Therese Miclot LLC

I'm all about helping leaders up their game. I offer skills and coaching that accelerate results. I provide dynamic, top-notch facilitation and I can deliver it in-person or virtual. I collaborate with my clients to create custom learning experiences that shift behaviors and mindsets for maximum impact.

Leadership Development Consultant

Proteus International

Director, Facilitation Excellence

I worked with organizations to ensure their employees have the skills and knowledge they need to succeed, by supporting clients to build and then deliver Proteus' practical, skill-based learning solutions.

Practice Director, Building Skills and Knowledge

Rockwell Automation

Manager, Global Learning & Development

Manager, HR Strategy & Planning

Manager, Talent Acquisition

Brilliant at the job. Struggling with leadership.
That’s the gap that stalls growth, burns out top talent, and slows execution.

I’m an executive coach for technical leaders who want to stop firefighting and start scaling.

For over 25 years, I’ve coached 4,000+ managers and executives across technology, SaaS, pharma, banking, media, and manufacturing. Most were promoted for technical excellence and left to figure out leadership on their own. That’s when performance dips, timelines slip, and teams get stuck reacting instead of driving growth.

I close that gap.

I help technical experts become strategic leaders who can:
• Communicate with influence in high-stakes rooms
• Build authentic executive presence (without pretending)
• Delegate effectively to remove leadership bottlenecks
• Lead through constant change without burnout
• Align technical and business stakeholders for faster decisions

This isn’t theory, it’s leadership development built through executive coaching, peer group programs, and facilitation skills pressure-tested in real rooms where leadership actually happens.

💡 Follow me here and subscribe to [The Shift], my weekly LinkedIn newsletter for practical strategies on:
• Turning technical experts into strategic leaders
• Building executive presence that sticks
• Delegation, feedback, and accountability that drive results
• Navigating high-stakes moments with clarity and calm
• Scaling leadership capacity in fast-growing companies

If your top talent is technically brilliant but struggling to scale their impact, let’s talk.
If you want tools and insights that make you a better leader every week, hit 🔔 and join The Shift.

Therese Miclot

Some programs deliver content.
 
This one delivers a shift. In voice. In presence. In what women believe they’re capable to do.
   
This was the third Rising Leaders EMEA cohort and I’m struck again by what happens when women have the space, structure, and support to lead on their own terms.
 
It’s a privilege to facilitate this program alongside my Proteus International colleague Marie Holive and to partner with The WICT Network Europe and The WICT Network who’ve made it their mission to grow not just women leaders, but transformational ones. 
 
These programs matter because they don’t ask women to lead like someone else.
 
They ask them to lead like 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴.
 
To the participants (tagged in comments), you reminded me what that looks like in action.
 
Here’s to cohort three and to many more to come!

I help technical experts expand their impact, across teams, functions, and priorities. Believer that work moves at the speed of influence. Executive Coach. Facilitator. Leadership Development.

She thought she was being a great manager.
Until her team started avoiding her.

The fix?
She stopped helping.

One shift.
Zero hand-holding.
Everything changed.

🎥 Watch the clip. You’ll see exactly what I mean.

They got the title.
The team.
The trust.

Now they’re floundering and no one wants to say it out loud.

This week’s edition of The Shift is about what happens after the fast promotion when momentum fades, and confidence goes quiet.

He was the obvious choice. Promoted fast. Trusted to lead a large product team. Known for getting things done. The one leadership always counted on to

Open article: When Fast Promotions Backfire by Therese Miclot • 2 min read

It wasn’t a breach.
It wasn’t an incident.
It wasn’t a tool rollout or a long-awaited reorg.

The biggest unlock came from one cybersecurity leader who decided to show up differently.

Here’s what changed:

For 30 days, he practiced one simple habit:
→ Slow down before stepping in.

And as he did, he started noticing things he normally missed:

• Was I reacting, or actually leading?
• Did I explain the “why,” not just the “what”?
• Did I adjust to how others think, not just how I think?
• Did I move the work forward or just move it faster?

Not a checklist. A 30-day habit.

Here’s what shifted around him:

✅ Alignment happened early, instead of after the fact
✅ Fewer escalations, fewer interruptions
✅ Decisions held, even as new information came in
✅ His team stopped managing him and started managing the work

In his words:
“I finally created the clarity my team needed to stop spinning.”

