October is National Women in Small Business month, so New Haven Biz took some time to speak with Courtney Jinjika, a KeyBank SVP and regional retail leader. Jinjika champions Key4Women, a community network dedicated to helping entrepreneurial and professional women succeed in business. With nearly 9,300 female-owned-businesses in the Connecticut and Massachusetts market today, Jinjika speaks about ways this platform works to lower or eliminate the barriers to financing that still exist, and help women start and grow their businesses in KeyBank’s Connecticut and western Massachusetts markets.
Q: Tell us about your background and how you came to be involved in banking and the Key4Women program?
A: I began my banking career over 15 years ago as a branch teller for KeyBank in Seattle and now serve as the senior vice president and regional retail leader for Connecticut and western Massachusetts.
KeyBank is a company that encourages and enables women to achieve their career goals — internally among its employees, and externally with its customers. The Key4Women program is one example of the company’s dedication to empowering and promoting financial wellness for its businesswomen clients.
Given my passion for retail banking and desire to help customers with their financial needs, I felt that this was a valuable solution that my customers needed to know about, and became a certified advisor. I’m now a Key4Women advocate and oversee several certified advisors throughout Connecticut and western Massachusetts.
Q: What are some of the challenges confronting female entrepreneurs that spurred development of the Key4Women program? How might a local businesswoman benefit from taking part?
A. Key4Women originated in 2005 to address the unique needs of women entrepreneurs in the communities KeyBank serves — needs that include access to capital, financial confidence and networking.
While there are a variety of reasons for these challenges, women typically raise less external capital to finance their firms extending well past initial start-up phases, and women networks have fewer viable economic resources compared to men.
This is where the Key4Women community and its army of Certified Key4Women Advisors can make the difference — advocating, connecting and empowering women on their financial journey to allow them to confidently dream big.
Q: According to your research, women across the nation are optimistic about their chances for business success, but gender bias is one of the top three challenges preventing them from accessing the funding they need to scale. How does Key4Women address that?
A. When seeking investment in their businesses, women are often tied to an unconscious bias that associates them with less credibility and lack of legitimacy. Our research shows that women then end up tapping into their personal finances and assets to fund their business. This is why unconscious bias training is a core component of the Key4Women certification program.
Additionally, through KeyBank’s financial wellness tools, the Key4Women program and its certified advisors are able to provide advice and insights to educate women on their funding options.
Q: In particular, how has this program worked with New Haven-area businesswomen? How are female business leaders in this area using the program to their advantage?
A. Although Key4Women was established in 2005, it’s newly being expanded to the New Haven market since the acquisition of First Niagara [Bank, in 2015]. Key4Women members enjoy access to resources, tools and biweekly whitepapers featuring expert advice and guidance. We are currently planning our 2019 calendar of events.
Q: What strengths do women bring to the table when starting a new business?
A. Our research has shown that women entrepreneurs often demonstrate more empathy, exhibit stronger leadership skills and are more willing to seek advice. All of these combine to allow them to build powerful teams of highly engaged employees allowing them to grow. The growth rate for women-owned businesses has surpassed their male counterparts every single year since 2005. As a matter of fact, from 2006 to 2017 women-owned businesses grew 5 percent faster [than male-owned enterprises].
Q: What lessons have you learned from working to promote this program and speaking with these entrepreneurs?
A. I have the unique opportunity to meet extraordinary women who not only excel in running their businesses and achieve results, but also have a desire to obtain a work/life balance and make a difference in their community. They seek guidance in securing financial wellness more often so they can achieve that balance and be a generous supporter of their community and employees.
