Mika Aldaba’s Post

What a whirlwind week last week was! 🤩 🏆 my amazing team won the #GenAI hackathon Danske Bank case 🐧 at EY with my key role being a hybrid of business, tech, PM and design (Theis L. Gildberg, Teresa Carotenuto, Hanna Råhnängen, Louise Wu, Sebastian Galan) 💪 soft-launched our #WomenInFinTech concept at #NFW2024 and met up with potential collaborators (Maria Germogenova, Annette Printz Nielsen, Lima Curtis, Silje Nesvik and more) 🙋♀️ kicked off our #WomenInConsulting programme with our 12 mentees and mentors, organized by our fantastic volunteers (Victoria Frantz, Julie Exner, Julia Hahn) - more stories, details and images to come soon 😉 Connect or reach out to me if you are interested in any of these projects 🤝

We have hit our target number of applicants 🙌 but if you are still interested, you have until this Sunday to apply. See link in comments 😁 👇 A huge thanks to the fantastic Women in Consulting organizing team: Victoria Frantz Julie Exner Julia Hahn Emma la Cour and to all our amazing volunteers and mentors 🎊

After having the incredible opportunity to serve as a mentor in our Women in Consulting programme in 2023, I am thrilled to take on the role of programme lead this year. We are becoming even more ambitious and I can't wait to share more about it later 🚀 It's an honor to guide and support a new cohort of impressive young women as they enter the industry. There's something incredibly fulfilling about helping these early professionals discover their strengths, build confidence, and achieve their career aspirations. 🌱👩💼 We're fostering a network where women support women, creating a ripple effect that extends beyond our programme. For example, my former mentee Hanna Westerberg, former intern Maria Germogenova and I met to discuss a new initiative (which I will also write about in the future!) that would not have been possible if we didn't meet through EY Student Network Programmes 💪🤝 If you're passionate about making a difference and want to be part of this transformative experience, join us in our mission to uplift and empower women in consulting. Together, we can create a more diverse, inclusive, and dynamic industry. 🌐👩🔬 Our programme is highly competitive 🔥 Find the links to apply below in the comment section 👇👇👇 #WomenInConsulting #Mentorship #Leadership #DiversityInConsulting #Empowerment #CareerGrowth #EYConsulting #EYStudentNetworks

☕ About a year ago, I posted an open invite to coffee meetings. 10+ cappuccinos later, I am incredibly grateful to have met with so many outstanding women and men. I have listened to people's career dilemmas and struggles and luckily even made it possible for at least one or two to achieve a career goal. The experience is very fulfilling for me and although my coffee slots are more limited now, I want to scale the experience up this year. 🎀 First is through my further and increased involvement with the #WomeninConsulting mentorship programme in my current workplace which we hope will become a bigger network. Second is through our upcoming #WomeninFinTech non-profit initiative with Maria Germogenova. If you are interested in any of the two, do not hesitate to get in touch 💌 Having multiple work opportunities to pursue, I am motivated the most to drive activities pushing for more #equality and #fairness in the workplace. My experiences in the past 12 months only validated the need for these kind of programmes to exist. If you've ever cried, seen a junior cry, or even seen your boss cry, then you've had enough. I am tired of hearing women be told that we're not good at sales - well it's because you only took the boys to the sales meetings. If I am being gatekept from another network because I don't look like other people, I will build my own networks. If you're also done with only getting inspirational sessions and ready for something more tangible to take home with you then share your ideas on how we can take action 🗨 And yes I am wearing the same outfit in the two pictures 👯 Watch this space and follow me for more updates on the initiatives 👇

