Together with Fabian Terner, Malte Rau founded the FinTech company Pliant in May 2020. The young company offers digital corporate credit cards that are very flexible. In the past, Malte Rau has occasionally spoken out about women in tech, so we ask.
Mr Rau, you have founded a FinTech. What do you offer with your company?
We make it easier for companies to purchase various everyday work items for their employees. The traditional use case for business credit cards, for example for travel, is only a small part of our customers' spending. With our app, companies can control their employees' spending with minimal effort or paperwork. Pliant is to corporate credit cards what smartphones are to flip phones.
What can established companies learn from FinTechs?
Innovation means questioning even the most established business processes. FinTechs are reinventing the business account or credit cards, for example, even though they haven't changed in 20 years.
At the moment, everyone is complaining about the lack of skilled workers. What do you do to attract talent, especially female talent?
The market situation - especially in Berlin - currently looks like there is even a surplus of talent. From that point of view, we can't complain, but unfortunately there are only very few women. The proportion of female employees outside of our IT is already very high, but within IT it is still poor. It is almost impossible to achieve a high quota, so we as Pliant are happy to be able to speak in this context and to position ourselves clearly. Our doors were and are open to all talented people, and women are welcome to come forward.
Why would you like to have diverse teams? How does this benefit you from a business point of view?
By working with diverse teams, significantly more perspectives are represented. This ensures that the input is as well mixed as possible and does not stagnate in the long run. Strategic decisions in particular benefit from this. In addition, the collaboration is much more pleasant due to the different influences. Diversity in the workplace is a high priority in our company.
Start-ups do a lot of things differently than established companies. What do you do differently in terms of diversity in your company?
Start-ups have it easier in that they can set up processes and the like much earlier. Similar to digitalisation, it is much harder to introduce something later than to consider it from the beginning. In addition, ESG issues are now also very much driven by investors. We do regular stocktakes on this. An additional challenge of a start-up is that you have to prioritise many issues, such as growth, in order to survive. As a result, such important topics also threaten to move to the back of the agenda more quickly than in a company that is already profitable. However, we make sure that we constantly stay on top of this topic and do not lose sight of it.
Can you give us some figures, e.g. how many women are in management positions with you or how many female job starters apply to you?
I believe that female professionals need to be recruited more actively already at the universities so that fair changes are possible in the long run. In our management level, my co-founder and I are the managing directors, and our authorised signatory is the chief legal officer. In our data department, we are happy that women are the majority. In IT, we also strive for a balanced ratio, but we don't have it yet.
Young women are less likely to be seen in STEM subjects than young men. Logically, then, fewer women apply to tech companies. Are women naturally less tech-savvy than men?
I would clearly say no. I rather think that the interest is not very pronounced. You can see very early on that many more boys play on PCs than girls. Through such hobbies, a different basic interest develops. I am firmly convinced that there are many tech-savvy women out there, but that their interests lead to different career choices.
What do you think can be done to get more women interested in STEM professions?
I believe that this is related to the interests developed at a very early age. It already starts with the choice of hobbies for the children. Presumably, a lot of this is also predetermined by the parents.
Women are often accused of taking fewer risks. Applying to a young FinTech represents a certain risk. How do you see that?
It is correct that in young start-ups there is more of a risk of losing one's job, for example due to insolvency. I don't see it that way that women are therefore less willing to take risks. As I said before, we have a high percentage of women in our company - the counter-evidence for this claim.
Women founders sometimes complain that they are less likely to be considered by investors. Is that true?
I would like to answer "no", but unfortunately it is still the case. Although more and more successful female founders are now appearing as role models for young women, this still does little to change the figures. When you start a business, you can't avoid financing rounds, and the investment ratio is very unbalanced. At the same time, we also notice that investors are placing more and more emphasis on ESG.
What tips can you give young women regarding their profession?
The overarching theme is diversity. This does not necessarily mean simply gender, but it is also about different skills. For example, the ability to be empathetic is more pronounced in women and extremely important in leadership roles. Shouldn't one rather promote the skills than prescribe certain interests to people?
Many Thanks for the interview, Mr. Rau!
Photo: Malte Rau (provided by Pliant)
Anke Dembowski is a financial journalist and author of various investment fund-related and other financial books. She is also a co-founder of the "Fondsfrauen" network.