This is what happens when a technical leader stops jumping into the weeds
and starts leading at the level their team actually needs.

Because when senior technical leaders stay stuck in execution:

• Teams overwork the wrong priorities
• Cross-functional efforts drag
• Rework multiplies
• Progress slows, even when the people are talented

Multiply that by 3, 5, or 12 leaders...
and the system slows down from the inside.

I’ve coached dozens of high-performing technical and security leaders through this exact shift. It’s not magic.
It’s a behavioral reset that drives real business outcomes.

If 2026 needs to move faster than 2025, make sure your top people aren’t unintentionally slowing the system.

👇 Where do you see leadership habits costing your team clarity or speed?

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Your leadership program isn’t broken.
It’s just allergic to pressure.

In the room? Everyone agrees on what “good leadership” looks like.
But when the tension hits:
👻 Feedback vanishes
🧹 Conflict gets swept
🧍🏻♂️ Silence wins

We fixed that.
Not with more frameworks.
With one habit, repped daily, under real heat.

👇 Here’s how it worked.

YuR2ZJMnv

A leader once told me, “I’m never wrong about people.”
That was my first red flag.

Ever feel like you’re shouting into the void after flagging a risk to stakeholders?

You raise the red flag.
Everyone nods.
Then, nothing.

Crickets.
No next step. No reply.
But the problem is still sitting in your lap.

Here’s the line to crack the silence (steal this):

"Appreciate the convo, [Name]. I’ll sketch a quick summary with options impacts, something you can gut-check. Let me know if I’ve missed the mark."

Why does this work?
→ It keeps things light, but moves the ball forward
→ Shows you’re a partner, not a nag
→ Makes it simple for them to take action (or at least say yes/no)

In security, the real power move isn’t escalation.
It’s making the next step painless, so people want to say yes.

Stakeholders aren’t ignoring you on purpose.
Most are just overloaded and allergic to friction.

So next time the thread goes quiet, drop this line.
Watch the conversation pick back up.

Got your own magic line?
Share it below.

Cyber Leadership Coach | Security work moves at the speed of influence, not expertise | Helping Directors & future CISOs lead across teams, functions, and priorities.

I had a three-second cringe moment.
It stayed with me for hours.

Here’s why it matters and what it taught me about leading in high-pressure environments.

👇 Read this week's edition of The Shift

I had a moment this week. A small cringe. Barely a half-second long. But enough to follow me into the night. At 3:07am, my brain hit replay. Again. Ag

Open article: The 3am Leadership Trap by Therese Miclot • 2 min read

He was getting everything done, except what mattered most.

A technical leader I coached was known for execution.

🚩 And that was the problem. 🚩

He’d become essential for output, not for leadership.
People came to him for answers, not alignment.
He was solving problems, not shaping direction.

I’ve seen this pattern across the technical leaders I coach:
When their impact plateaus, it’s rarely a capability issue.
It’s an altitude issue.

So we focused on one habit over 30 days:
→ Set the altitude. Then lead from there.

That meant:
•Zooming out before weighing in
•Leading cross-functional conversations early, not reacting late
•Getting clear on the business priority before deciding on the team activity

He didn’t need more tools. He needed a shift in how he showed up.

And here’s what changed:
✅ Buy-in came faster
✅ Resistance dropped
✅ His own words: “Collaboration across peers got easier and faster.”

I work with fast-moving technical orgs to help high-performing leaders shift from doing to driving.

Because execution won’t scale your business. Leadership will.

If you’re watching someone on your team work twice as hard to have half the impact, they’re not underperforming. They’re just leading from the wrong altitude.

👇 Seeing this in your org? DM me and I’ll send you the habit we started with.

li_at

JSESSIONID

Talks about #leadershiptips, #leadershipskills, #executivepresence, #facilitationskills, and #presentationskills

You could feel it, even if no one dared to say it.

One leader’s communication style had quietly reshaped how the whole security org operated.

He never said “my way or the highway." He didn’t have to.

❌ He jumped in with answers before the team finished their thought.
❌ He re-wrote decisions at the last minute.
❌ Always had the sharpest take in the room.

