Dr Karen Wendt

Dr. Karen Wendt, President of SwissFinTechLadies, Entrepreneur, Key-Note Speaker, Scientist, Researcher and Editor of Sustainable Finance (Springer-Palgrave McMillan),investment banker turned wealth manager and proactive change maker is blending her expertise in Finance, Angel investing, strategy, business development and risk management with fintech innovation, democratiz8ing investment and finance and pioneering sustainability. She serves as jury member of venture kick, is an estemmed startup board member and a finance professor with a science background in quantitative and qualitative investment analysis and portfolio engineering strategies.

Her distinguished academic journey culminated in her being awarded the PhD from the Vienna Modul University in Business and Socio-Economic Sciences with her pioneering research about opening the market of impact investing to institutional investors.

She stands as a testament to sustainable innovation, financial leadership and antifragility, with more than 20 years of succeeding in investment banking who turned impat investor, entrepreneur and fintech for diversity shaper.

Karens transition into the impact investing, fintech, female finance and angel training sector has been driven by a fervent commitment to gender equality and financial empowerment for women. Under her leadership,SwissFinTechLadies were co-created. In the trainings she addresses the complexities of modern investment, makes them easy to digest,, nourish a female peer investment community and offers access to founders calls, networking and investment opportunity discussions. SwissfinTechLadies founded in 2018 is the umbrella for 180 individual members, 20 angel investors, 15 company organisations and 20 partners. SwissFinTechLadies thus far has trained 150 people on financial literacy at universities, 10 business angels, held 20 pitch events for female entrepreneurs, whereof 4 hqave been awarded with the SwissFinTech Diversity Award by SmartMoneyMatch and helped 2 FemaleStartups to get exposure at the WEG 2024. going forward we will create the first SwissFemale FinTech Funds and an SD- aligned fund open for everyone.

Karens mission and commitment to closing the female investment gap, the female entrepreneurship gap and the female wealth gap is based on the awareness that these three gaps are correlated to each other and it requires a new female investment mindset to close them altogether. Together with partners Karen is aiming to dismantle financial barriers for women and promote inclusivity within the investment world.
With SwissFinTechLadies and our partner organizations we are instigating a new female leaders mindset and collective action towards a more equitable financial
landscape.