In conversation with the women of Nutmeg

Teodora Lajeva
Head of compliance

How would you describe your role at Nutmeg?
The team and I advise and support the business to navigate through lots of different regulations and laws. We ensure that our risks are well managed, our customers are protected and that Nutmeg acts as a good citizen.

What are you excited for this year?
I love our customers. We’ve got some exciting plans for them this year that I can’t divulge right now, but let’s just say that 2019 is going to be a big one for us!

What’s your biggest achievement?
We’re a team of eight in Risk and Compliance and most of us are quite new. I’m really proud of the way we’ve all started working together as a team in such a short amount of time. We’re testing the agile way of working with daily stand ups which is more tech-oriented, but the team has taken to it like ducks to water with the help of our amazing agile coach!

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
There isn’t one specific piece of advice I live by. I’ve been given a lot of advice over the years from a lot of inspirational people; the combined effect is quite powerful.

What’s the soundtrack to your day?
The Four Seasons of Vivaldi. Lots of different rhythms, colours, instruments and networks.

Rima Soudani
Optimisation specialist

How would you describe your role at Nutmeg?
I spend my time optimising our website so that our visitors like it and find it useful, and search engines (like Google, Bing etc) drive quality traffic to our website.

What are you excited for this year?
I’m really excited about getting married to the most amazing person in the world, as well as the travelling adventures we’ve planned for after. At Nutmeg, I’m super excited about the expansion of our advice services we’ve been working on for the last few months. When I joined the team two years ago, I was told that Nutmeg is all about our customers and I love to see that this hasn’t changed one bit.

What’s your biggest achievement?
Continuing to successfully balance a blissful personal life and achieving my professional goals in a fast growth company.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
The best piece of advice I’ve received was from my dad when I was a child. He told me not to worry about things I can’t control and not to attach value to things that are, in fact, of little importance. This has resonated with me through my whole life and really helped me on many occasions.

What’s the soundtrack to your day?
It has to be the album ‘Her’ by Storms because every single song on that album is great – I’m addicted!

Sophie Howorth
Customer support representative

How would you describe your role at Nutmeg?
I work in Customer Support as part of the ‘front line’ team handling calls and live chats from customers as they come in.

What are you excited for this year?
A good friend of mine is expecting their second baby, so I’m looking forward to new baby cuddles and spoiling their big brother!

What’s your biggest achievement?
Teaching myself to make clothes from online tutorials and patterns. It’s led to some great experiences and some lovely gifts for my friends and family. Also, it’s nice to feed my creative side when I can.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Whatever comes, let it come. Whatever goes, let it go.

What’s the soundtrack to your day?
A Piece Of Work is a podcast by Abbi Jacobson – it deciphers what you’re ‘supposed’ to experience from modern and contemporary art in a very human, funny and interesting way.

Amika Karmakharm
People coordinator

How would you describe your role at Nutmeg?
I help the People and Talent team look after those that are in the process of joining the business, as well as current employees.

What are you excited for this year?
I’m excited to see what happens to Nutmeg in the next few months. We’ve undergone great changes in the last year from office improvements to the number of new Nutmeggers who have joined us.

What’s your biggest achievement?
I’ve been lucky enough to have travelled to some amazing places, which gave me the opportunity to see different things and learn about new cultures. For me, being able to explore different places and meet people from all over the world has been my greatest achievement.

What’s the soundtrack to your day?
I love listening to podcasts especially Freakanomics and How I built this. Both podcasts have profiled some amazing women who have broken the boundaries to be where they are, which is really motivational to listen to.

Karen Dunn
Product manager for advice

How would you describe your role at Nutmeg?
I’m the product manager for the advice team, so I look after our advisers and paraplanners, and work with the UX team to create useful advice and guidance products for our customers.

What are you excited for this year?
At work, I’m really looking forward to taking advice to the next level. I’m also excited to be going home to Australia in May and I’m planning on getting a dog this year!