So the team adjusted:
 •Escalated every decision
 •Softened every update
 •Spent more time managing his reactions than managing the business

From the outside? It looked like high performance.
Incidents handled.
Audits passed.

But under the surface:
 •Decision quality dropped
 •Cross-functional meetings doubled
 •Trust quietly dried up

We spent 30 days building a single habit:
→ Lead from the right altitude.

He stopped jumping in to solve.
Started asking better questions.
Stopped being the exception everyone had to work around.

What changed?
✅ Faster incident response
✅ Tighter alignment across IT and business units
✅ Meetings ended with decisions and not more questions

His words:
“I thought I was protecting the org. I was actually limiting it.”

In security, the cost of invisible influence is real:
👉Latency
👉 Burnout
👉 Risk exposure

If you’re the technical expert everyone trusts, make sure you’re not also the bottleneck everyone’s tiptoeing around.

High-performing leaders don’t stall because they’re unmotivated.
They stall because the system lets them stay siloed.

One org brought me in when it became clear:

“We’re not having the conversations we need to have.”

The issues weren’t obvious at first.
But under the surface?
 • Priorities kept misaligning
 • Decisions were getting reworked
 • And leaders were busy, not connected

So we tried something simple and different:

🟢 Each person chose one visible leadership behavior to practice
🟢 They got paired with a peer for accountability
🟢 They tracked their progress weekly, in real conversations, not hypotheticals

Here’s what happened:

✅ 70% made a clear commitment
✅ 100% with an accountability partner followed through
✅ Those who worked on “flexing” saw an 80% behavior shift

But what mattered most?

Their teams felt it.
 • Meetings moved faster
 • Direction got clearer
 • Less time spent decoding leaders who didn’t know how to adjust

This is the gap most leadership programs miss.
You don’t just need smarter leaders.
You need them to build new habits that the org can feel and trust.

👇 If your leaders are still being rewarded for speed, but not for how they lead, you’re not building capacity. You’re burning it.

🟢 I build behavior systems inside high-pressure orgs so leaders don’t stall growth.
If that’s what you need in 2026, DM me.

If you’re praising all-nighters, you’re rewarding your own broken system.

Watch this before your next ‘hero’ story goes viral inside the company.

Cyber leadership changes quietly.
 
 
One day, what got you promoted
 
is no longer what you’re evaluated on  and no one tells you the rules changed.

Accuracy Trap_Dec 15

Most high performers don’t burn out from the work.
They burn out from being the only one who can do the work.

Grateful to Teresa Conroy-Roth for inviting me into a conversation on why over-performance often makes leaders invisible and how to change that narrative.

This one’s for anyone feeling stuck between doing the work and leading the work.

Trusted Advisor - Board Member - Executive Engagement - Coach

⚡ Lightning Leadership - Therese Miclot - “Is Excellence Limiting Your Leadership?”
Therese challenges a belief many CIOs and senior executives hold: that excellence always accelerates your career. But what if being exceptional is actually making you invisible?

Far too many high performers become the “go-to super-doer”—the person who quietly carries the weight of the organization, delivers flawlessly, and solves every problem… often at the cost of being seen as a leader rather than a workhorse.
 🔹 Why excellence can become a trap—and how over-performance hides your strategic value
 🔹 The turning point when being indispensable actually limits influence, growth, and opportunity
 🔹 How overwhelmed high achievers can step out of execution mode and step into leadership identity

Therese offers one powerful step you can take today:
 👉 Stop saying yes automatically.  Create space—mental, emotional, and strategic—by pausing before you commit. Leadership requires capacity, clarity, and the ability to operate above the work, not inside it.

This episode is a must-listen for CIOs, executives, and emerging leaders navigating the tension between excellence and elevation.
#LightningLeadership #ExecutivePresence #CIOLeadership #HighPerformance #LeadershipGrowth

You look at your team and think,
“They’re good. But are they ready?”

Every growth-stage company hits this point:
The business scales faster than the leaders.

And suddenly, you’re stuck managing the people who were supposed to help you scale.

This edition of The Shift is for the founders, CEOs, and execs who’ve locked in next year’s budget but are staring down a bigger question:

Who’s actually ready to carry this?

