We sat down with Marla Sofer, one of our 2024 workshop leaders, for a Q&A about her background in financial services and what she's up to today.
Get to know fintech founder and former financial services executive Marla Sofer. She's worked with companies like Microsoft, BlackRock and JPMorgan, and has gone on to create her own startup, Knomee. She'll be joining us at WCF 2024 to lead the workshop Building a Strong Financial Foundation & Future.
A: I have had a very, I would say, outrageously non-linear career path. At the beginning of my career, I studied conflict resolution and wanted to be a diplomat. I lived overseas, and then got into nonprofit. I actually got a job at that point at Merrill Lynch, and I turned it down, saying I would never work in financial services.
After I worked at that nonprofit, I decided to get my MBA and took my first job in banking. I was a private banker at a bank called Bank Leumi in midtown Manhattan. It's now called Valley Bank. I was there for a couple of years until I moved into institutional banking at J.P. Morgan, and my clients were very large asset managers. They moved me from New York to the Bay area here in San Francisco, and I grew a team and lived through the financial crisis at that time. So, after six years at J.P. Morgan, I moved to BlackRock.
During that time, I got very inspired to do things that had much more impact. So, while I was at BlackRock, I was involved in a lot of nonprofit boards. I made it very much part of my life to balance out what I was doing at work with other opportunities for impact.
At some point, around 2015, maybe 2014, I started feeling like I wanted to harmonize my desire for impact with my work in the industry. And so, I interviewed with a whole bunch of fintech companies and jumped into fintech in 2015. I wanted to really experience what is it like to work at a big tech company and deeply understand the power of technology to change the way we interact with our money.
A: For me, what has served me well is being incredibly curious and not being afraid to make lateral moves and take a little bit of risk in my career for the purpose of curiosity. I recognize that when I know more about more things, I can apply more of my knowledge into new contexts. And so, for me, curiosity is probably number one.
Second is networking. I actually became very deliberate about networking. And I said, you know, if I want to make change in my career, I have to know a lot of people and understand what's happening out in the market. So I, I had a goal and I said, I want to spend 20% of my time networking. When I look at my calendar, I'm going to make sure that at least 20% of my time is filled in whatever way is going to help me learn, build relationships, cultivate relationships, and really nurture relationships in whatever way, because I found that has served me incredibly well. Maintaining a network is as important as growing a network. And so, you have to stay in touch with the people you interact with.
Related to networking, it's really important to respect people's time. Recognize that time is the absolute ultimate gift that anyone can give you. When you're networking, when you're trying to learn something new, when you're onboarding into a new job, when you're given a new task, all of those things that call on someone's time really demands your respect. And when you respect other people's time, you actually will demand respect for your own time.
A: I absolutely love this question, because my own relationship with my self-awareness is not only what drove my career, but it is the purpose and mission of Knomee.
So, I mentioned in chatting about my background that I've been driven by impact. I studied conflict resolution. I want to make the world a better place. Part of my founder journey is that I realized, being reflective on myself and on the industry, that there was a big-picture piece of the puzzle that was missing and that the solution for financial services was in data. And data comes from being reflective, from looking back at what you already know, looking back at data that exists in order to reflect and move onward. When we stop and think, what is it that we want to do? Who are we? What is it that we can achieve in this world? And what mark do we want to make? Then we can actually unlock it. And so, my entire impetus for Knomee is if I can unlock it for myself and recognize this huge vision, how do I unlock it for others? And that's really the vision for Knomee.
Q: Could you tell everyone a little bit more about Knomee and how it works?
Knomee is a data platform. We empower you to take control and really know who you are. The most important information about you is the information that helps you live a better life, helps you make better choices. What Knomee helps you do is gather that information and then share it with only those that you trust. [We help you] find the people that you trust [and] frankly, find trust in yourself so that when you know these bits of information… you know exactly what you need to be doing with your money so that you achieve your goals. So Knomee is a profiling tool. We want you to come in and start exploring who you are. Ask yourself some really hard questions. We inspire you to construct and clarify your vision of future you, because that vision of future you is going to unlock what you should be doing right now.
Meet trailblazers like Marla at WCF 2025. Register early to get the best price!