Lizzie Chapman – Co-Founder, ZestMoney

I’m Lizzie Chapman, Co-Founder of ZestMoney, and this is how I Lead from Within

Lizzie Chapman’s journey is shaped by her unassailable faith in hard work. CEO and Co-Founder of ZestMoney, India’s largest and fastest growing consumer-lending fintech firm, she has been driving the adoption of digital finance and ‘EMI without credit card’ in the country. Wise, curious and kind, there is an incredible lot to learn from Chapman – from how she regiments her time and priorities to how her core values steer her leadership style, and more. In this generous interview, she shares it all.

Pivotal times in my journey

My childhood was peppered with instances that taught me the value of working hard and being independent. My mother would encourage me to do what I thought was right for me. I remember a specific incident from when I was 17 and wanted to quit studying for university entrance to become a make-up artist instead. My mother asked me a few practical questions like how will I make money, how will I pay for the course, and if I’d thought the decision through. When she was convinced she said, “Good luck! Go for it. Enjoy. You figure out what you want to do,” and I did. I quit college, worked full-time for six months in a retail shop, and realised it was a bad idea. That experience taught me to never settle for what the society or my family expects from me, and to find my own path instead. It taught me that I was in control of my future and my life plan. The other powerful lesson in that episode was that it is ok to fail. I didn’t enjoy working in a shop and missed the academic world so I went back, sat for my exams, joined university, and it was all fine.

Starting work at Goldman Sachs was another pivotal time in my journey. It was a world different from anything I’d experienced before in terms of the role, people and culture. I felt completely out of my depth. For the first time in my life I felt insecure. I was surrounded by slick, polished people, some of whom had two PhDs, had studied all over the world, and were from important families. I felt small – I didn’t have the right background or credentials – but I got on with the job. I worked hard and in no time found my place, which left me feeling like I can do anything! I wondered if I can thrive and do well in an environment that is so completely different from anything I’ve experienced before, what else could I do? There must be no limits to ambition!

And finally, the most obviously determining moment was when my co-founder and I decided to take the plunge and start ZestMoney. It was one of the most liberating moments of our lives. Once we’d made the decision to give up our high-paying jobs and a comfortable life, and to persuade others to give up their comfortable life and join us, there was no going back. This is it and we have to give our thousand million percent to make it work.

My core values

> Hard work: Hard work for me is about deep, distraction-free work where I’m focused, in my flow and building a momentum. It’s not about the hours I work in a day. In fact, I dislike a culture of staying late in the office as proof of working hard. I acknowledge how little time we really have to do all the things that we want to do, and all the ways in which we can make an impact. I believe it’s our duty to make the most of our time – to find our version of deep, impactful work and get down to doing it.

> Curiosity: I value learning and exploration, highly. We become stagnant and life gets boring if we aren’t continuously learning about different people and things in the world. Perhaps the most dangerous thing is that we become narrow-minded. Our world today is one of extreme opinions – everything is black or white, left or right – and I pride myself on being able to evolve my mindset, see the grey areas, and change my mind.

> Kindness: At the end of the day, no matter how hard you work, how successful you are or how much you’re learning, if you do all that without being kind to the people around you – without making them feel comfortable, happy and warm – what’s the point? As leaders, one of the most important things we can do is create an environment where people are kind to each other because for people to be productive, it’s crucial that they are happy and content, and not feeling stressed or pressurised. 

My superpower

Optimism, something that I have honed over the years, is my superpower. Mindfulness, Buddhism, and meditation teaches us that we can control our thoughts. So if we are in a situation that we cannot change, we can at least change our reaction to it. To this end, fostering an attitude of positivity and gratitude are immensely helpful. If there is a crisis at work and people are panicking, it will be far more beneficial if I stay positive and confident that we will find a solution, instead of being negative and hopeless. 

I must mention here that I don’t think that we’re born with these preset behaviors. I believe that any superpower can be learned and developed, and this belief is important  otherwise we can’t change and evolve.

My time discipline

I’ve worked a lot since having a baby and now I’m suddenly more conscious of every hour that I could’ve spent developing my relationship with my child or building my business. I’m more focussed and intentional now about how I spend my time; I don’t want to waste it on something that is not important to me. Here are some of the productivity tools that I use.

> Emailing intentions to myself: One of the first things that I do in the morning is write an intense email to myself listing my intentions for the day – key elements of work that I want to concentrate on, big admin projects that I want to get out of the way, and some soft-skills ones like being empathetic with the team. I find that once I’ve written this email and have it in my inbox throughout the day, it creates focus and I’m less likely to get waylaid with distractions.