Most leaders set goals to do more.
The smart ones set goals to be different.

If you’re mapping development goals for yourself or your team,
this question will change the conversation
and that’s exactly the work I help leaders do.

Fintech Sales Strategist & Leader → I merge 25 years of Fintech sales + banking to guide founders from chaos to closed revenue | Advice for selling to financial institutions

If you’re building a great product but struggling to get traction with banks, I help you fix that.

From first intro to final contract, I walk alongside founders to shorten sales cycles, navigate complex buying committees, and build deals that don’t rely on deep discounts.

This isn’t just something I coach on.  It’s something I’ve lived for the past 28 years from a career that spans both worlds:

→  Started as a teller at 19 in a town of 7,500 → earned my way into community banking
→  Spent 23 years at a big-three core, mastering complex sales and buyer journeys
→  Fell in love with sales demos, boardrooms, and turning "nos" into long-term "yeses"
→  Grew into quota-carrying sales leadership, built channels, launched fintech verticals
→  Went deep into BaaS and embedded banking → and learned the value of these partnerships

That journey shaped what I now call the Bank-FinTech Partnership Methodology - a practical, hard-won approach I’ve used (and refined) alongside founders to navigate real-life banking sales cycles, complex buying committees, and long timelines.  It’s not theory.  It’s what actually works when you're in the weeds trying to turn conversations into contracts.

Here’s how we build those bridges together:

↳ Diagnose why your fintech isn’t gaining traction with FIs
↳ Develop a GTM strategy tailored to financial institutions
↳ Translate your innovation into boardroom-ready language
↳ Create a sales process that doesn’t rely on deep discounts
↳ Build trust that converts complex conversations into signed partnerships

👩‍👧‍👦 At home, I’m raising three future fintech execs with my husband - a community bank exec and BaaS strategist. Dinner conversations at our house sound like fintech-banking peace negotiations.

🛠️ At work, I serve as a fractional sales strategist, speaker, and ecosystem builder, helping teams go from chaos to closed without burning bridges in the process.

Ready to stop guessing and start growing?

📅 Book a Free 30-Minute Strategy Call (you’ll walk away with one actionable takeaway):
https://calendly.com/stacybishop20/20_intro

 Not quite ready?  

🗞️ Subscribe to Selling Fintech:  https://sellingfintech.kit.com/e1ec3c973c
➕ Follow me here for real stories, frameworks, and founder-first sales advice.

Stacy Bishop

I have closed $100M+ in contracts with banks and credit unions.
I have built sales teams, banking verticals, and strategic partnerships from scratch.
Here are my 5 Core Principles for closing bank deals: 

1. I get to know who I’m selling to as a person: 
Before I talk about product, I learn who they are, their role, pressures, goals, and how they actually work day-to-day. People buy from people they trust, not from feature lists.

2. I make sure I understand their problem:
Real selling starts with listening. I dig into where the pain lives, how it shows up in their workflow, and what it costs them in time, money, and stress. 

3. I don’t overcomplicate communication:
Once I understand their pain, I connect the dots in simple, clear language. No jargon. No buzzwords. I show how my solution fixes the problem, saves time, or reduces friction. If they can’t repeat the value back to me, I haven’t explained it well enough.

4. I sell to the group not the champion:
Big deals never come down to one person. IT, compliance, risk, operations, and leadership all have a vote. So I build trust with the entire committee and speak to what each person cares about.

5. I put risk reduction at the center
Banks don’t buy features. They buy safety, clarity, and control. Always show how the solution lowers risk — operational, compliance, and reputational.

You don’t win enterprise deals with buzzwords and hype.
You win them by knowing the people, naming the problem, and removing every point of hesitation.

#Fintech BaaS #Banking

Talks about #hr, #banking, #payroll, #partnerships, and #earnedwageaccess

Bank <> FinTech Partnership Broker || Former Revenue Leader at Jack Henry || 🎤Keynote Speaker

I have closed $100M+ in contracts with banks and credit unions because of one thing…  
And it has nothing to do with AI or product. 
I build a relationship with the human first. 

Senior executives in banking don’t make enterprise deal decisions because of feature lists. They make decisions based on trust, clarity, and confidence in the person and team they’re going to partner with.

