Yasmine El-Gohary started her career in the financial industry at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago after graduating with her Masters in Information Systems and Data Analysis. Her time at the Fed enlightened her to the world of Fintech startups and the innovations occurring in the space. With a drive to embrace a crucial part in building innovative solutions that have a large-scale consumer impact, she made the transition into product management, focusing on products in the embedded finance sphere. Throughout her career over the last 7 years, she has been building, launching, and commercializing different products with a passion for improving how the average consumer natively interacts with financial solutions.
Skipify is a fintech company whose mission is to eliminate friction in the shopper's journey while helping merchants build even stronger relationships with their customers. Skipify partners with financial institutions to directly pull and store consumers’ eligible payment and billing address information on file, after securely authenticating the consumer at checkout. For merchants, this results in fewer abandoned carts and higher authorization rates, regardless of channel, platform, or processor. The launch of Card Linking earlier this year is one of Skipify’s latest product innovations as they continue to define the Connected Wallet category.
Skipify is backed by some of the world's leading fintech and commerce enablement investors, including Samsung Next, Amex Ventures, PayPal Ventures, Synchrony Ventures, Okta Ventures, Point72 Ventures, Flourish Ventures, Infinity Ventures, and BDT & MSD Partners. Through its Connected Product offerings, Skipify is building a network across merchants and financial partners that helps the entire ecosystem win.
More on Yasmine
Where you currently live: New York City
Hometown: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Favorite hobby: Pilates, Sailing, Scuba Diving
Favorite show to binge: Schitt's Creek
How do you challenge yourself in your role? How do you differentiate yourself at your role (so that other FinTech women can reference to model their career pathways)?
I always seek out opportunities that push me beyond my comfort zone, challenging myself to rise to the occasion and improve different skills. My greatest strength is my ruthless ability to execute with focus and efficiency without losing sight of overarching strategic direction. I’ve found succeeding in startups requires adapting constantly to external factors, prioritizing iterations over perfection, and going well beyond existing responsibilities to succeed holistically as a team.
What is one piece of advice someone told you that resonated with you that can give to other women in FinTech?
Don’t let others define your worth. Believe in your skills, abilities, and contributions and advocate for yourself constantly. If you find your worth isn’t recognized, don’t be afraid to take risks to pursue new opportunities as they’re essential to your growth and progress. More importantly, uplift other women along the way, especially if you’re in a leadership role. While we’re constantly focused on overcoming systemic barriers to our own career growth, we should also pave the path for others to create a more diverse and inclusive environment.
Daily Diary
6:30 am: Wake up using a sunrise simulation alarm clock, which is particularly helpful in the winter. I go to my pilates studio or knock out a quick mat routine at home. Coffee right afterwards to wake me up and start the day.
7:30 - 10:00 am: Even though I’m an early morning person, I cherish mornings for personal time to slowly charge for the day. I don’t usually start work till at least 10:00 am. If work is extremely busy, I use this time to get ahead since the majority of my coworkers are on the west coast.
11:30 am - 6:00 pm: So many meetings, both internal and external. I’m trying to be more intentional with blocking focus time, rejecting meetings, and empowering my team to succeed without my constant presence.
7:00 - 9:00 pm: I’m either at happy hours, dinner with friends, or on the couch getting more work done with a show in the background. My most recent binge was The Bear on Hulu and honestly think I could thrive as a chef in an alternative life. Not because of my cooking skills of course, but the high pressure environment.
10:00 pm: In bed scrolling TikTok for a few minutes which often turns into a couple hours. I can’t help it