, job.
I feel so honoured and privileged to have had the upbringing I’ve had and break the mould. My partner is Catalan, my brothers partner is Nigerian, my longest standing “uncle” is Afrikaans, I work in a job that I’m passionate about. I have friends from cultures across the world who share this deep appreciation for acceptance and inclusion. This global mindset allowed me to immediately connect with Jasmine, founder of The Bloom - and for this, I feel so grateful🧡
Your career journey includes so many beautiful transitions – across roles, industries, and impact focus areas. What were the most transformative transitions in your journey thus far, and why?
You know, when I graduated from uni with an international development degree, like many others, the only career path presented to me was within the UN and non profit world - especially given that I grew up in Geneva.
I have always had this creative energy within me, and although I found purpose within that world, I equally found myself constantly questioning if this was it: If this was what impact looked like. If this was the environment where I thrive. If this was fulfilling to me.
I’ve moved to the complete opposite end of the bureaucracy scale and joined a veeeeery early stage startup. I’m now in a team that reflects the diversity of the world we live in, surrounded by people my age, people that challenge the status quo.
It is still early days but I think I’m moving closer to finding that sweet spot where social impact meets agility and creativity. Without the red tape, the never ending processes, the diplomacy and respectability politics that can work to repress minority voices within the non profit sector, opportunity, creativity and evident impact lies.
I think there’s so much to be done to present students with options that fall out of the traditional bubble. I never thought that I could work in tech with my skill set and as more startups that are solving real social challenges emerge, it's crucial that students with critical thinking skills and emotional intelligence are part of shaping our collective futures.
And advice you wish you’d been given earlier about pursuing an impact career?
I felt quite isolated making the jump from my niche area to the startup world. A big part of that isolation came from the fact that there were few people in my network doing similar transitions.
If you don’t have a community of like minded people in your direct environment, create one or join one virtually.
Whether it’s through meet-ups, online communities hosted on platforms like slack, groups for your specific demographic (i.e. coding black females etc), you can’t underestimate the power of feeling seen and heard. Of your challenges being validated and being gracefully held along the way.
Ok: let’s talk about Juno! At the heart of the startup’s mission is to close the gender wealth gap by offering accessible financial education for women and nonbinary communities. What’s your relationship to the startup’s mission?
I actually find it quite hilarious that I’ve joined Your Juno because money has formed such a critical part of my journey into womanhood.
To me, ultimately, money is freedom. Money is power.
And to tell the story right, I have to take you back decades ago to when my mom a young teen in Ghana.
When her parents split up, my grandma - as a secretary - could only afford to raise one child. So my mom got sent to live with my grandpa in Washington DC, whilst her little brother was raised in Ghana my grandma.
The thing is: nothing starts with you. Our behaviours, our choices, our stories are all intergenerational. We are just a speck in a long lineage of family. And like anything else, whether it’s a negative learned behaviour from your childhood or a trauma informed coping mechanism, with money, our habits are formed as early as 7 years old.
What this meant for my story was that my mom was hellbent on academia and smashing school because she saw education as a tool for financial independence. She wanted to build a life where she could fend her herself, put a meal on the table, treat herself here and there, all while saving money for a rainy day. Call it “conservative”, but truly, she was doing what she could with the information she had to build a more secure future for herself. And she’s raised me with these lessons too - “a man is never a plan”, as she likes to say 🔥
So of all startups I could’ve joined, Your Juno holds a special place in my heart - it’s education my mom wishes she had when she was younger. She’s now 58, follows us on instagram and is still learning from the content we produce which I find incredibly powerful.
It doesn’t begin with us, and it does not end with us either. As one of us rises, we all do.
Describe your current role as Head of Community & Belonging at Juno.
Because money is such a taboo topic, women are more likely to speak about sex, death, religion and relationships before they speak about coins. Yet money shapes absolutely everything.
And this is why we’ve done something untraditional for a fintech - and that is to center humans. To center the stories and lived realities of women and non binary people. For too long, we’ve been othered, our experiences trivialised.
