Céline Dufétel
President & COO, Checkout.com
The thing that strikes me time and time, again is the confidence gap. You know, men apply for jobs when they have 20% of the qualifications. And women only apply when they have 110% of the qualifications, right? That's a mindset issue.
Summary
This week, Alan was joined by Céline Dufétel, an inspiring global leader and trailblazer who has truly left her mark on the financial services industry, and is now tackling financial challenges from a new perspective. Céline serves as the President and Chief Operating Officer of Checkout.com, a multinational fintech company that focuses on improving and streamlining the payments process for businesses around the world.
Throughout their powerful discussion, Céline shared with Alan her impressive journey from France to the U.S., including her wide breadth of experiences at McKinsey and Company, Neuberger and Berman, and later T. Rowe Price. Alan and Céline take a deep dive into the different workplace and geographic cultures she has navigated, her experience as the only woman CFO in the S&P 500 under the age of 40 at the time, and the many lessons in leadership she has learned along the way.
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
Guest Bio
In her role as President & COO of Checkout.com, Celine oversees the company’s financial, treasury and strategy functions. She joined in August 2021 and is based in the company’s New York office.
Prior to Checkout, Celine was the COO and CFO of Fortune 500 asset manager, T. Rowe Price for three years. Before that she was MD and global head of marketing, product management, and client services at Neuberger Berman--and was a partner at McKinsey & Company prior to that.
Celine was named to Barron’s 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance in 2021, and to Fortune’s 40 under 40 in 2020. A native of France, Celine earned bachelor's and master's degrees in applied mathematics and economics from École Polytechnique in Paris, and a master's degree in finance from Princeton.
Episode Transcript
Alan Fleischmann
I'm joined today by an inspiring global leader and trailblazer, who has truly left her mark on the financial services industry, and is now tackling financial challenges from a new perspective. Céline Dufetel is the President and Chief Operating Officer of Checkout.com, a multinational FinTech company that focuses on improving and streamlining the payments process. Having lived and studied in both France and the United States, Céline garnered a wide breadth of experiences across cultures before starting her career at McKinsey and Company, where she built up her skill set and strategic capabilities before leading client services and Neuberger Berman and became T. Rowe Price's CFO and then later, COO, as well – all under the age of 40. I'm excited to have him Céline on the show. She's got a very interesting background, and you'll hear that criss crosses public, private and civil society. And we're going to learn a little bit today about her incredible journey, and the lessons of leadership that she's learned along the way. Céline, welcome to “Leadership Matters.” It is such a pleasure to have you on the show.
Céline Dufétel
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Alan Fleischmann
I wanted to have you on for a while. You’re extraordinary and you're talented, your leadership, your study habits, you've done at such a young age candidly. And then when people hear a little bit more of your journey, it's even amazing. Don't mess with Céline, I guess is what I would say. But you were born in France, and you lived there until you were eight years old? If I'm not mistaken. Tell us a little bit about that. And what part of France did you live in and tell us a little bit about what life was like? Around the house, siblings, parents? What did they do?
Céline Dufétel
Yeah, so I was born in Paris. But my parents were the first generation to be educated, coming from very poor families of farmers, one in the West of France, when the north of France and I was the middle child with two brothers. And you know, life at home was a lot about how lucky we were to have now to live in Paris, and to now be getting an education and to live a different life than their parents had lived. So my parents were very focused on the value of hard work, education and optimism.
Alan Fleischmann
What kind of work did they do?
Céline Dufétel
My father was an executive. And my mother is a psychoanalyst.
Alan Fleischmann
And where in Paris did you live?
Céline Dufétel
We lived in the 12. That would be small. So on the east side of Paris, which was great. It was fun. I love Paris. I'm the kind of person who always now wants to live in the city. Just very used to growing up with so much hustle and bustle around me.
Alan Fleischmann
Do you have great memories? Was there a certain level of freedom growing up in Paris as a kid?
Céline Dufétel
Well, I was only eight when we moved to the US. And then we came back when I was 12. But we moved to the suburbs. So that was very different. And I actually dearly missed living inside the city of Paris, just because I found so much more freedom and so much more activity and so much more to go and discover inside Paris than in the suburbs. My parents did this. Yeah.
Alan Fleischmann
It went from Paris to Bethesda, Maryland. Right outside Washington, DC.? At eight years old. What brought you there?
Céline Dufétel
My father had a work assignment for a few years. He worked for an American firm when we were in France, and he got an assignment at headquarters. And so we moved to Bethesda. I didn't speak a word of English. So it was a bit traumatic at first. Luckily, I love television. And my mother had decided that if the television was in English, it was good for me, unlike television and French so four months later, I spoke English just from consuming very large amounts of sitcoms.
Alan Fleischmann
Sitcoms come to mind.
Céline Dufétel
Oh, it was everything. Cheers, Cosby Show, Saved by the Bell, anything that I could consume between the hours of four and eight pm.
Alan Fleischmann
They were your people. That's amazing. And then was the move traumatic for you? Or is it kind of the learning English dramatic? Or was it a, you know, kind of when you're a little kid, it didn't matter? Because you just did it?
Céline Dufétel
It's a strange feeling at first when you're thrown into a room where you're the only speaking one language your whole life and all of a sudden nobody speaks that one language and everybody speaks a different one. And it is a bit of a strange feeling. You feel a little lost. You feel quite vulnerable. Because your basic needs are hard to express or to come through. But at the same time, it was an unbelievable experience of becoming bilingual quickly. And then the freedom that that, you know, that gets you and actually I found later in life easier to learn other languages after having learned a second one at a fairly young age.
