Developing tomorrow’s FinTech leaders with CFTE

As part of our FinTech & Tech practice’s ongoing commitment to providing meaningful opportunities for emerging talent, we recently partnered with the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship to deliver training as part of their Global FinTech Internship programme.

CFTE are an organisation on a mission. By providing educational resources on FinTech trends and topics, they’re empowering the emerging workforce to pursue careers in the industry. As an emerging talent management consultancy, Grayce passionately believe in the value that graduates bring to businesses, but we know that their job prospects have been heavily impacted by the pandemic, with 28.2% having their job offer deferred or cancelled as a result.

With a shared passion for developing the FinTech leaders of the future, together, Grayce and CFTE partnered to support over 1000 students around the globe through the Global FinTech Internship programme.

Only 17% of university students were able to secure an internship placement in the last year, meaning the vast majority missed out on opportunities to develop their holistic skill set and gain hands on work experience. At the same time, the FinTech industry is in desperate need of talent to support its rapid growth, with EY’s FinTech census revealing that 42% of UK FinTechs are currently facing a digital skills shortage. We’re looking to close this gap, providing graduates with the training and support they’re looking for, whilst offering our clients a way to find the digital skills they need.

With support from FinTech giants such as Mastercard and PayPal, the weeklong internship programme was designed to develop students’ competitive skills in FinTech and kickstart their careers on a global scale. Students attended a variety of presentations, panel discussions and live case studies covering everything from industry insights to careers advice and soft skills coaching. Throughout the week, students also gained hands on project experience, working in teams on business cases from leading FinTech companies and submitting a paper and video presentation to end the programme.

Volunteers from our Analyst community and Delivery Management Team delivered sessions designed to boost students’ employability. Our team’s sessions covered how to write a winning CV, interview tips to stand out from the crowd, and top soft skills to conquer. We closed out the week with a career spotlight panel discussion, where our community shared learnings and advice from their own careers and gave students insight into some of the roles they could work in in FinTech. Stacey Baillie, CFTE Partnership Lead and Delivery Manager for FinTech reflects, saying “The CFTE internship experience was an amazing opportunity for our team and Analysts to share their insights, experience and of course, pay-it-forward with a vast global audience!”

We’re already seeing graduates of the internship programme applying to join our Development Programmes and look forward to continuing to support their careers and personal development in change, tech and data as they join our community.