LatAm List – Ualá, an Argentine mobile banking app, recently launched an initiative to create a stronger female presence in the predominantly male fintech market called Jedi Academy. Ten women were chosen in October to undergo a training period with Ualá’s tech teams and can expect to be fully incorporated at the end of the program in January 2020.
According to a Mercer report, pay scales in fintech companies show higher rates of inequality than in the traditional financial sector.
“We’d been talking to some organizations that promote female inclusion in these sectors, like Chicas en Tecnología,” said Ualá’s Human Resources Manager, Diego Solveira. “We understood that if we wanted to incorporate women for specific roles we’d have to train them, and so this program was created to be able to form more balanced teams.”
Ualá is considering launching the program again in April or May with another group of 10 or 12 participants.
“Ualá’s founder, Pierpaolo Barbieri, is obsessed with attaining 50% women in our staff. Today, we’re at 41%, which is a high number for the industry, but he keeps drilling us so we don’t rest on our laurels,” said Solveira.
In addition to the Jedi Academy, Ualá offers a longer maternity leave than is legally required, lactation rooms, and equal pay. These measures align with the company’s goal of financial inclusion.
“You can’t make a product for everyone if you don’t have diversity,” stated the company.
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