Alan Fleischmann
And did you feel like you were a Washingtonian?
Céline Dufétel
I don't know, probably, I didn't stay long enough for that, you know, I was only 11 or 12 when we left. And then I went to high school in France. But I was fortunate to go to bilingual high school having learned English in the US. So that was great.
Alan Fleischmann
And then you went back to France, and then attended the Ecole Polytechnique. Where you earned your bachelor's degree and your master's degree in applied math and economics. What sparked your interest in these topics, and you're, well, you already, we're already very good at math.
Céline Dufétel
I've always loved math. But it really started with my father who went to the second best school in France, for science and math, and really wanted a child to go to the very best school in France for science and math. And he probably thought that for his firstborn son. But you know, when you're the middle child, you have to find a way to grab attention. And it turns out, I was pretty good at math. So that was my way of getting attention. And it became a passion. And I really wanted to prove to my father, I could beat his record. And so that's what I did.
Alan Fleischmann
That's great. That's great. And then you'd be this record, and sounds like a bunch of stuff. But you also served the French Navy. That's the part about you that I love when I've talked to you. It's not the thing that people expect. When I tell people about your life and your life journey. Here you are, you're like studying, you know, math and, and science and you found these issues. But then at the same time, how did that happen that you served in the French Navy?
Céline Dufétel
Yeah. So like, Ecole Polytechnique is a school that was founded by Napoleon after the French Revolution, because he wanted military strategists. And the school has over time evolved into France's premier math and science institution, but the French Armed Forces never gave it up. And so when you join, when you're accepted, you have to sign a contract, and then you have to serve as well. And so I was very fortunate that I got my way to the French Navy. And so I served on active duty on an intelligence boat and an oil tanker as a navigator. So I was in charge of navigating the ship.
Alan Fleischmann
And you were 19 years old, I think. And you were the only woman on the tanker? Come on. 200 men. Yes. Wow. What was that?
Céline Dufétel
Yeah, so the French Navy has an interesting role, which I assume it still has today, which was there either or 25% of women are there no women on a boat. But the rule does not apply to officers because officers don't have a gender. So I was assigned to an oil tanker, and I was the only woman on board. It was pretty surreal. You know, it was having grown up with two brothers and then gone to school in a school that was only about 10%, maybe less 9% women, I was a bit used to it. But this was on a on another scale. It really taught me how to try to find common ground with groups of people I didn't really have initially common ground with but also it was a part of my career inmy early career, I guess where at the time, I thought I really need to blend in and hopefully people would forget I was a woman, it took me years to kind of get past that in these very male dominated environments.
Alan Fleischmann
And the relationships formed there, any mentors that stood out there that, frankly, are still with you today, for example?
Céline Dufétel
Not so much in the Navy, but there were a lot of life lessons, you know, it was a huge amount of responsibility at such an early age, especially the oil tanker, which had, you know, obviously potential catastrophic consequences if you made a mistake. And so it really forced you to grow up quickly to think on your feet and to really own that level of responsibility with calm nerves.
Alan Fleischmann
And then have these skills be I mean, obviously, these leadership skills you're using today, how to be calm under duress or or you know, difficult situations how to deal with people who are different than you are. I mean, I can imagine you bring those to the job every day. You know, but and Bill As this I imagine this translatable pretty easily actually, from all those experiences to
Céline Dufétel
Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a lot of responsibility. And you're thrust into positions of responsibility, when you don't have a ton of experience, you got to think quickly on your feet in different situations and with different people, of course, authority and in a, you know, in the Armed Forces is different, because people do look back at kind of the rank and what's on your shoulders in a different way than perhaps in the, you know, in the corporate world. But I had to think of myself differently, I saw myself as this short, very young, 19 year old girl, but when I was in the control room, I was navigating an oil tanker, and there were 200 men on the boat, and I needed to have the confidence and the wherewithal. So it was a huge, it was a huge responsibility. I feel like I grew up faster because of it for sure.
Alan Fleischmann
How long was that whole experience in the Navy?
Céline Dufétel
I was deployed for a year, but my contract with them ran for four years.
Alan Fleischmann
Oh, wow. And then did Princeton come right after that when you went to Princeton, or is that? Yeah. So you'd already thought you're obviously decided that you want to be in a French university and decided you need a Master's at an American university? What was the reason for that?
Céline Dufétel
Yeah, I was really interested in finance, and the application of quantitative math, stochastic math, to finance into markets. And so I really wanted to get a second degree in the US. I was interested in several universities. In the end, I chose Princeton, because they gave me a full fellowship. And the cost of American Universities relative to the French system, my father had just passed away was terrifying. And so that's how I made the decision. And it was a great experience. I really enjoyed it
Alan Fleischmann
And that was a two year program.
Céline Dufétel
Two year, but I completed it shorter, because I needed to work.
Alan Fleischmann
Did you have a job the summer between?
Céline Dufétel
No, I did it shorter at the time as I really wanted to start in the US on Wall Street. But, you know, it was a time, I don't know if you remember the Freedom Fries. But it was a time when French people were not always seen in a positive light. And my family was still going through some challenges after my father passed. And so instead of taking a job on Wall Street, I decided to go home to France. And that's when I started with McKinsey.
Alan Fleischmann
You have to have your job because you started actually in France, I didn't realize that.
Céline Dufétel
Yeah, for a very short period of time.