The holiday season is one of the most effective windows of the year to strengthen that trust if you approach it correctly. 

Here are three ways to do that: 

1. Send a year-end acknowledgment with zero agenda.
Not a pitch. Not a CTA. A simple, intentional note recognizing something meaningful in their year; a leadership move, a strategic shift, an initiative you know took serious effort. Executives remember who pays attention.

2. Ask one strategic question about their upcoming year.
This time of year, leaders are thinking in terms of Q1 priorities and resource allocation. A single question can open a real conversation: “What outcome is non-negotiable for your team in Q1?” It signals that you’re thinking about their world, not your quota.

3. Offer a short, informal year-end industry debrief. 
Not a sales meeting, a conversation between operators. Fifteen minutes to compare observations on risk, regulation, technology shifts, or operational pressure points as they look ahead to 2026. Executives value peers who think at their level.

This is how major B2B deals begin.
Stop leading with product.
Start leading with human connection.

#Fintech #BaaS #Banking

Last week, our kids came home wearing these to celebrate the 67th day of school. If you have young elementary-age kids, or have spent more than five minutes around them, you already know why that number matters. Somewhere along the way, “six, seven” turned into a full-blown phenomenon. And they don’t just say it. There’s flair. There’s tone. There are hand motions. Six. Seven.
It spread through our house earlier this year like wildfire. 
Which led me to a question I can’t get out of my head.
Has anyone successfully worked “six seven” into a business conversation?
I’m talking banker-to-customer. 
Vendor negotiations.
Fintech-to-bank. 

For example:
• “We can offer you 4.67%.”
• “What if we structure this as a six- to seven-year term?”
Ridiculous? Absolutely.
But also… kind of funny.

If you’ve found a way to sneak “six seven” into a serious business discussion, I need to hear about it.

Someone reached out and asked me, “Can you build rapport remotely?”
He’s a founder that doesn’t have the time to go chase every deal in person.
My answer is a resounding ABSOLUTELY and here’s why… 
(listen to the video to hear what I have to say)

Stop discounting your Fintech.

If you're constantly slashing prices, it's a symptom, not a tech problem.

It means you haven't proven your value.

Here's how to differentiate your Fintech product effectively:

𝗡𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗢𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿: 
→ Understand how your product is truly different.
→ What unique problems do you solve?
→ How do you package it to make it a 'low lift' for the bank?

𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: 
→ Start with the banker's challenge.
→ Avoid feature-dumping.
→ Use a challenger sales methodology to point them uniquely towards your solution.

𝗚𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: 
→ Don't ask, '𝘞𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴?'
That's not a next step. It's an invitation to pause.

→ Instead, proactively book the next meeting.
'𝘖𝘶𝘳 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱 𝘪𝘴 𝘟, 𝘪𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦'𝘴 𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦, 𝘭𝘦𝘵'𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘢 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬 𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘸𝘰.'

𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗘𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽: 
→ Provide something impactful at each step to help with the evaluation.
→ Build micro-agreements throughout the process.
→ Showcase your professionalism and authority.

When you get to negotiation, the value should already be undeniable.

Bankers have endless tasks in front of them.

Give them compelling reasons to say YES, not just reasons to discount you (𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵).

Banks exploring embedded finance often reach the same point. 

At some stage, there's a need to understand how to monitor partner activity in a way that supports growth and satisfies exam requirements.

This session takes a practical look at transaction monitoring inside a BaaS environment and the changes that occur when fintech partners and their end-users begin moving money through your charter.  

You will learn how sponsor banks build visibility, stay ahead of suspicious activity, and manage alerts without slowing down innovation.

If you are evaluating BaaS or already onboarding partners, this conversation will help you understand the expectations and the tools that make it manageable.

Katelyn O'Brian, CBAP, Hanna Kness and 322 other attendees

BaaS Layers & Players:  Transaction Monitoring

Wishing great success to each of you as you chase December closings!

For those of you already looking ahead to 2026, here's your guide to selling your Fintech solution to bankers in a new year and ever-changing landscape.

