How Zoia Kozakov is Trailblazing Her Own Career in Fintech Innovation

Hello and welcome to Transformative Trailblazers, a new Q&A series in which I explore the minds of trailblazers at the forefront of business, technological, and cultural transformation.?

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For this edition, I spoke to Zoia Kozakov , Head of Device Digital Wallets at JPMorgan Chase and Advisory Board Member of Women in Innovation. Our insightful conversation covered everything from the future of fintech, intergenerational dynamics at work and in commerce, and women in innovation leadership.

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

Zoia, thank you for joining me today. Tell me about your background in fintech, your current role at JPMorgan Chase, and what excites you specifically about the payments and ecommerce space.

I’ll be honest and say that if you told me even five years ago that this is the industry I'd be working in, I would have said, “No way.” But I did fall into it because of a series of events.

I started my career trajectory really excited to innovate in the ecommerce and shopping space. Somehow that landed me in the financial services industry—partially because I came out of grad school and got an incredible opportunity to work on a project between Citibank and Google building a neobank. While I had no previous experience in financial services, I was excited to have an opportunity to create impact and scale by working with those two companies. So, I decided to take a chance and now four years later – I’m at JPMorgan Chase.

Something I've come to realize is that the financial services industry and fintech specifically is really a bootcamp for every single career and every single job. Ultimately, every company is a payments company. Every company is moving money, selling things, getting money, returning money. Working on something that is so central to every business and consumer has just been really inspiring and I wouldn’t change my trajectory for the world.

It's interesting to see what's happening with economic mobility around the world. As you think about trends and the future of your industry, what exciting work are you doing and how are your teams adapting to these changes?

I'm a millennial and for the longest time in my life, people were curious about my generation and now, everyone's moved on to, “What are Gen Z and Gen Alpha thinking about?” These generations have a very different relationship with money and transactions. I have a friend who has a daughter and when you ask her daughter to check out in her imaginary supermarket at home, she's actually tapping her phone. Consumer behaviors have changed so much, so what I'm very excited about is building products for younger generations, whether it's around payments, financial literacy or budgeting tools.

The other change that stands out is around engaging people who haven’t been traditionally involved or included in the financial sector. I think there's a lot of opportunity in reaching underrepresented and underserved markets.

Being able to participate in economic prosperity is important. HP is also focused on that from a digital equity perspective, but banking is quite a different and fascinating lens.

For sure. When you think about it at a really basic level, women make 85 percent of the spending decisions at home, so you have to think, “Are we really catering to women and their needs as somebody who's managing the household?" Or kids, who were not traditionally part of the financial picture in a direct way. Now that kids are getting phones, devices and watches much earlier in their lives, what does that mean for financial institutions? And how do we build products to really serve them but also help them make responsible choices?

I love what you mentioned about women making most of the financial decisions for households. What do you think are unique obstacles or challenges that women may face in fintech or starting their own career in this world of work?

I grew up with two working-class parents who always told me, “Work hard, do your best and you'll figure it out.” I was never taught about gender barriers and upon finding myself in these male-dominated industries, I realized there is a problem and a unique set of challenges that exists for women in financial services and technology. And that's how I kind of I fell into this line of work.

As you’re entering the workforce, you morph yourself into the leaders that you look up to—and a lot of the time they end up being men. If you're in a male-dominated industry, that's who you're seeing at the top. One unique obstacle is that women often think that we need to exemplify what these male leaders exemplify, versus looking inwards and saying, “What can we uniquely bring as women or as just individuals?” My leadership style is probably different from yours, and we're both women, right? I think there's a lot more to it than just gender, but again, women do face the unique obstacle of not having many female leaders to pull inspiration from.

The other point I will share is that for women who do choose to have kids, everybody's trajectory with giving birth is so different. There are women who are breastfeeding and women who aren't, different complications in how women gave birth. These are things that people don't really want to talk about, but they have such tremendous impact on the timing of your career and the choices you make to continue working and growing your family.

I saw you recently delivered a presentation about how driving change management requires being both an evangelist and knowing when to step back and let others have credit. Was there a pivotal moment in your career that led you to that realization? And how has that insight shaped how you think about change and transformation, particularly in your daily life?

I've always been somebody who's a really big fan of an ownership mindset and what that actually means has shifted for me. In my line of work, which is product management and digital strategy, you are the person who's ultimately setting the objectives and you're accountable for the work being delivered, but you're not the person who is doing the coding or the design. You are really bringing everyone together and driving things forward.

Something I got really wrong earlier in my career was that I thought having an ownership mindset meant I'm going to come in and really push everybody to do the work. If they're not doing it the way I think it should be done, “Oh, no problem, I'll just do it for them or I’ll give them tips on how to do it.” I was coming from a place of positive intention, but what I've realized is that you have to strike the right balance because ultimately, you're not the main character. At the end of the day, at the heart of any single innovation or change effort is people. If you can't get the “people” piece right, you will fail.

Congratulations on being named to Forbes 30 under 30 list this year! Having been recognized for your role in the future of finance, what do you think are the top qualities or traits that transformation leaders need to have? Are there any skills that younger leaders should focus on as they traverse a changing landscape?

We are in such a fascinating moment. Age is becoming more of a present conversation in the workplace—certainly the most I've seen in my career. Getting this recognition was both incredible and exciting, but it also really brought my age center-stage in my workplace and in my industry. What I've personally learned from this experience is that you have to lead with good work. You have to lead with the skillset, the grit, the vision, and the ability to execute. That's something that gets lost in a world that is so focused on what “the story” is. Go back to the basics. Start with doing a really, really good job, and focus on execution, because that's something I think the world is missing.

The other one is intellectual curiosity. With how fast the world is changing, I’ve realized that continuous learning just means coming in with the perspective that you don't know all the answers and being open to change. Not to use another buzzword but everybody has thoughts on AI. My point of view is that we just need to sit and listen and observe, versus shy away from it or triple down on it. I just want to sit and absorb, and that's been a big lesson as well, as someone with a bias for action.

There's this fine balance that we have to find between acting with urgency and sitting with things. Sometimes urgency means you're not actually fully thinking things through and being reactive can be such a big trap. And when we apply that to innovation and technology, we can fall into the trap of running to shiny objects. Sometimes taking a beat is actually what will enable people to make the right decisions in the long-term.

You've hosted the Women in Innovation podcast for almost four years now. Have there been any “aha” moments or other inspiring leadership takeaways from discussions you've had about your guests’ careers?

One thing that continues to be the constant is that there is no straight path, and no secret insight or takeaway that is right for everyone. That is the magic of the innovation industry, and the magic of being a woman in this industry is that we can lean into our individual paths or individual superpowers. That is something that was really inspiring, especially as I’ve been navigating my career. My past approach was to find a blueprint and then emulate that blueprint. I am now my own blueprint. My path is mine and I should embrace it and grow from it.

We are our own blueprint for sure. Let’s close out with a couple lightning-round questions. Best way to decompress after a long day of work?

On a good day, I’d say spin class. On maybe a not-so healthy day, a glass of red wine.

Fair enough. One meal you could eat for the rest of your life?

Charcuterie boards. I don't think that's considered a full meal but give me a charcuterie board and I’ll be good.

One word to describe your current state of mind?

Embracing… I'm embracing whatever comes my way.