Alan Fleischmann
And you become a partner pretty quickly, too, if I'm not mistaken as well, right?
Céline Dufétel
Yeah. So I spent about a year in France. And then I asked them to move me to New York when I became an associate. And then, about five years later, I became a partner.
Alan Fleischmann
What was that like being there? Tell us a little bit about the path to becoming a partner and the lessons and perspectives you gain from working there. And obviously, skills that you may have adopted there as well, it'll be interesting to hear about that whole experience.
Céline Dufétel
I'm very grateful for my McKinsey experience, and consider it to be like a very foundational set of skills that I was able to gain there. Some hard skills, you know, quantitative financial modeling and analysis of companies, but also as a French speaker, learning how to communicate in a much more concise and structured way in English, which wasn't, you know, even though I learned at an early age was not my first language, and then exposure to so many different different industries, different problems, different parts of the economic cycle. 2008 came around the banking crisis. It was just a wealth of experiences. And also, it's really where I learned about finding ways to better myself and what I believe, you know, the importance that I placed in sort of lifelong learning, McKinsey's, obviously a culture of feedback, and for me, it was all about conquering the next skill. What was the thing that I was good at? And the thing that I wasn't yet good at? Who are the people who are good at that thing? And how did I find myself working with those people so that I can learn from them? That skill set? And McKinsey, because of the way it's structured, has that unique ability that you go from engagement to engagement? And so if you kind of know what you're looking for, and what are the skills you want to build, you find ways to work with the people who are the best at those skills. And I just found it to be a great learning experience, even if I probably in the end stayed too long.
Alan Fleischmann
How long were you there?
Céline Dufétel
10 years in total.
Alan Fleischmann
Oh, wow. Okay. Is that when you met your husband, Brian?
Céline Dufétel
Yes, it is.
Alan Fleischmann
I had a feeling As you both were at McKinsey, yeah, that must be the reason. That's amazing. So then after 10 years, you made a move to Neuberger Berman, that must have been a big deal, you know, to trade horses after 10 years?
Céline Dufétel
It was very hard to leave. McKinsey is also a place, which does a fantastic job of making you fearful of the outside world. And especially if you've been very successful there, why would you go and roll the dice, you know, anywhere anywhere else. But it was really time. And I didn't want to be an advisor for my whole career, I really wanted to know if the things that I was recommending and the ways I thought you should run a business actually had any merit to it. And so when I left, what I really wanted to do was anything about strategy. McKinsey was known for strategy, I had learned strategy now it was time to run some operations and learn, have as practical an experience as possible. And then my other principle has always been to follow great people and the leaders of Neuberger Berman, were great people that I knew I could learn a ton from, and trust. And so it was a great adventure. I'm very grateful for that period of my career as well.
Alan Fleischmann
You were the Global Head of Marketing and client services that the job you've got when you came over to Neuberger Berman, or is that after you were there?
Céline Dufétel
No, I started running client operations. So it was pretty operational. It was everything that our institutional clients needed on a day to day basis, and then over time, he asked me to take on some additional responsibilities across marketing and product management.
Alan Fleischmann
What was leadership like there? It’s a privately owned firm, right?
Céline Dufétel
It is a privately owned firm. Like McKinsey, which at the time, also, I thought was kind of the world I knew. I worked for the CEO and Global Head of client coverage, who ran everything but investments, essentially across Neuberger. And it was a great learning experience. It's a very global business. So that was also a great way to learn how different parts of the world were truly operating and how to run a global team.
Alan Fleischmann
So you were traveling a lot at that point as well?
Céline Dufétel
Yeah, different from the McKinsey type of travel, which, but yeah, we had, you know, my teams were in Europe and an AIPAC. And so I, you know, I definitely traveled to cover those teams as well.
Alan Fleischmann
Any individuals or mentors or people that kind of left a mark in your career during that period?
Céline Dufétel
I think for me at Newburger. What stood out was, you know, I learned so much from my direct manager who had also made the transition from consulting into an operational role. And the team was just very detail oriented, really structured, really smart, really good operators. And it was just a fantastic school in terms of moving from sort of the strategy and the theory to actually running the day to day with a very detail oriented, very practical team.
Alan Fleischmann
And then you went from there to T. Rowe Price, headquartered in Baltimore, a great institution. And you became the chief financial officer. Were you hired as a chief financial officer?
Céline Dufétel
Yes, I was.
Alan Fleischmann
Was that a big move to go from Neuberger Berman to T. Rowe Price?
Céline Dufétel
Yeah, it was a huge move. And I'm very grateful for the CEO of T. Rowe Price at the time, Bill Stromberg, for having given me that opportunity. Truly an exceptional one for my career. And I loved T. Rowe Price, an incredible institution with great culture, incredible people. And, yeah, we took the plunge, we moved our family from New York to Baltimore. And it was a great adventure.
Alan Fleischmann
And that was a totally different role, a totally different position. So you had to really adapt to a much different culture.
Céline Dufétel
It was, although in many ways it brought me back to my sort of McKinsey roots. When Bill hired me it T. Rowe Price, one of the things he was looking for was a partner to think through how to navigate the headwinds that the active asset management industry was facing. And so there was really an aspect of sort of strategy and then the parts of finance from an FPGA perspective of really kind of where do we allocate our resources? Do we need to get out of any of the businesses that we're in? Do we need to allocate more resources internationally versus domestically? And then we started thinking about m&a as well, which was something that T. Rowe had not had not done before. T. Rowe is a really interesting organization that is culturally incredibly strong, but also very change averse. And so part of my mandate was to help drive elements of change, both from sort of an allocation of resources and direction perspective, but then also in building certain processes and capabilities that, you know, hadn't been in place before. And so that was a great learning experience in terms of how do you get an organization that doesn't love change to change in a way that is culturally sensitive in a way that makes sense for that organization and the way it operates?
