[author: Tiffany Haynes]
Tiffany Haynes, the Chief Operating Officer of Fingercheck, is a recognized leader in the fintech sector. Not only does she run a rapidly growing company, but Tiffany also is the mother of five children and has fostered others. Tiffany shares her insights on how to live a whole life – professionally and personally – while still doing the hard work of being "in the arena."
Q: Tell us about your career path that led you to your current position as COO of Fingercheck.
Tiffany: I've been in fintech for the last 20+ years. I started my career at Jack Henry, an S&P 500 company that provides financial tech solutions and payment processing for banks and credit unions. I held a number of different positions there, starting in operations, then rotating around, and eventually serving as Chief People Officer for six years. I wasn't HR by "trade," so I decided to go back to operations. I wanted the full P&L experience and to "own" a line of business. While I love building strategy and executing, having full ownership of sales and marketing wasn't part of the structure at Jack Henry, and I wanted the experience of owning the business top to bottom. So, I gave myself permission to "discover" and just be open to other opportunities. I received a couple introductions, and then one of those introductions led me to meeting Joel Kohn, the founder and CEO of Fingercheck. My first conversation with Joel was over Google Meet and lasted about 90 minutes. I remember hanging up the phone and being so fascinated by what he had built from a tech and product perspective with no venture backing (100% bootstrapped all the way to $20 million in sales). I didn't hear back for 6-8 weeks, and then I got a call from one of the advisory board members I knew and he said, "The current COO has resigned and Joel wants you to run the company." The rest is history.
Q: What is Fingercheck's business and its target market?
Tiffany: We provide payroll technology to small businesses and start-ups. You're likely familiar with ADP, Paychex, or Gusto. We are unique in a number of ways. Our value proposition is that we understand the small business owner with 100 or fewer employees. That business owner may not have an office manager, an HR person, or a finance person and has to handle all these roles. We built our platform around that experience so we can provide a low-effort, high-value solution. We have a basic offering for companies with just a few employees, and then we've enhanced our platform to support our customers as they grow.
We have over 5,000 clients (and can do payroll in all 50 states) and some of those businesses have just a few employees, while others have thousands of employees. Our product offers tons of flexibility and plays really well in the "non-desk" worker space because of our robust "Time & Attendance" and "Scheduling" modules, mobile capability, and earned-wage access offering. Our earned wage access offering is unique in that it's native to our platform. We handle all the calculations and deductions so the employer doesn't have to go through a third-party and a separate sign-on to offer that benefit to employees. We eliminate that complexity for the business owner from a systems perspective, but we also free up their capital because they don't have to lay out the funds for earned wage access.
Q: The company has an interesting name. Is there a story behind that?
Tiffany: Joel Kohn, the founder, wanted to build his own payroll company for small businesses. The catch was, he didn't have the cash to fund the start-up. He got creative and resold biometric time clocks (i.e., you could clock in with your fingerprint). He then built the Time & Attendance integration to the time clocks, and that all helped fund the continued innovation of the platform, inclusive of payroll (Fingercheck). Today, we have eight modules to help the small business owner or start-up with all things employment management and payroll processing, including earned wage access.
Q: In 2021, you received Money20/20's RiseUp Leadership Award, which recognizes women in fintech leadership roles. Can you share your perspective on the importance of women leading in finance?
Tiffany: Bottom line: we need more women in the arena. I'm paraphrasing the famous Teddy Roosevelt quote: it's not the critic who counts or the person who points out how the strong (wo)man stumbles, it's the (wo)man who is in the arena, willing to do the really hard, messy work. While we may not agree with the system or who holds the power, we have to get in there and do the hard work. That means being competent, failing, and doing what we need to do to stay in the arena. My encouragement to the women who are now in leadership roles in fintech and financial services is this: put your hand to the plow and just keep going.
Q: You've written that your passion is putting people first. How does that inform the way you operate at Fingercheck?
Tiffany: I love people but, ironically, I am not an extrovert. I've had to grapple through the years with how I stay true to who I am (super introverted) and how I need to show up, and that's been a learning experience in itself. At the end of the day, though, I get so much joy in bringing order to chaos. I love working through complex problems and figuring out nuanced ways to solve hard stuff. Usually, the most complex problems involve people. But, we can't view people as problems to be fixed. Instead, we need to see them as stories to be understood. So, whether it was as Chief People Officer at a public company or in my current role as COO, I try to meet people where they are in their story and, regardless of their position, help them to do great work together.
Q: As a recognized woman leader in fintech, you don't fit the common profile. You live in a small town in the southwest corner of Missouri, have five children at home, and have fostered others. What advice do you have for other women who want to chart their own course to leadership?
Tiffany: I'm super blessed and I recognize this. I have a husband who is a 100% partner. Week by week we look at what needs to be done and then divide up the tasks. When I travel for business, my husband knows he's mama and dad, and so do my kids, so everyone works towards supporting one another in their goals. That support has been huge for my professional success. I don't think of managing my professional and personal life as "work-life balance," but more as integration. When it comes to advice, I'd encourage women to stop compartmentalizing and practice living your life out of wholeness (not fragments of this part and that part of you).
Q: What advice do you have for other women aiming to rise to positions of leadership?
Tiffany: Be bold and courageous and take risks. We all know the statistics about how women will not apply for a job unless they meet all the criteria, while men will apply regardless of their qualifications. I think for many women there is this rub between needing to get the experience and believing they can do the job. As a result, we can get into this cycle of getting stuck between believing we can do the job, but not having the experience that might be required. While belief in oneself is important, it's also important to objectively see the gap. That takes emotional intelligence, which women have in spades. So, when you want to go after a position that may be a stretch, you need to objectively step back, consider how you are going to get the experience you need, and show the plan of how you'll close that gap. Own the gap; then close it.
Let me give you an example from my career. Eight years ago, I wanted to be promoted to the Chief People Officer at Jack Henry. At that time, I would be the only woman executive reporting to the CEO, and I was by far the youngest of the group. I told the CEO that I wanted to put my hat in the ring for the position, and his response (which was fair) was that I hadn't collected all the relevant experience to prepare me for that position. So, instead of agreeing with him, I owned that truth and then came up with a plan and presented him with two options and the pros and cons of each: (1) hire someone from the outside who checked all the boxes (2) hire me along with an executive coach who had the experience and who could work alongside me for the first six months. (Spoiler: I got the job and nailed it.)
What I learned from that experience is this: it's not so much about what you don't know. It's more about what you do when you don't know. Show them you have the humility to own your deficits, and counter-balance that with a strategy of what to do when you don't know what to do.
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