To us, community and belonging is about lifting the lid on money and normalising conversations about it. We do this through our online community hosted on Slack which recently surpassed 1000 members across the world, we do it through virtual and IRL events that connect the community together and through our product itself which centres on financial education.
As you’ve been bringing more people into Juno’s community, what’s surprising you about the different experiences? Any patterns and specific focus areas that resonate?
When I joined, the focus was very much on early 20s - how can we best prepare women and non binary people who are about to enter the world of work? Because we don’t learn about money anywhere. We affectionately call ourselves the duolingo of money because we live in a time where you can learn about 100s of languages online in a really fun and engaging way, yet the one language we all need to be fluent in - the language of money - we can’t learn about it anywhere : not at school, at uni, through apprenticeships or at home, there is a huge gap to be filled. And we exist to fill it.
What we’ve since found out is that it’s the 25-35 age group that our offering resonates most with, but we have folks from 18-55 learning with us. And that’s the fascinating thing — we all come to financial education at different points in our lives, perhaps triggered by different life moments. We have parents looking to build intergenerational wealth for their kids through investing. Community members fully invested in the emerging NFT space. Women leaving abusive relationships and building their emergency funds.
Freelancers trying to budget and build smoother processes. People working towards their retirements and consolidating their pensions. Because we’ve been overlooked and systemically excluded for so long, we’ve seen this incredible spectrum of people rushing in and it’s been an honour to provide a safe space for these conversations to happen.
Whenever that moment comes, it is never too late to begin bettering your future.
Impact resource rapid fire questions!
books worth reading?
📚 Klara and The Sun Kazuo Ishiguro
📚 Men Without Women Haruki Murakami
📚 The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir Wayétu Moore
podcasts to listen to?
🎙 Therapy for Black Girls
🎙 How to Fail
🎙 Techish
🎙 The Receipts Social
social media accounts to follow?
🌻 The Know
🌻 Everyday Africa
🌻 Nedra Glover Tawaab
🌻 Black forager
🌻 Chicks for Climate
🌻 Ogorchukwu
OK now who wants to grab a coffee with Loyce?? She's kindly agreed to three 1:1 meetings 🥰 Send us an email to let us know if you're interested and we will select three of you to meet her ✨
sponsored seed
On the topic of finance...this week we're honored to share The Bloom's mini financial empowerment crash course on one of the least understood areas of finance: crypto. We've created the resource together with our sponsor Coinbase, and in the coming weeks, we will highlight Coinbase's mission-driven partners working across borders at the intersection of impact and crypto. Let's dive in 💙
What's the impact?
More than 1.7 billion adults around the world don't have access to a bank account because centralized banking systems exclude them. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are part of the impactful innovations driving financial freedom and inclusion. A notable recent example of the social impact of crypto: Alex Bornyakov, deputy minister of digital transformation of Ukraine, has said that crypto donations has been one of the most efficient forms of aid that the country has received during the war so far. Borynakov points out that the speed at which crypto transactions take place gives it an edge over traditional bank donations.
What is cryptocurrency?
At its core, crypto is typically decentralized digital money in which transactions are verified and maintained by a blockchain using a technology called public-private key cryptography, not a centralized goverment or authority. Bitcoin, which launched in 2008, was the first cryptocurrency, and remains by far the most well-known. Cryptocurrency is a part of the greater, always-evolving "Web3" ecosystem involving DeFi (decentralized finance), Dapps (decentralized applications), NFTs, DAOs, and more.
How does it work?
Blockchain is the underlying technology that makes cryptocurrencies possible. A blockchain is a digital, secure, public record book of transactions. In philanthropy and nonprofits, the utilization of blockchain and cryptocurrency donations can help drive innovation and transparency in the sector and open up new possibilities for funding models.
How can I learn more?
One of the best ways to learn more is to check out one of the world's leading companies in the industry: Coinbase! I recommend getting started by signing up to the Coinbase Bytes newsletter and...if you want to get involved, apply to one of their hundreds of remote job openings, many of which don't require previous experience in the industry, only a passionate curiosity to learn ✨
Thank you to our sponsor 💙