Alan Fleischmann
Were you there when the pandemic hit?
Céline Dufétel
Yes, I did draw the card that said pandemic response on it. I'm not sure how. But it was, I mean, that was another sort of, you know, complete curveball for all of us. You know, as executives trying to figure out how to send people home, what would happen next, how we'd all work in a remote world, also how to support our local communities. aterial, we happen to have a large stock of n95 masks, which we weren't sure what we were going to do with do we donate them to the, you know, to the healthcare community? Do we keep them for when our people need them? I mean, in the first weeks of the pandemic, there is no playbook, right? Like, we have no clue how this is going to shape and what we should be doing. But, you know, brought me back a little bit to the Navy to write like crazy crisis management, like how do you act decisively and quickly under, you know, under ambiguity, right, with the best knowledge of information that you have at that point in time to try to calm the rest of the organization so that it can still function and move forward.
Alan Fleischmann
And you had to navigate it from a virtual headquarters, with everybody working together, and you had to deal with your clients.
Céline Dufétel
Yes, and we were a very in person culture too, which made the move to remote at first really hard for certain leaders and for the investment teams. Because, you know, fewer was really built on everybody together in Baltimore. So that was, you know, some organizations had sort of already made some of that shift to some remote work. We were not one of those organizations.
Alan Fleischmann
Any other memories of being in Baltimore?
Céline Dufétel
Memories of being in Baltimore? Um, no, we had a great time. It was a completely different experience. I will say for somebody who's from Paris, it wasn't quite as international as, as I as I like my cities to be.
Alan Fleischmann
You're listening to “Leadership Matters” on Sirius XM, and leadershipmattersshow.com. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. We're here with an extraordinary leader who's the president COO of Checkout.com Céline Dufétel. We were discussing her journey to be born in France. Have you lived in the States twice, actually, before returning to France and then coming back to the US which has been such a formidable career, at McKinsey, Neuberger Berman, and T. Rowe Price. And then you went from being CFO, right, of T. Rowe Price to joining up with Checkout.com, which is a global payments processor, as both see it COO and CFO and 2021. Tell us a little bit about the decision. Tell us a bit about Checkout.com. And why it was that you would go into a FinTech company. One that's global, certainly but European base after being with T. Rowe Price.
Céline Dufétel
Yeah. So Bill, the CEO of T. Rowe Price decided to retire. And so this was a time of reflection in terms of what made sense for me next, I'd really enjoyed my tenure at T. Rowe Price. But the one thing that sort of was missing was, we were in industry, we were sort of fighting headwinds. And frankly, the pie was shrinking. Right. So it was sort of a, it was a type of change, but not the kind of growth type of change and I was really intrigued by everything that was happening in the FinTech space of these organizations trying to disrupt traditional financial services. And I got introduced to, to Checkout through some investors, and I was really intrigued, you know, European platform trying to break into the US in particular, which obviously, you know, being born and raised in France felt a direct you know, affinity to That's, and the payment space is just incredibly complex dynamic. And they were looking to continue to expand. And then also just, you know, strengthen the scalability of the platform such that, you know, you could take on the kind of growth that it was seeing, and then also, at some point maybe prepare for public markets. And so that's how I joined Checkout first to CFO, then COO. And then I played a slightly broader role today as President.
Alan Fleischmann
And when I think of you, I think of you as being really broad, actually, that you, you deal with you deal with, like the internal and the external, you're kind of the financial person, but you're also the operations person as well. Tell us a little bit about what it's like to be in a different culture within a tech company, and as global global, actually, than all the other experiences that you had?
Céline Dufétel
Yes. So I mean, I love the global nature of the business. Not that T. Rowe and Neuberger weren't global businesses, as well. But of course, we're headquartered in London, right, that's, that's our home. And I just, you know, one of the things that I find really remarkable is just how global, the leadership team and the leaders across the business are as well, which I personally believe is a key to having a very successful global business. So it's not just, you know, people trying to cross the pond in one direction without truly understanding the local culture, or how you do business in those parts of the world. And one of the things that we pride ourselves on at Checkout is when we open a new region, we really build local roots. In part, because, you know, the business of payments can be quite local and quite complex locally in certain parts of the world. And that can be a real differentiator for us. But joining a FinTech in general, also just had a very turbulent time, right. So I joined right sort of at the peak, we raised a very large series D of a billion dollars at a 40 billion valuation. And then of course, fintechs, then faced a very difficult following two years. And that was a really interesting experience in terms of helping the business navigate through that time, while doing some of the things that we had committed to doing, which were really strengthening the scalability of the operations, whether it was in finance and compliance and risk in the client operations. Because when you build things fast, you don't always build them perfectly. And so there was a lot of catch up that we needed to do, because the business had grown so quickly, and some of our processes weren't weren't fit for purpose anymore.
Alan Fleischmann
Okay, you became president CEO in 2023. Did that change anything? I mean, obviously, they have the title, did that change your day to day?