"If you are not in embedded finance in 5-10 years, you are dead" ...and other key learnings from Stockholm Fintech Week 🔑 Last February, I enjoyed a quick work-cation in Stockholm where I got to chat with Liva Lager and see our funky EY Doberman SALLY sustainability lab office. It was a change of scenery from the usual EY corporate aesthetic and encouraged me to reaccess my design brain 🧠 again. We discussed how their unique #design capabilities can help Danish banks innovate to face the upcoming regulatory shifts, technological advances and other competitive pressures in the market 📈 👉 More FinTechs are embracing GenAI to increase funding. Generative AI use cases are being used for enhancing CX (avatar advisory, personalized banking, automated investment), employee productivity, creativity and improving business operations (regulatory - there are over 200m+ pages of regulations 🤯 , cybersecurity and fraud). 👉 Lunar is already testing GenAI for credit analysis, unstructured data, categorizing thousands of transactions which can be useful for #openbanking. Customer facing use cases are not out yet but being prototyped for business bank account application and initial draft reports. 👉 According to VISA, B2B payments is a growing area to get into. Other trends include B2B embedded lending, AI powered insurance, more #embeddedfinance in the supply chain, climate + insurance tech. 👉 Financial institutions should already start preparing for the upcoming FiDA regulation which will enable the new era of open finance. Start by looking into specific priority use cases first and work backwards from there to identify which data to begin with. Another approach could be starting from the cheapest data first and then coming up with the use cases from that. 👉 Compliance is the biggest issue when banks try to partner with FinTechs to outsource some of their functions. This will also be a challenge with the implementation of FiDA. Who owns the data and KYC? 👉 Banks can look into a multibranding strategy to expand their revenue streams by tapping into different audiences. For example, a new brand to reach out to Gen Z customers. 👉 Look globally for new trends, will #paybybank and #superapps ever become a thing in the Nordics? Thank you for a great conference, panel discussions and networking Don Ginsel, Lana Brandorne, Anastasia Kutsepalova, Anna Blyablina, Rasmus Häggkvist, Ion Fratiloiu and many more! While I was there, I got offered a semla (celebratory Swedish cream bun) almost everywhere I went. Before attending, I also took some #wellbeing time and visited the beautiful Art Nouveau spa, Centralbadet, next to my hotel. Missed my payments teammates Silje Arnesen and Maria Germogenova this time but we will be covering more Copenhagen Fintech events on our pages 📢 Let us know what other FinTech related happenings we should check out 🙌 #conferencespy #latepost

Last December, I visited my hometown for Christmas 🎄. I passed by a café ☕ I used to frequent. Upon seeing the façade, I was hit by nostalgia of a previous life (like seeing Past Lives, which I highly recommend). 2023 was the year I stopped being in denial. I've been in consulting for 4 years, and don't get to work with design so often. My portfolio hasn't been updated since 2017 as my projects are confidential 🤫, so I chose not to renew my domain mika.design anymore. It's an identity that I seemingly lost. I went inside the café and ran into Dan Matutina. I asked how he was and we ended up talking about the Philippine design exhibit at the National Museum 🏛️ where his work was featured. It was such a coincidence, and I took it as a sign from the universe that I should visit ✨. With help from my mum who works with the Design Center, I was able to go with my dad on my birthday 🎂 The National Museum was bustling with activity from young people, capturing everything on social media enticing even more people to go. It was a big contrast from several years ago when it was mostly empty. As fate would have it, two Filipino designers were also there for the private tour. Tony Gonzales even told us stories of the time he designed the genie chair. Others told him it wouldn't work because it doesn't fit in the standard door. But he was aiming for an even higher target market. I swear I saw one of his chairs at a hotel in Oslo 🏨. Among the exhibit are cultural and iconic works by Budjette Tan, another Filipino designer living and working in Denmark, Jowee Alviar from Team Manila, old coffee table book design, movie and music posters, intricate purses for Kate Spade, the gown worn by Pia Wurzbach, Miss Universe 👑 and many more. The exhibit ends with a chair design challenge done by prominent designers. A change from the minimalist Danish design I've gotten used to seeing. Philippine design is world class and I am happy that the country as a whole is valuing it more. I also had an interesting conversation with Carla Mae Leonor who also works with the intersection of human-centred design, business, innovation and data 💡. I had lamented the loss of my design identity and felt I worked more with business now. She was very optimistic about it saying that design needs more business minds for it to be able to expand. Design does need business. But business also needs design even though it seems to be one of the areas that companies are cutting costs on these days. The price to pay when humans aren't at center is that plane doors can fall from the sky ✈️ My design career may only be dormant for now but I will always be a designer at heart 💖. If I can find a way to get design into my consulting projects, I will find a way to do it. And if I ever go back to a full-time design career, then my experience in business will only make it even more successful. If you are in Manila, the 50 Years of #PhilippineDesign exhibit is open until March 3 👁️

