The passion, perseverance and persistence of two women fintech entrepreneurs

It takes tenacity, perseverance, and agility for women to thrive in the highly competitive fintech industry. And that is precisely how the founders of Ignite Sales, Julie Hamrick and Barbie Boe, are succeeding in the innovative fintech space.

Boe and Hamrick joined forces in the late nineteen nineties with a mission to help consumers and small businesses address some of their biggest fears, financial decision making, and being judged on past financial decisions. Boe’s successful track record creating sales and marketing programs for Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and healthcare software companies and Hamrick’s engineering, consulting background, and deep knowledge of data modeling synced perfectly. The left and right brains collaborated for innovation at its best.

The women recognized that consumer engagement was a critical success factor for financial institutions. So, they started their journey by developing an algorithm that could match businesses’ products to customers’ unique needs, which they patented. Next, these fintech pioneers built a software solution that targeted retail banking. The innovative solution compelled bankers to put the customer first in the sales process. Because the software was way ahead of its time, almost bleeding edge, they had to pound the pavement and do some missionary selling to find and sign-up forward-thinking banks willing to try a new approach and willing to fully go to the cloud in 2000.

 

continue reading »