Céline Dufétel
No, I mean, what happened is I took on some additional teams, so kind of initially, mostly focused on the finance teams, and then legal compliance risk client operations, our marketing team, so just a broader array of things. But in FinTech, they're all very connected, right? Because finance is at the heart of every client operation. And every, you know, because we, we don't just software, a software service, we move money, right. And so, by definition, our treasury operations are very closely intertwined with our products, and the experiences that our clients have of our products. And so I have found that CFO role to be very interesting and the broadening of the role to be very natural, because we are touching all of these things through the finance experience.
Alan Fleischmann
Am I right, that you also have a special partnership, or meaningful one, at the very least, with a Visa and MasterCard?
Céline Dufétel
You know, similar to any PSP, right? So the world of payments is a very interconnected world. And so we don't live in isolation. We live in partnership with the ecosystem, of course, the schemes, but we also have referral partners. And so that connectivity into the broader ecosystem is critical for us.
Alan Fleischmann
And what's the partnership or the role of the UAE and as well as there's something special with the UAE?
Céline Dufétel
The Middle East has been a region that's always been kind of a place where we were a first mover and where we establish a presence really early, which was, which has always been pretty differentiating for us. So we've seen a number of global brands start with us in the UAE. And then we've expanded our relationship with those global brands into other parts of the world. But they initially came to us for that, that expertise that we had that's quite unique.
Alan Fleischmann
Where are you on the Global Map, and where aren’t you yet?
Céline Dufétel
So we, we basically cover every major part of the world with, I would say the exception of Southeast Asia and Latin America. Those are two parts of the world where we still want to build some more local acquiring capabilities. But obviously, across Europe, North America, the Middle East, and AIPAC, broadly, including Japan, which we opened up recently, we operate across all major countries.
Alan Fleischmann
Incredible. In 2020, you are recognized on Fortune's 40, under 40. And were the only woman CFO in the s&p 500. under the age of 40, at the time. Tell us a little bit about how you've navigated that experience. And are there additional pressures placed on you or you position yourself compared to your male counterparts? I mean, you truly have been a trailblazer? In many areas, actually.
Céline Dufétel
Yeah, I mean, I don't know what that says about me, or whether it says about the lack of female representation in the CFO seat. I've been fortunate, you know, I'm very grateful to the great people at McKinsey at Neuberger and T. Rowe, who gave me incredible opportunities. It starts with somebody who believes in you, right, and that person who believes in you, makes you believe in yourself, and also gives you the opportunity to show what you can do, you know, if nobody gives you an at bat, you can't hit a homerun. And so I'm, I'm very grateful for those opportunities for those mentors. And as much as I can, I try to give some of that back to younger generations and the company that I've been at, because I think that's the greatest thing you can do for somebody's career.
Alan Fleischmann
When I think of you, I have to give you as being a fierce competitor, like you were a great athlete, and then you are actually, you know, and how you encourage more women also to pursue STEM and finance, what is the most important cause for you right now, and is this a big cause for you stem and women or just in general, getting women to be able to be in those places where you didn't see too many that long ago, and you sort of see too many to a little bit about that, and a little bit about what's needed to be done. And tell us a little bit about other places that are meaningful for you other places where you're putting your passions and focus.
Céline Dufétel
I mean, that's incredibly near and dear to my heart. You know, being a mother. Now, also, I approach it differently, seeing how my children react to stem and math and education. I really think it starts with confidence, and building the confidence of young girls, young women, that they are just as capable when it comes to math and stem, I mean, some of these fears just start so early. Right? And these ideas circulate amongst the girls or amongst the groups and then and then just stick, right? And I think it's for them to be able to project themselves to see themselves in the careers that, you know, that come after those STEM careers that come after those math careers. I tell my kids math is the language of the world. It's the language of things. It's the language of what you can feel, right, which I mean, essentially, it's physics, but it's math, right? So if you want to be able to break down any problem, if you want to be able to understand the world around you, you need the language of math to be able to help you do that. I find that that ability to structure a problem, that ability to decompose something, that's the skill set that I you know, I wish for my kids, but for all these kids to be able to have and the confidence that comes with it, that you can solve those problems.
Alan Fleischmann
That's right. And you do find that people are hearing you, and that you're able to get them to get involved and dive into doing some work?
Céline Dufétel
Yeah, I am. I mean, it's hard. Right? Let me look at the numbers. And you see that, that there's still a huge gap. I tried to get involved, you know, even at the kid school to influence those things and how important some of those things are. I I think I think these are hard things to change, but I think we need to be relentless about it.
Alan Fleischmann
Other ways in which AI is going to change that as well?
Céline Dufétel
I don't know if that changes because I think some of this educational thing starts like so early on, right? Because I think it's a mindset thing. I think there are certainly, you know, many interesting ways that we can teach things in different ways in the future, and also how AI will play into that. But I think it starts with mindset, and it's actually getting the girls interested in some of these things, and then seeing themselves, you know, in those roles, I think the, you know, the environment, that of what kids see early on, has a huge impact on where they see themselves in the career that they want to take. You know, I often tell this joke that my, my son when my, my first son, when he was only three or four year old, asked me one day will, mom can boys be CFOs, to which, you know, makes all of us laugh as adults? Because as you pointed out earlier, that's the only pattern that we know. But when your mom is the CFO and the others are not you assume it's the other way around, right? And so how do we put those role models in front of children so that they get excited about those paths? Earlier on
Alan Fleischmann
The story, similarly, where, by the time her grandson got a little older, she had been the first Secretary of State who was a woman, then there was Condoleezza Rice, and then there was Hillary Clinton, and her grandson said, Dubois ever get to be Secretary of State. And then she knew that we're making, we're making progress.
