Amid the dynamic world of financial technology, a seasoned professional’s transformative career and dedication to empowering small to medium businesses is in the spotlight.
Caitlin Zotti’s journey is as inspiring as it is insightful. With a commendable six years at Pin Payments, she transitioned to the role of co-CEO 18 months ago, marking a pivotal moment in her career.
Perth born Caitlin seized the serendipitous opportunity as she was looking to relocate closer to family.
“I’d lived in Sydney for several years and through fortuitous timing, this opportunity came up exactly at the same time as I moved home.”
Equipped with experience in management and accounting, Caitlin brings an invaluable perspective to her new role.
“Dealing with e-commerce as a merchant I think really gave me great perspective to move into Pin Payments where we serve small business merchants,” Caitlin said.
“So I feel like I know a lot of the problems that our clients deal with day-to-day because I have been on their side before.”
With the help of Caitlin’s leadership, Pin Payments aims to empower small to medium businesses in their digital endeavours.
“We position ourselves as a simple place to start for a small business that doesn’t have the resources to spend on a software engineer.”
The company also boasts a robust network of partnerships with diverse software platforms to meet the varied needs of its customers.
“We have a restaurant booking platform where we facilitate payment for gift vouchers, but the platform itself is primarily used for table reservations,” Caitlin said.
“So there’s a lot of opportunities like that where we can partner with other people who are doing really cool stuff to enable and streamline core business activities.”
Caitlin said the impactful women who served as role models throughout her career have been a source of inspiration for her position as a female leader.
I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have those people shape my career and I reflect on that quite often in terms of how I can provide that opportunity to others.
Caitlin Zotti, Pin Payments Co-CEO
But Caitlin is candid about the challenges in addressing the gender gap in the FinTech Space.
“I think it’s quite difficult to be perfectly honest because we don’t see a high number of female candidates in the pipeline.”
Despite these challenges, Pin Payments is making strides towards diversity and inclusivity.
“In saying that, we do have two female engineers at Pin Payments and we have several other females within different functions of the business as well,” Caitlin said.
‘We provide a lot of development opportunities and we also try to get to a lot of female-focused networking events when possible.”
Balancing the demands of leadership and motherhood, Caitlin’s journey as a new mum adds another layer to her inspiring narrative.
“There will always be large projects, big problems, big opportunities, and it’s never going to be like ‘a good time’ once you’re at a certain level of seniority,” Caitlin said.
“So I think it’s something that you need to be really passionate about and know what your plan is and having confidence in those decisions as well because it can be difficult, but I think if you vocalise your plan to everyone involved, including your workplace, then I think most places are accepting of that and really want to make it work because there’s a lot of value in what you do.”
Caitlin encourages aspiring entrepreneurs to remember the importance of clear communication and financial knowledge to help drive their success.
“I’d really encourage people to do reading around financials and that type of thing so that you can have confidence in your business plan as well as in the product that you’re building.”
“If you have consultants or advisors who are helping you with your products, it’s important to know that you’re the client in that relationship, so If you don’t understand something or it doesn’t look how you want it to, it’s important to say so.”