What’s your biggest achievement?
Finishing my MBA part-time and rolling out a project to 24 markets in 12 months for work, while training for and completing a marathon.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Remember to have ‘do nothing’ days, when you say no and spend the day resting and recharging.

What’s the soundtrack to your day?
Katy Perry, Roar. If I’m not feeling excited about getting out of bed when it’s cold in winter, putting this on and dancing around puts me in a good mood and sets me up for a great day.

Sarah Crouch
Paraplanner

How would you describe your role at Nutmeg?
As a paraplanner within the financial advice team, my day-to-day tasks include supporting the advisers and providing our customers with financial guidance.

What are you excited for this year?
Everything, particularly the sun shining and summer as it’s coming soon! I hope to visit Costa Rica later in the year too.

What’s your biggest achievement?
Outside of work, I’m proud of mentoring and volunteering to support people who aren’t having the best time including youngsters and people who are homeless. I think it can be quite easy to live in a fortunate bubble especially working in the financial services industry.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
‘Trust in the process’  – the idea that everything will be ok in the end, so keep the faith.

What’s the soundtrack to your day?
Queen’s Greatest Hits – Love Freddie M’s showmanship and their versatility, even though the songs are 30+ years old they still get me going.

Lisa Rodwell
Chief customer officer

How would you describe your role at Nutmeg?
It’s a new position that we introduced to put the customer at the centre of all we do. That means I oversee everything from customer service to financial advice to marketing. I love the role because I work with passionate people who really care about our customers and our mission of democratising wealth management.

What are you excited for this year?
I am particularly excited about some of the plans we have to engage and educate more women in investing. Since joining Nutmeg, I have been shocked at how few women invest for their future. Given we are all living longer, it’s critical to start early so you have enough to live well throughout your life. I look forward to developing both in person and online events so more women can gain financial literacy and insights in to how and why investing makes sense.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
“You only regret the things you don’t do. So, go for it!” I have taken this advice at least three times in my career. It is so important to understand what makes you happy, what challenges you and ultimately, what you want to accomplish. If you know this, then go for it! Some decisions may seem bonkers to your parents or colleagues or friends e.g. taking a pay cut to change industry, move countries or quit before having a new job. However, these are the decisions that are hard but if you know what you want, what makes you happy and the decision directs you there … go for it.

I’m so happy I did.

What’s the soundtrack to your day?
This is super embarrassing. I have a playlist I created once that has all these power anthems from the 70s, musical big hits and some Canadian classics that give me energy and confidence that “I can do it”. To give you a flavour for it, the first song I stole from my old boss’ guilty pleasures play list. It’s Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey (no comment needed). Others include I am Woman by Helen Reddy (super cheesy but love the sentiment and my dad loves Helen Reddy), Home for a Rest by Spirit of the West (my favourite Canadian band who used to play the uni circuit back in my day), Sweet Transvetite (I’m a huge Rocky Horror fan), I Can See Clearly Now (Thelma & Louise soundtrack) and everything from Psychedelic Furs as they are my favourite ever band from my teenage years.

I’m also very honest as you can see by that playlist.

Tatiana Campagna
Tech lead

How would you describe your role at Nutmeg?
I’m a tech lead on the ‘Bulls’ team. Our team handles the customer portfolio performance and valuations; such as returns, contributions, assets etc.

What are you excited for this year?
The growth Nutmeg has been having and the new investors.

What’s your biggest achievement?
The delivery of the TWRR project was such a big achievement for me and my whole team. We always want to ensure our customers have complete transparency over how their portfolios are performing, so we were keen to incorporate them alongside simple returns calculations.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Your team is your strength.

If you’d like to join these wonderful women in democratising wealth management – why not head to our Careers page to become a Nutmegger.

Risk warning

As with all investing, your capital is at risk. The value of your portfolio with Nutmeg can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invest.