Céline Dufétel
We're making progress.
Alan Fleischmann
You know, it hasn't stuck that way. But certainly the trend of the time was looking good. You know, but you've been, I mean, January, gender equity has also been a big deal for you in the C suite as well. And experiences or pieces of advice for other women who are either entering the executive position in finance or other sectors, or in other areas, or just young women who are seeking to be in executive positions where you would tell them to do now and how they would handle it.
Céline Dufétel
Confidence, have confidence in yourself, you know, the thing that strikes me time and time, again, is the confidence gap. You know, men apply for jobs when they have 20% of the qualifications. And women only apply when they have 110% of the qualifications, right? That's a mindset issue. That's, you know, and if you don't, if you don't go and take those career risks, if you don't put yourself out there for those roles, of course, those opportunities are not, you know, not going to come and it can be in the context of switching job. But it could also just be in the context of taking on an extra project or taking on an extra, you know, assignment, if something that you haven't done before. And so, I always tell you know, the women I closely mentor is, take some risks, tried to kind of talk to people who are close to you about that impostor syndrome, or those voices in your head, such that you can quiet them and actually, then, you know, be the person that you are, and take on those challenges that are going to create those opportunities for you.
Alan Fleischmann
So that I know you're really cared deeply about is also helping CFOs. And other corporate leaders optimize their receipt, and it's for good business, but they process their efficiencies and effectiveness internally, obviously, Checkout.com is a good answer to several of them. How do you see this as an opportunity for leaders? And how do you bring your business into their level so that they actually can create effective efficiencies and new efficiencies? And tell me what happens when they do? Like, what is the thing that you ultimately get by getting by becoming more effective, but also the Checkout.com way?
Céline Dufétel
Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously, CFOs, we're all looking to, you know, grow the business, optimize the bottom line. And if you're in the digital services, or digital commerce, world, payments is a huge lever to do that. First, because you don't need an abandoned payment or an abandoned Checkout, right, when you've already spent so much energy, money, $2 and effort getting the consumer to that point. But also, because there's, you know, transaction fees and costs that are associated with that, right, so we really tried to focus on driving the performance of our merchants. And what does that mean performance is first and foremost, performance of the payment. So the acceptance rate, right, and we really pride ourselves on that. And there's a lot of nuance to that in different parts of the world. But we also tried to help our clients lower the cost of acceptance, so that again, you know, helps them from a bottom line perspective. And then you know, as you run a big global business, there's all sorts of effects, problems and things that you have when you're running a global business with payments all over the world that we try to help CFOs optimize as well. So it's, you know, payments organizations, you know, can be quite large, quite complex. Sometimes they partner with the finance organization, sometimes they are part of the product organization, but we try to be really close to CFOs and to product teams to help them optimize I'm to grow their businesses.
Alan Fleischmann
Do you walk in, do an audit of sorts, and replace where they have? That's kind of draws back to your McKinsey days. In some ways, I've been realizing, you're bringing forward almost every aspect of what you've done in your life so far.
Céline Dufétel
Yeah, I mean, we often are, you know, sometimes we're side by side, right, with a competitor, you know, some, some, some larger organizations will be multi source. And so by definition, you see, like that immediate sort of side by side performance, and then we work with them to optimize performance in different geographies, what kind of messages they're sending through to issuers, you know, how their how their integrations has been set up? All the levers that we can pull to, to optimize performance. But yeah, it does feel like in many ways, a lot of these things come back for some of the, you know, some of the early days, like it's, you know, people often ask me is, it's so different to be in a FinTech than to have been in a more mature, you know, financial services organization. And, and in some ways, it is right people, the culture is slightly different, people move slightly differently. But fundamentally the problems, the business problems, the regulation, the things that you're doing, they're not all that different, right?
Alan Fleischmann
Are there organizations that you're getting involved with, or you've been involved with? I know you're in New York, obviously, which is, as global as you are homeless in New York, either organizations you've been involved with, that you've been able to bring in some of those effectively. And when you're when you get involved, and you brought some of that strategy and positioning and thinking too, as well even become part of the Checkout world.
Céline Dufétel
You mean, outside of Checkout?
Alan Fleischmann
City Harvest? For example, I remember that?
Céline Dufétel
Yeah, yeah, I helped them with their strategy. This was years ago, before leaving for Baltimore. I was on the board of City Harvest for for several years and helped them with their strategy. And yeah, it was very much of a McKinsey-like moment of helping to figure out how to connect, you know, the donors, the purpose, the delivery, and the logistics that come with running an operation like City Harvest.
Alan Fleischmann
And then there's always that question, you know, you know, when you're the CEO, and the President organization, how much time you spent on the internal and how much you spend on the external. And obviously, the other day, your ultimate, you know, mission is to, you know, curate the demand and then deliver the supply for your customers. How much time do you need to spend, though, nurturing and mentoring internally? And how do you figure out that balance?
Céline Dufétel
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I mean, both are obviously critical, I always try to be spending time with both, you know, the outside is, of course, merchants, which are, which are our lifeblood, and the core of the business, it's also investors, right for me, in in my role, it's also staying on top of changes that are happening in the industry, what our partners are doing, you know, you talked about the Visa and MasterCard because of the ecosystem of partners. You talked about AI like how that's going to change how we do customer service, right? It's all those external sources and stimulus that you need to spend time with. And then internally, you know, I mean, building, building a strong team is a constant process, right? Also, because the business is changing so fast, we always have new needs, you know, trying to open a new geography hiring people to do that. Seeing that certain parts have now, you know, evolved in the business where we need to separate teams that used to be together, because we're at a much different scale, like all those things, it's constant. Honestly, I feel like it's almost a 50-50. Right? Like, it's not, you're never you're, you can never really just prioritize one over the other.