By Stacy Bishop Selling technology to financial institutions is a different kind of sales motion. Over the past 25 years in banking, fintech, and fina

Open article: How to Sell to Banks as a Fintech in 2026: Lessons From $100M+ in Closed Bank Deals by Stacy Bishop • 6 min read

How to Sell to Banks as a Fintech in 2026: Lessons From $100M+ in Closed Bank Deals

Selling to banks and credit unions isn’t about a great product. It’s about proving you can operate in one of the most heavily regulated environments in the world. 
And yet…

I still see founders take a cavalier approach:“We’ll figure it out later.”
“We’ll fix compliance once it becomes a problem.”

That mindset will cost you partnerships and slow down your ability to scale. If you’re a fintech founder trying to scale beyond your first few banking partners, here’s one great piece of advice: 
Let banks do what they do best in a partnership. 
Know what you know and know what you don’t know.

Over the past two years, especially with embedded finance, we’ve watched the same mistakes repeat:
• Fintechs stepping into the bank’s lane
• Banks stepping into the fintech’s lane
• Both sides losing clarity on who owns compliance obligations

The result?
Confusion, risk exposure, delays and in some cases, regulatory scrutiny.

The founders who win share one trait: They stay laser-focused on their core competency and bring in real compliance expertise early. Because in this industry, not taking compliance seriously could very easily cost you everything. 

#Fintech #BaaS #Banking

This time of year is often confused for the "let's wait until January to reach out" season.

Avoid that knee-jerk reaction and begin to form a relationship today with bankers you hope to partner with next year.  

But not with a cold outreach message you are sending to every other banker.  Be smart and strategic.

I get into this further in this week's newsletter.   👇

From Someone Who Has Closed $100M+ With Banks After 28 years working across community banks, a big-three core, and fintech sales leadership, I can tel

5 Ways FinTech Founders Can Build Relationships With Banking Executives During the Holidays

It’s not the banker’s job to tell you their process.
It’s not the banker’s job to follow up.
And it’s definitely not their job to guide your next steps.

That’s on you as a Fintech founder selling to banks.

If you want to win in this market, show up with a plan that proves you’ve done this before, many times.

Lay out the happy path:
👉 Here’s Step 1.
👉 Here’s exactly where we are today.
👉 Here’s what happens next.
👉 And here’s who needs to be in the room — CFO, CRO, and anyone who shapes the decision.

You’re not asking them to figure it out.
You’re leading them through a proven buying journey.

When you set the North Star and drive the process with clarity, nobody wonders what happens next, they follow your lead. 

This is how you shorten cycles, earn respect, and close deals with banks in 2026.

#BaaS #Fintech #Banking #Leadership

When Synapse collapsed, regulators didn’t call the middleware providers.
They didn’t call the fintechs.
They called Evolv, because the bank sponsor is accountable for oversight.

And that’s why your Third-Party Risk Management can’t be “good enough.”
It needs to be airtight.

Because in embedded finance:
• Every partner’s controls are your controls.
• Every oversight gap becomes your exposure.
• Every compliance weakness becomes a future supervisory event.
• Every program requires continuous — not quarterly — monitoring.

TPRM has officially graduated from a “compliance box-checking exercise” to a strategic risk discipline that defines which banks win in the next era of embedded finance.

If you want to understand what airtight TPRM actually looks like, click here to watch the replay from a recent session I hosted with several experts and community banking executives who are building high-performing, high-compliance programs in real time: 

https://lnkd.in/gsy7WBa5

Interested in how my middle school dating life relates to selling your Fintech solution to bankers?  

Including some of the "secrets" inside.  👇

In middle school I “dated” in the most PG-sense of the word. I might sit with someone at lunch, pass a folded note in class, or hold hands on the walk

7 reasons banks don’t “date” fintechs

Do you get a banker on the phone and begin showing your solution shortly after learning their name?

I beg of you... STOP.  

Instead, use the first meeting strategically.  Here's how... 👇

Hi! I’m Stacy. I still remember the first time I landed a meeting with a bank after weeks of chasing. The COO said, “We’d love to see how it works.” M

Don't demo during discovery (unless you want to be ghosted by bankers)

I have closed more than $100 million in contracts with banks and credit unions. 
Here are 5 core principles for closing bank deals: 

1. I get to know who I’m selling to as a person. 
2. I make sure I understand their problem. 
3. I don’t overcomplicate communication. 
4. I sell to the group not the champion
5. I put risk reduction at the center

REMEMBER: Banks buy safety, clarity, and control. 