> Eliminating distractions: I’ve pretty much given up television and Netflix. I had a goal last couple of years to read a lot more because I felt that the time I was spending on video content would be better used to relax while reading a book. I absolutely love that I no longer desire video content or social media. Getting back into reading extensively has helped me focus better because it has retrained my brain away from short-term dopamine hits that we all get from social media, and into more long-term critical thinking.

> Prioritising: When we say we don’t have time for ‘X’, what we often mean is that ‘X’ is not a priority. I used to run 20-30 hours a week on average. Now, I’d rather engage in forms of exercise where I get more in a shorter period of time, and put that 30 extra hours into my business or reading or whatever else is my current priority. I am very cognizant of what my priorities are, and equally aware of how I spend my time. It’s important to me that I mindfully choose how I allocate my time. 

> Enjoying the company of friends: The one thing that I’ve been terrible at, and am aggressively trying to fix this year is prioritising friendships. A lot of women begin to neglect their social life when they start a family, or have work and family to juggle. They think they can pick it up later but that’s a mistake. Our friends and our network are a great source of support during difficult times, and we should keep them close. Moreover, humans are social creatures and our mental health is linked to the time we spend with people. I’m a bit of an extrovert so if I spend too much time alone or just on work, I begin to feel dispirited. I’ve decided to not be so militant about my time and actually build in some unstructured free time to simply enjoy people’s company.

What energises me

> Respecting my energy cycles: I am a morning person. I’m normally at my peak energy before midday, when I thrive on high-priority, all-crucial, difficult work. Three days a week, I request people not to book long meetings in the morning so that I can have three mornings of deep, quiet work. Unfortunately, as we grow older, we don’t have the same amount of energy 24/7 but once we know our typical energy patterns, we can build our life around them. I fully take advantage of my time in the morning not just for work but personal growth and learning too. I journal, pay gratitude and set intentions, and find that if I’ve done this in the morning, I’m in a much better mood throughout the day. I also then find it easier to channel my energy in getting big things done. 

> Getting more sleep: I used to be one of those people who claim that they only need four hours of sleep. And many times, that’s all I got, especially while I was with Goldman Sachs. I’ve disrespected sleep my whole life but what I’ve learned is that when I do get eight hours of sleep, I’m 10x more productive. I now make time to sleep at the expense of other engagements like going to the gym or attending a party. Sleep, as I’ve found, has a big impact not just on my energy levels but also on my mental health – my optimism for the day depends on the amount and quality of sleep that I’ve got the previous night.

My role models

> Danny, with whom I worked at Goldman Sachs and who passed away recently, is a huge inspiration. He was altruistic, empathetic and social. Obsessed with giving back to the society, Danny was also a capitalist and made a lot of money. I admire people like him who can live with conflicting stereotypes.

> Nadia, who was a managing director at Goldman Sachs, was my first reference of a woman in a very senior role who had managed to maintain her femininity and her joie de vivre. One of the most fun, passionate, glamorous and beautiful women I’ve ever met, who is also an exceptional business executive, she now runs a startup in New York and has a beautiful family. When I spend time with her, I feel like I can do anything.

> Zia Mody, founder of AZB & Partners, is a total rock star according to me. She can be fun and silly but she’s a ball-breaker when it comes to her work. I respect women like her who don’t fit any stereotype, and who are not bothered about what other people think of them. She’s also incredible at making people feel special. She remembers specific details and insights from one of our conversations eight years ago! That blew me away! How does she do it with her busy portfolio; it’s phenomenal! I aspire to be like her because it’s not only about being good at your work but also about making everybody you meet feel special that makes one a good leader. That’s the real superpower.

Inclusion @ Zest

The best teams and companies are always the most diverse. Diversity to me is not just gender, it encompasses economic background, social structure, religion, everything. At Zest, we highly value diversity because our customers are so diverse. Our tagline is ‘EMI for everyone’ – if we don’t have diverse representation in our team, how can we understand and service our clients? 

> We have zero tolerance for any biases from day one. If this is violated by someone, I politely but firmly tell them to not repeat that because it doesn’t suit or reflect Zest’s culture.

> We are conscious of how our values reflect in our actions at the company level – who we promote, who we talk up, who we repeatedly praise. People pick up on these, so we are extra careful about not projecting our own biases even if it is unintentional.

> We recognise the basic truth that seeing women in senior positions inspires other women to apply to those organisations. If we corporates do a better job of profiling and showing off the fact that we have women in senior leadership roles, we would have more women joining the workforce and climbing up the ranks.