Witad Awards 2023: Startup professional of the year—Cynthia Sachs, Versana

Cynthia Sachs, CEO of Versana, wins the startup professional of the year category in the 2023 Women in Technology and Data Awards. It goes without saying that starting a business from scratch in any industry is anything but a trivial undertaking. That challenge is all the more acute in the unforgiving world of financial services where the attrition rate for new entrants is staggeringly high—upwards of 90%.

There are numerous reasons why startups fail, chief among which is running out of funding due to an inability to generate sustainable revenue, the significance of which Sachs is all too aware of. “With tech, speed is paramount―you have to be fast; you have to be able to deliver your product as quickly as possible; and you have to be able to generate revenue as early as possible and rely less on raising capital, which is time-consuming and dilutive,” she says. “The lesson I have learned during my time in the industry is that you have to hire an A-team immediately, because they will work well in a more structured way compared with startups in general, which tend to have a more chaotic and less productive beginning.”

Versana, founded by a consortium of tier-one investment banks, including JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citi and Credit Suisse, was, Sachs says, conceived as a means of rebuilding the syndicated loan market’s data and technology from the ground up in order to transform the $5 trillion asset class. “While the syndicated loan market has grown well post-crisis, settlement times have widened to unacceptable levels,” she says. “So, the leading leveraged finance banks finally came together to create a solution, and after an extensive search process, I was chosen to be employee number one as founding CEO in late 2021. Fast forward to present-day and our team is transforming the syndicated loan market with real-time digital data and a new tech stack that offers interoperability across the different systems within the loan ecosystem.”

Change

When asked about the amount of change she has witnessed during her 25-year career in the industry, Sachs explains that while change has been somewhat glacial in the syndicated loan market, this is now starting to change, driven by a newer, younger generation of market participants more inclined to embrace change and stimulate the market’s evolution. “You would think so, but no, the loan market has seen very little change over the last 25 years, which is why Versana is so important,” she says. “Today, young people coming into this asset class understand change, they understand the benefits of it, and they understand that change is a must in order to grow the market. The loan market is now ripe for transformation because technology has evolved massively, and the old school way of thinking is largely gone.”

As a woman and head of Versana, Sachs is in a position to plot the firm’s course with respect to attracting, retaining and promoting women across the business, although being a startup, every new position is sweated over and scrutinized. “We definitely embrace women in fintech and make a conscious decision to attract the best talent,” Sachs says. “Fifty percent of Versana’s employees are women and we consciously balance our team’s recruitment efforts. We currently have two women on our core tech team and remain focused on growing our diversity and inclusion (D&I). We are also aware that not everyone needs to sit within technology―there are other parts of our business too, like sales, product, marketing and client engagement, that are super important for our overall success.”

Previous recipients of this award include Michelle Zak, Qomply (2022); Ambre Soubiran, Kaiko (2021); Margaret Hartigan, Marstone (2020); Sunaina Swaminathan, M Science (2019); and Emma Margetts, Visible Alpha (2018).