#Fintech #BaaS #banking

Fintech Founders:
AI is not your differentiator.
Stop leading with it.

Every banker you’re selling to already assumes your product uses AI. 
It’s the baseline now → and will be even more so in 2026.
It’s not the value prop.

If you want to stand out and close deals with banks:
→ Start with the bank’s real problems.
→ Speak to the pain in their current state.
→ Show the exact outcome your solution unlocks.
→ Then, only then, use AI as the supporting mechanism of your solution, not the headline.

Banks don’t buy “AI.”
They buy reduced risk, speed, compliance, and confidence.
Lead with what matters to them.

It's fun to win.

Showcasing compliance maturity in bank sales may not be your idea of fun.

But it certainly helps you win.

So maybe, just maybe... compliance can be fun after all.

It's normal for Fintech founders to assume that winning a bank partnership is about presenting a superior product, demonstrating their gorgeous UX, or

The Psychology of Selling to Banks: The One Factor That Will Increase Your Odds as a Fintech

There are people, and there are companies that the industry needs to know about.

Sometimes these companies get lumped into categories alongside others, where you have to squint to see the similarities.

Or the people have backgrounds so strong and storied that you marvel at how lucky you are to be on a Google Meet with them.  

These are the companies that I cheer for, and the people I want to work with.  

I can say with absolute certainty that ZorroFi and Sandra Wasicek-Woegenstein | Armin Wasicek, check all of these boxes for me.  

Plus they are genuine and kind people... just trying to make the front-end messy side of lending better.

I'm thrilled to advise the ZorroFi team, and invite you to check them out.  You won't be disappointed.

Founder & CEO, ZorroFi | Turning Risk Management Into Growth Infrastructure for Community Banks, Credit Unions & CDFIs | Berkeley SkyDeck Pad-13

View Sandra Wasicek-Woegenstein’s profile

Gratitude highlight today: Stacy Bishop. 🍁💛

Stacy recently joined us as an advisor to ZorroFi, and we are truly grateful for her support.

She’s one of those rare people who brings clarity, warmth, and decades of real industry experience into every conversation. Stacy has helped me stay focused, grounded, and aligned with what matters most when building for community financial institutions.

I’m thankful for her guidance - and even more thankful for her heart.

Thank you, Stacy. 🙏

As a fintech founder selling to banks, go slow before you go fast.
Here’s what I mean:

Master the fundamentals.
1. The offer: If your offer isn’t precise, bank-ready, and differentiated, you’re already losing. Banks don’t buy vague promises. They buy risk reduction, revenue expansion, or cost efficiency—spelled out in plain language.

2. The ICP: Most founders aim at the CEO. Wrong target. The CEO is influence, not ownership. The real decision-makers live in the buying committee: heads of product, compliance, risk, operations, and sometimes IT. If you can’t name the exact persona who feels the pain you solve, you can’t sell to a bank.

3. The sales cycle: Bank deals don’t “close when they’re impressed.” They close when you understand how the bank actually buys. Map the journey. Know who signs, who blocks, who delays, and who champions. Your messaging must reflect the steps, the risks, and the internal politics of the institution.

When you master the fundamentals, sales accelerate. 

#BaaS #Fintech #Banking

"Fit" may be an "F" word, but one that I highly encourage you to use all the time in your bank.

Welcome to BaaS for Bank Leaders, your weekly guide to making sense of Banking as a Service (BaaS). Here you will get practical insights into the real

BaaS Launchpad Step 5:  The secret to selecting the right fintech partners

It's never too late in the year to kick off your next sales cycle → or as I like to phrase it, "Buying Journey" with bankers.

I've included tips in this week's newsletter, along with a checklist to ensure your time with bank and credit union prospects is never wasted. 👇

Early in my career at Jack Henry, I made a mistake that most green fintech salespeople make. I walked into a meeting with a bank executive armed with 

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The Battle

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taplio

The Battle

Therese Miclot

Stacy Bishop

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Therese Miclot's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreStacy Bishop's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreTherese Miclot's LinkedIn Performance