Company: Kani Payments Ltd
Website: https://kanipayments.com/
About Melissa & Kani Payments Ltd
Melissa started as Chief Marketing Officer at Kani Payments in August 2020. Her role focuses on company growth as well as setting and driving marketing strategy. Prior to this, Melissa ran the NatWest Accelerator hub for hundreds of companies in the North where she met and coached Aaron Holmes, Kani Payments CEO. This background in growing and scaling companies and entrepreneurs has given Melissa a solid foundation for helping colleagues at Kani Payments to solve fundamental problems in it’s industry.
Within a fast-paced company and a growing team of 26 people, there are many challenges Melissa has overcome. As a leadership team they juggle multiple priorities to ensure they are accountable for their business areas, hire people into the right roles and continue through the scale-up phase of the company’s growth. They’ve also had to find new ways of working with respective teams, and remain connected throughout the pandemic.
From a personal perspective, Melissa made her mission at Kani to lead and build culture with the team, set values and raise awareness of issues within society, such as the gender gap in technology and other areas within equality, inclusion and diversity. Although the gender gap is improving and awareness is growing, we’re still living in a society where women are hugely underrepresented right across many industries, at all levels.
Kani Payments is different to other fintechs when it comes to championing women because by nature it is a very progressive and inclusive company. They’re on a mission to shout about the women within their industry, and encourage more to get involved in technology roles, which starts with mentoring young people, hiring apprentices, providing them with the skills they need to succeed, and shining a light on the amazing women in our team who are leading the way in this field.
In 2022, Melissa’s goal is to continue this growth and lead the new business development team and expansion into North America by setting up a new office there, a challenging but exciting project which will require Kani to continue with their recruitment activity and building a diverse team. She will also continue to drive the mentorship programmes that she and Kani Payments are involved in to encourage and support women and girls into fintech.
It is important to Melissa, as a senior member of the Kani Payments team, to be an inspiring leader to other females starting their careers in technology and fintech. Melissa is hugely passionate about mentoring and supporting others and as a company they are involved in various mentorship projects. She is a mentor for the Girls Network, an organisation whose mission is to inspire and empower girls from the least advantaged communities by connecting them with a mentor and a network of professional women role models.
As a company, Kani Payments has also recently signed up to be a mentor for the Youth Group, a youth first business that provides young people with the tools they really need to get ahead and grow in work. They also help the enterprise, government and education industries to engage, recruit and support youth.
From the outset of Kani Payments’ journey they built a team of people who all see the value of championing women in tech, across all skill sets and levels of the business. Kani Payments is passionate about promoting the fundamental contribution that women are making within the industry. What makes them unique? Their team and their knowledge is what differentiates them within the industry, so they shout about it at every opportunity!