Alan Fleischmann
You've now worn the CFO hat a few times? How do you hope that Checkout’s clients can refocus their energies so that payments are less of a concern?
Céline Dufétel
I think it's back to that performance. Right. So what we tried to do for our merchants is abstract the complexity of payments so that they can focus on the other parts of the business, right. So payments are hugely complex, especially if you are operating a global business, and you want to accept payments and so many different currencies in so many different parts of the world. Our job is to uphold that regulation and with those schemes and those partners everywhere in the world, such that our merchants don't need to worry about that. And they can be solely focused on growing their business. But at the same time, make sure that our product is the highest performing product such that we optimize at the Checkout, right, the number of acceptance and the number of successful payments that they're, you know that they're processing. So we're very focused on the financial outcomes for CFOs and our merchants.
Alan Fleischmann
One of the things that surprise me is the fact that you partner with traditional payment processors. How does that happen? Why aren't they your competition?
Céline Dufétel
So some of the legacy PSPs are our competition, for sure. But, you know, payments is an ecosystem, right? So, you know, we want to make sure that our merchants can accept, you know, when we're acquiring for them can accept any kind of payments across, you know, whether their consumers prefer to use be MPLS. Or they prefer to use alternative payment methods, or they prefer to accept, you know, traditional cards and traditional card schemes, our job is to help our merchants have all those opportunities available to them, so that they're maximize, you know, they're the types of consumers and number of consumers that they ultimately can bring to their platform.
Alan Fleischmann
And if you are looking out 5, 10, even longer years of this in this space, how do you envision the technology changing in the years to come? And how will you continue to disrupt. I think of Checkout as the great disrupter. I'm just curious, what are we looking for in the future, even the imminent future? And then and then how does that work for even the disrupter?
Céline Dufétel
I think that you know, payments, and what we do as global acquirers actually has pretty big strategic modes. And it's, you know, the complexity of being able be have direct, local, acquiring and operating in every region of the world, is something that requires scale, and requires handling quite a bit of complexity. And I think that complexity is not going away, right. If you look at the kind of regulators, their standards are going up in terms of their expectations, you know, things like secure customer authentication, like the complexity is only going up. And so what I expect that to do is I expect more modern technology platforms like Checkout, who can actually keep up with the constant change, and have the modern technology that can put on new payment methods that can adapt to new regulation will only become stronger than legacy providers who have, you know, platforms that are cobbled up together through multiple years of m&a where they've never integrated and where their ability to react to a change in the payment space, or a new payment method or a new standard is actually much longer and harder. So I see a world where those modern technology platforms thrive for the foreseeable future. And personally, you know, I know there's been a lot of talk about E-commerce slowing down, but I think the ways of the world will continue to see a lot of EECOM growth and online payments in general, even for in person experiences.
Alan Fleischmann
You don’t go home and buy it, or –
Céline Dufétel
Buy it before you go and experience it. Right. You've already paid online, you've already mobile ordered, you've already done you know, your virtual card has already paid for something when you show up somewhere when you do something.
Alan Fleischmann
What's the most surprised you've been since entering the FinTech space and then the payment space on multiple levels? I would love to hear and then what continues to surprise you about the FinTech industry in general.
Céline Dufétel
I think the payments phase, it's just really complex, like I didn't fully appreciate the complexity of the ecosystem, all the different players and kind of all the nuances of how information flows exchange and, and how the whole system essentially functions. But it's truly fascinating. What surprised me in the FinTech space, I think, you know, maybe very simply that whether it's investors, or perhaps some of the fintechs themselves, I've been surprised that some of these organizations or investors see them as purely tech companies, where they very much are financial services companies. And if you're in the business of moving money, investing money, having money, and then you're highly regulated, the sort of standards by which you need to operate and the type of processes you need to run are just very different than if you're in you know, in the software world. And I think that really surprised me, maybe coming from more traditional financial services, I expected more maturity in sort of that part of how the business needed to be grown.
Alan Fleischmann
Are there mentors in your life who you hold on to now? You mentioned a couple of earlier. And then are you mentoring a lot of people now?
Céline Dufétel
Yes, there are definitely mentors from early on that I still still hold on to. As a matter of fact, I've got my monthly catch up with a mentor in his 90s Now who, you know, mentored me very early on when I was at at Ecole Polytechnique, and my father had just passed away, and I wasn't sure how to find a job or what job I wanted to have. And we've always stayed very close. But there's some incredible people, you know, at McKinsey, who have taught me a lot of things. You know, if somebody comes to mind, who was really early on telling me, Céline, you go 100 miles an hour, but there's roadkill? And, you know, how are you going to work with different people, like you only know one model that people will go 100 mile an hour like you, but there's, there's a lot of other people you're gonna have to work with. So how are you going to get that done? And how are you going to be successful, leading and mentoring a much broader team, so I think fondly of a lot of those people and stay in very close touch with them. And I do my best to try to mentor also, not just women, I'm very proud that multiple people who have worked with me at McKinsey, at T. Rowe have gone on to become CFOs. I was on the phone with one of them on Friday, who was just going to become the CFO of a public company looking for some advice. So I take a lot of pride and a lot of joy in having those conversations. Just because it's incredible to feel that you know, people that you've brought something to people who are now so successful, and that you help them a little bit along in their journey. It's amazing,
Alan Fleischmann
Tell me about your leadership principles that you share, that have guided you through the years, and then you share with others.
