Suneera Madhani, the founder and CEO of payments processing company Stax, joined Cheddar News' Hena Doba on a Walk and Talk through Central Park to discuss how she is helping other women level up and get into the corner office.

The Walk and Talk: Stax CEO

female founded and female led startups. Those accounts for only a fraction of startups worldwide, but there are women who are trailblazing their way to achieve unicorn status. Hanni founder and Ceo of payments processing companies stacks is one of the rare female fintech unicorns and she's now bringing her skills and passion to other women are an adobo caught up with this impressive founder all in a walking talk through central park, take a look senora. You were an inspiration to so many people. You started a billion dollar company at age 26 without an M. B. A. How did you do that? What did it take to get started? Honestly, Hannah, I didn't even know I could go build a billion dollar business, let alone a million dollar business. But you just get started and there was a lot of opportunity in the industry that you know, the problem that we were solving in payments was huge. It was massive and we just kept you know, innovation first our people first and just scaled along the way. You are one of the few female fintech unicorns. Congratulations on Thank you. What's your experience been like? Especially initially pitching to investors. It was hard, I mean as a woman, a woman of color, there is, there is no seat at the table for you. Less than 3% of venture capital. Even in 2022 still, even today has gone to female founders and less than 1% of capital goes to minority founders. And so the gap is so disparate and so there's a lot of challenges along the way to not only scale your company then to go get the capital that you need. We're headquartered out of Orlando florida. So it's not like I was in silicon Valley with like venture capitalists that were, you know, I can meet at a coffee shop and so honestly your business had to prove itself 10 times harder. And so we just stayed heads down focused on our business and execution and didn't take no for an answer. And I mean honestly I could have lots of scars on my back sharing the stories of how we got here, but in, in, you know, you find the right partner. So it's not, you know, it's, it's not about finding every partner, it's about finding the right investors. And we're really fortunate to do that. You just mentioned those statistics. What advice do you have for other aspiring founders? So like so much I would say the biggest piece of advice that I have for, you know, startup founders that are getting started is to just stay heads down in execution. Like the best thing that you, you could do is build a really good business and if you build a really good business, the rest will come and the rest will follow. So just stay focused on your needle movers, stay focused on the eye on the prize, continue to innovate because if you're not innovating, then your competitors are eating your lunch. That's very good. And if you're not busy enough, let's talk about your extremely successful podcast and mentorship course called Ceo School, Love the name by the way and you help other women, especially minorities find way to the corner office. Tell me more about that. Yeah. So you know something that you had mentioned, I didn't have an N. B. A. I didn't go to Ceo school every day. I showed up for a job that was harder than the one I had yesterday and business honestly is such a boy's club is what I learned. So as I was scaling my company, I was pregnant with my first baby is stacks and then I had Mila and then I had on a, and I'm fundraising, raising venture capital and entrepreneurship is lonely but it's even lonelier as a woman and you just don't have the resources and from like generations, knowledge is shared in the boys club and country clubs and locker rooms and you know, I didn't go to Harvard and so it's really tough to build that network, the connections that you also need to succeed and the resources, resources that include knowledge as well. And so you know, that was something that I felt that was lacking and I showed up to, you know to share as much knowledge as I could as I was learning along the way and I would show for groups for female entrepreneurs like online on social media and then now that community has grown to over 300,000 women, we have like a, you know, a top 25 entrepreneur podcast. So it's it's been a blessing and it's my way to, you know, make an impact. What impact has a ceo school had up to date? Honestly, we've probably had about 1000 plus women that have gone through the different programming and cohorts. But my goal is to drive hopefully, you know, touch 100,000 women in business. And so this is not something I don't get to do it full time. This is an impact project. We've got a really um, you know, amazing group of coaches and mentors and everyone who's trying to give their time to female entrepreneurs. And so it's just a beautiful space and we're making, we're making an impact every day your business. And I love this lays the groundwork for a work environment where p people are valued over business. Why did you know that had to be a foundation? I mean you're Pakistani, right. And so I think culturally I grew up in a household of like immigrant parents. Family's always first, like everything is centered around food. You know, everything is centered around people and it's always people first. And so that's just kind of how we, you know how we grew up. And I say we, my brother and I co founded the company so sal and I are partners and co founders and it's a family business. And so even last night, actually we just had our like stacks, Halloween fest where like all these like Children of stacks, like we call it the stacks pack. So we had like triggers reading around the office and it's just so much fun, you know, to put people first and it's a great culture. It's truly is, but it's authentic to who we are. Your, if you're not busy enough, you're also going to be in a docuseries called spiraling. Yeah, perfect name. Tell me more. So hope Spot and linkedin are putting together a donkey series. I've never been on a series before. So this is gonna be my first, they pretty much followed me around for three days. I felt like it was like keeping up with the Kardashians, like they're like, it's not gonna be distracting. Like, okay, there's cameras everywhere. So it's an amazing donkey series with um, every episode is a founder and they're kind of telling the story of your ship and for anyone that's an entrepreneur, they know that it's not linear, It's spiraling up. And so I'm the final episode of the season and I'm really excited at premieres in november and I'm heading out to san Francisco for the red carpet event, taking my little girls. And so it's really exciting, so well deserved. I can't wait to see it. And here's some more success because you are a powerhouse. Thank you so much for coming on. This was so fun. We have to do it again. I want to know more. And that was at a double with Serena Mahadi, the founder and Ceo of stacks that on their walk and talk all through Central Park.