Anna Nordén from Sovos talks about “Women in Fintech” in 2023

Anna Nordén is Principal, Regulatory Affairs at Sovos – the UK-based fintech built to handle the digital future of tax. Sovo’s Intelligent Compliance Cloud is the first complete solution that reduces the burden and risk of modern tax across a range of transactional tax rules. More than half of the Fortune 500 trust Sovos, including many of the world’s largest manufacturers, retailers, and banks and insurance companies. We caught up with her to find out more.

What is your role?

As Principal, Regulatory Affairs at Sovos, I conduct government relations and other public work to anticipate new regulatory trends and laws in tax digitization, making these laws as effective as possible for governments, while enabling them for users. Working closely with my colleagues in both strategy and regulatory analysis and design, my job is to guide legislators as new tax control reforms are rolled out around the world.

How did you get into the fintech space?

After studying law at the universities of Lund and Gothenburg, I took my Swedish LL.M. After my studies, I joined one of the largest Swedish law firms and was quickly absorbed by the long working hours and intense lifestyle of a business lawyer. It quickly dawned on me that unless I tried something else soon, I risked spending the rest of my career with the same company. As a next step, I applied for a position at the District Court, which is the first step to becoming a judge. After being admitted to court, I turned down the offer at the last minute and instead took a few months off to travel. On a tight budget, I traveled the world trying to figure out what career path I wanted to take.

When I returned to Sweden, I started working at Gothenburg District Court. However, it was not long before I was offered the opportunity to move to Vienna for a UN project at the UN Commission on International Trade Law, after being granted eight months’ leave by the Court. This marked the start of my “tech” career, where my job was to investigate the relationship between law and technology and how this could be used to harmonize legal digitization efforts worldwide. For example, as part of my work on the UN Model Law on Electronic Signatures, I was required to understand the technology behind digitization and how it could both affect and assist the legal process.

An international environment, at the intersection of law and technology, was where I found my place. I then returned to the Court for a while, before finally moving to Paris after being offered a permanent position at the International Chamber of Commerce in my area of ​​interest, thus leaving the judicial career once and for all. It had become my passion and area of ​​expertise to understand and analyze electronic signatures and their legal implications.

What has driven your career development?

Within a year of working at ICC, a headhunter convinced me to join an IT startup in my area of ​​focus. I learned a lot from this startup experience and met some great people; a few of us left the project and started our own company, as pioneers in technology and law. This company, TrustWeaver, was later acquired by Sovos. And that’s how I got to where I am today.

When it comes to advancing my career in the space, having an open-minded attitude has been one of the most important things. When new opportunities arose, I took full advantage and jumped in feet first. As a result, I have now experienced working in the private sector, public sector, NGOs, and the list goes on. As I experienced these different areas of technology, I made sure to stop and check my compass periodically to make sure I was heading in a direction that felt right to me—even in the circumstance that I didn’t know what my final destination would be. One thing I was sure of from day one of my journey into the industry was that I wanted an intellectually stimulating career that allowed me to work alongside interesting people on an international scale, while maintaining a good work-life balance.

What is the biggest challenge you face in your career?

Although I have always managed my time well and had understanding managers and colleagues, raising small children while managing a lot of work has been my biggest challenge so far. However, it has been easier for me to establish a work-life balance by working flexible hours and sometimes remotely, but still I have often had a hard time maintaining the balance.

Where do you find support in the fintech world?

In terms of resources that can be used for support, I don’t think that women in tech require any specific or specialized type of resources that differ from men, and I personally don’t believe so much in female networking, but rather in networking in general. However, some examples of resources that have been recommended to me are edx.org, Pluralsight, and Udemy.

What advice would you give to other women who want to work in fintech?

It’s important to keep an eye on your compass – does it match your goals? Are you satisfied in your current position? If you’re unhappy with the direction you’re headed, change course. Don’t be afraid to communicate your needs to your employer; work-life balance is key!

For me personally, there was no single major factor that drove my success – commitment, hard work, being in the right field and working with supportive people have been the ingredients that have made it happen.

While there is a lot of advice to offer women in the industry, I think it’s important to note that there is a lot the Fintech community can do to lift the barriers to success for women; The responsibility is not entirely up to women. The first step should be to promote girls’ interest in learning technology from an early age if we intend to encourage more and more women to take up careers in technology. In some cultures, this will require a shift in mentality to allow and expect girls to be involved in technology as well as men.

Secondly, women are generally less competitive and more risk-averse than men, which should be taken into account. It is because of these characteristics, combined with the fact that women are usually responsible for housework and childcare, that fewer women make it as professionals in male-dominated fields. To reverse this trend, we need to provide women with a different career structure than that used to attract and promote men.

Overall, to better support the development of the careers of women in Fintech, companies need to encourage early learning, offer different career structures and ensure work-life balance.