Céline Dufétel
For me, it's all about humility and curiosity. You know, you need to know that you don't know everything. And then everything takes care of itself. From there, you surround yourself with people who know the things you don't know. self, the self aware about the areas that you don't know, listen. And, you know, and, and work hard, right? And persevere, I think resilience for me has always been a theme throughout my life, losing my father at a young age, going alone to the US, you know, not knowing a single person showing up in New York trying to figure it out. And so resilience is also something I tried to teach the kids
Alan Fleischmann
How do you conjure your dad and keep your dad living in the hearts and minds of your children?
Céline Dufétel
It's a great question. I, you know, I try to teach them about where they came from, and who the people were and then the things they do, you know, when they remind me of my dad, or when they remind me of the things that, you know, I tried to kind of connect with them to that. We've also created a little board of family values that we make them repeat. And some of them very much come from my dad,
Alan Fleischmann
Which ones, can you share?
Céline Dufétel
Sure, we work hard. We solve problems, not just identify them. We treat everyone with respect. We're humble and grateful. We stick together as a family. We dream big, and we persevere.
Alan Fleischmann
Those are amazing. I love that.
Céline Dufétel
COVID idea.
Alan Fleischmann
Your husband, Brian Stafford, who's also been on the show, is also a, you know, an amazing CEO of Diligent. And he's global. And I always think, you know, between the two of you, and you've got these glorious children, you know, and everyone I was asked that a bit too busy parents to travel but you guys are disruptors, both of you. It's not like one of you have decided to go the more traditional route with a more traditional like, you know, day job, if you will, you both have pretty much out there, inventing and reinventing, disrupting, and re disrupting as you go. And then yet you have this glorious family life. I hadn't you do? Do practice certain things over the weekend, will you shut down and turn everything off? Or are there certain, you know, traditions you create, that allow you to actually, you know, kind of take a deep breath.
Céline Dufétel
Yeah, I tried to be very intentional about the time with the children. And what I mean by that is, I'm not going to do every drop off or every school pickup. But if it's your piano recital, or if it's something important I'm going to be there. And I'm going to prioritize it over work that day. And everything's very structured and organized. Brian's assistant and my assistant have a common calendar, we don't travel on the same weeks, we claim weeks way in advance. That's my Travel Week, not your Travel Week. And then of course, it takes a village, sometimes you need to call in the grandparents reinforcements to make it work. But I think for us, it's definitely about the structure in the organization. And then also those intentional, you know, family time and family moments and traditions and things that we've tried to do with the kids.
Alan Fleischmann
I know you've got holidays with your brothers, and you've done lots of things with your mom still, and you keep a strong connection. And you go back to France, as well. I don't know how often you do, but I know you try to make that a part of your journey, as well as that'd be part of your vacation time with your kids.
Céline Dufétel
Yeah, we try to, we try to take them once a year to France. And if they can overlap with their cousins, and you know, and see kind of the broader family, that's always special, keep them connected. I mean, they're bilingual, they speak French, totally fluently. But of course, going to the country and seeing, you know, the places and seeing the culture is also really important, in addition to speaking the language.
Alan Fleischmann
One last question. You mentioned imposter syndrome, which I know is not just an issue for everybody. I know that women talk about it more openly than men do. Is it something that we need to encourage people to identify, understand more in business and leadership? What advice do you have when people feel the doubt and I can tell you, as someone who works with people at all levels of leadership, it's not just something that one experiences at the earliest parts of their career. In fact, often as they elevate and advance in their career, they even become more of a syndrome and more of an issue. And I'm just curious, how do you adapt to it? And how are you? How do you expose it, I guess to others, or that they see that? It's something everybody feels?
Céline Dufétel
So for me, it's been having somebody who I can talk about impostor syndrome, you know, with and for me, it's been my husband, Brian. But it's when you're feeling that moment, you're lacking that confidence. You think you don't belong in the room, you don't belong? Who is that person that you can go and have a conversation with? Who reminds you of all the facts and all the evidence that says, nope, actually, you belong there just as much as the others do? It's in your head. It's not, it's not in the facts. And so I often tell people, who's that person for you, you know, maybe it's a parent, maybe it's a mentor, maybe it's a sibling, maybe, maybe it's a partner who can kind of catch you. And then I think it's important to talk about it, because I think it's important for me, at least with, you know, with younger generations of women that they know that I face it so there's not a stigma against talking about what you face, right? And making it an okay conversation to have.
Alan Fleischmann
That's great, because I think we get people to see that and combine that humility that you have with incompetence that you also have. We can have a lot more disruptors out there, and I think we need more disruption. This has been such a pleasure. I knew that the hour would go by fast having you on here. You're an amazing role model. The runway of leadership ahead of you is pretty amazing. I know it's the runway, it's not behind you. It's been pretty amazing. So the best is certainly yet to come. And I know there'll come a time we're gonna want you back on here. But the leadership lessons I look forward to are the family leadership lessons. I'm looking forward to absorbing myself but this has been a real pleasure. Thank you for joining us today.
Céline Dufétel
Thank you, Alan. Thank you for the very kind words.