What to watch out for
After a difficult year, the fintech industry is looking forward to a more productive 2023.
These are the big things to look out for in the coming year.
Fintechs will make final hires in Q1
No rest for the weary, it seems, as businesses must work hard immediately as the new year begins.
Deepali Vyas, head of fintech at consultancy Kornferry, predicts that Q1 2023 will be one of, if not the most important quarter in fintech’s history.
“It’s going to be a highlight of what the next 7 or 8 years for fintech will look like,” says Vyas. “We’ll know by Q1 what that race is going to look like.” While last year was marked by job cuts, Vyas says “if there are going to be any critical hires, it’s going to happen early next year.”
That said, a bad first quarter is not a death sentence. “It’s not make or break, more like wait and see.”
‘Just another winter’ for crypto?
There is some debate about how bad crypto winter 2022 is and whether it will turn into the crypto apocalypse.
Rob Paone, founder of crypto recruitment firm Proof of Talent, believes it’s just a cycle, albeit the biggest one yet, while Deepali Vyas is far more damning of the sector’s trajectory.
“It seems like every four years people say it’s over,” Paone says. “The bigger the cycle, the harder it is to bounce back.” As difficult as it may be, “the quality of talent in the room” has convinced Paone that the industry “is as well positioned to do that as they’ve ever been.”
Vyas is less convinced. “If I’m going out on a limb,” she says, “I’d say we could see its comeback in 10 years.” People are simply less interested in crypto careers, says Vyas. There is less tension than before, and this is unlikely to change.
But… Will Regulation Save Binance?
A given conclusion from the FTX drama will be the fast tracking of legislation in the digital asset space. This should create jobs in risk and compliance next year, but it may also dampen some of the industry’s spark.
Shawn Rutter, fintech recruiter at executive search firm Excelsior Search, calls crypto legislation “a double-edged sword” because “people want it decentralized.”
A lot depends on what happens to it industry faithful binance. The firm suspended and then unsuspended withdrawals in December after over $1B was withdrawn… a bad enough sign alone without knowing how deep the rabbit hole goes.
What do you think will happen next? pic.twitter.com/dYbSMBJc74
— Mike Alfred (@mikealfred) 12 November 2022
Everyone wants someone different
When you talk to different headhunters, it seems that there is no unanimous profile of employees fintech firms are looking for right now.
Shawn Rutter says that, after talking to a number of fintech CTOs, that “data science, AI and machine learning come up a lot.” He says this is because finance is very “data driven”, which is reflected by the parallel increase in demand within traditional finance.
Although hedge funds tend to require higher levels of education, fintechs are not as selective. “Fintechs have to compete with these hedge funds,” says Rutter. “They want skilled people, but there will only be a certain number of PhDs.”
Vyas, on the other hand, said confidently that fintechs want “product, no question.” She says that “these maturing fintechs used to be one trick ponies with one product, but have now discovered the enterprise product suite.”
Focused on the crypto space, Rob Paone says the focus is less on specialization and more on seniority. His work currently “focuses a lot right now on the early-stage technical side.” One area that is more difficult to fill for Paone is senior business development and marketing professionals.
The golden age of payouts has lost its luster
At a recent EMEA fintech summit, Accel noted that not a single Western fintech launched an IPO or SPAC last year. Likewise, Accel said private unicorn valuations look low compared to those already publicly traded. The 40 public unicorns it looked at had an average value of nearly $10.7 billion, while the 266 private unicorns had an average value of just $3.5 billion.
Equity-based compensation has been the main selling point for fintech jobs. But with values down dramatically, the shares aren’t nearly as appealing as they were. And the appeal of the jobs will suffer accordingly.
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