The Women in Consulting student mentorship programme at EY Denmark is finally done and it was a resounding success! 💕 I could not have asked for better mentees. The experience taught me as much as I hope that they have learned from it. A common lesson for all of us is that we are not alone in how we feel, working as women in male-dominated fields. The feeling of doing too much while never feeling like it's enough is pervasive no matter if we are still a junior, in middle management or even partner level. It is empowering to know that we have each other to lean on and support in this community we are building. It was my pleasure to mentor Amanda Ng 🌟, future life science consultant. It is always challenging to transition from non-traditional backgrounds and I have to say she is absolutely smashing it with her case skills. As she is graduating soon, do reach out to her for roles. And the same goes for Hanna Westerberg 🌟, a force to be reckoned with in finance/data consulting. She is not only hardworking and smart but also a joy to people who meet her. These ladies were always overprepared when I was having sessions with them and I felt that I had not much to offer in terms of technical knowledge. Rather, I tried my best to make them more confident in their own abilities and encouraged them to set appropriate boundaries in their personal lives and careers and to place their health and wellbeing first. I continue to have coffee sessions with anyone who reaches out in my DMs. I learned so much as well from the formal mentoring sessions and hope to apply it to future mentees. A lot more women have come forward to express their interest in expanding the programme, and it is something to look forward to in 2024 😉 Thank you to organizers Sara and Kathrine, my fellow mentors Meg, Andreea, Lise, Victoria, Louise, Tenna, Katrine, Charlotte as well as the other mentees in the WiC programme. It was one of the most fulfilling things I've been lucky enough to be a part of this year ❤️

Every #girlboss needs #girlrest. It’s good for both body and mind to take a break now and then. ✈️ Last week, I spent a few days to hang out with my mum Ms. Rafaelita M., Aldaba who was in Vienna for some important business with UNIDO 🌍 Coincidentally, my other contact in the city also works in EY🇦🇹 Thanks for showing me the view from the 29th floor Harald Eustachius Tomintz! ☕️ Instead of meeting Sven Rinke, PhD, SimCorp’s knowledge management champ, at some finance networking thing, my assumptions couldn’t have been more wrong. We met at a poetry slam event which I never would have attended otherwise without the invitation. It really helped jumpstart my tired brain to think in different ways again ⚡️ Finally, no visit to Vienna is complete without the Christmas market 🎄 with Marlene Musial and sachertorte 🍰 Share your #wellbeingwednesday story ☺️

📣 Dear recent graduates! 📣 💥Only 9 days left to apply for Graduate Consulting @EY 💥 Ready for a challenging career path that will change your life? 🚀 This is your chance to join one of the world's top consulting firms and make a meaningful impact on global businesses 💼 Your career is #yourstobuild 🧱 For more info about a career in consulting and how to apply, I have pasted some relevant articles that I've written in the comments below based on my own experience. Don't wait, submit your application today and let's begin shaping the future together! 🦸🌟 #EY #Consulting #CareerPath #GraduateProgram #ApplyNow #GlobalImpact #ShapingTheFuture

Hello LinkedIn 👋 The last month has been incredibly busy for me that there are days such as today when I have become that person working on their laptop on the train. On the way back home, while performing calendar gymnastics on one phone and on the other phone I managed to catch some of GRUNDFOS's Women Leaders in the Digital World virtual event where they had a fantastic panel on leadership. The quote that stood out to me was to "Stick your nose out 👃 You belong in the room so take up space." It's a compelling reminder that women in tech offer unique perspectives and talents that are valuable assets to any team and we shouldn't stay quiet or second guess ourselves. Inclusive connections and relationships are important for fostering innovation and success in the tech industry, and it's not only about gender. Finally back on my own couch, where I took my last meeting of preparing for our own final #WomeninConsulting session at EY and ready to wind down for the day 🧘♀️