The inaugural FSU FinTech Conference was held on campus Oct. 8 and 9 and welcomed students from 13 different colleges and universities to learn more about a career in financial technology. 

“This conference was kind of born out of the idea of exposing more diverse students to financial technology,” remarked Dr. Jennifer Bushelle-Edghill, Chair of the Department of Accounting, Finance, Health Administration, and Information Systems.

About 240 students registered for the conference which featured breakout sessions covering a variety of FinTech topics, a pitch competition for attendees to participate in and a panel of FinTech professionals sharing prospective career paths for the students to consider. 

“We’re trying to make sure that students have expanded opportunities. We're trying to diversify the finance market, but we also realize that the finance market is not what it used to be, high tech is it right now, and technology drives everything we do right now in the finance market,” shared Dean of Broadwell College of Business & Economics Ulysses Taylor.

Wednesday’s Keynote speaker Dr. Shirley Davis, President and CEO of

SDS Global Enterprises, Inc., gave a presentation on the value of mentorship to both individuals and to businesses. 

Dr. Davis incorporated data collected by MentorcliQ in her presentation which determined that 98% of Fortune 500 companies have mentoring programs. Additionally, Davis shared that these mentoring programs contribute to the companies having greater profitability and greater productivity. 

This result is likely because great leaders “see you, they don't just oversee you.” Dr. Davis shared this insight as she identified what makes for a good leader and what it takes for a mentor/mentee relationship to be mutually beneficial. 

“If you're not a great leader, you're not going to build the kind of team that's going to leverage all the skills that will help you to be a high performing team. So you got to, as I mentioned, you gotta have an expanded professional network, and mentoring helps you to do that,” added Dr. Davis.

These relationships help professionals to share resources, knowledge and experience to enable one another to reach greater heights. 

“You cannot go through life without having somebody else that can help you get there. Mentoring will help you to accelerate the skills that you need…you have to constantly be learning. Mentors will help you to do that. Mentors will see things ahead that you don't see and don't know, strategies that you don't know,” explained Dr. Davis.

Dr. Davis was just one of the experts students had the opportunity to learn from during the conference.

“It has been a pleasure to hear the engagement, to hear the students ask questions – I mean, really good, probing questions – and then to see how they're actually listening and engaged in not just asking questions, but in whatever they're saying and just eating it up. And I was able to visit every last one of the concurrent sessions, and I was so happy to see how well received the speakers were,” shared Dr. Bushelle-Edghill.

The conference was made possible by funding from several different sponsors and partners such as JP Morgan Chase, the United Negro College Fund, FSU’s Division of Student Affairs and the Broadwell College of Business & Economics.