Empowering women through Financial Literacy

Rejina Rahim, an entrepreneur and former investment management veteran, shares her journey from managing a USD 7 billion fund to founding Wahine Capital, a startup focused on empowering women in finance. In this episode, Rejina discusses the challenges women face in financial planning, cultural nuances impacting their roles, and the importance of building a personal brand. Join us for insights into her experiences and the mission behind her innovative digital vault, Wahine Capital, aiming to secure women’s financial futures. Tune in now!

Discussion Topics: Empowering women through Financial Literacy

• Intro
• Quitting corporate job to help women get financially organised
• Growing a company to USD 7 billion dollars
• From stockbroking to investment management
• Get to know your bosses very well
• Women need to be more in control of their finances
• I turned my hardships into opportunities
• What role does an organisation have to play to support women leaders?
• Rejina’s definition of success
• Advice for women leaders

Transcript: Empowering women through Financial Literacy

Ritu G. Mehrish: Hi Rejina. It is wonderful to have you on our Rewrite The Rules podcast and I’m sure our listeners are gonna get a lot of good takeaways from you. Before we get started, I just wanna say a few words about you so Rejina is an early stage startup founder. She’s a d e I, advocate and investment management veteran independent board member, and an Islamic finance advocate. Apart from being a daughter, wife, and a mom, I’m gonna stop here because I want Rejina to introduce and tell us a little bit more about herself, Rejina. So welcome to the show again and again to tell us where you are right now in your life, in your career. just tell us more.

Quitting corporate job to help women get financially organised

Rejina Rahim: Thanks Ritu. So essentially, I’m an early stage startup founder. So I gave up corporate employment, two years ago at the end of 2021, and I decided that I was going to try and see if I could actually, make a significant impact within the community as well as, to see if we could actually get more women to start getting organised so that they can actually do, better financial planning as well as retirement planning because we’ve got a major pension crisis coming up in Malaysia.

Having been in the capital markets for over 25 years, essentially I saw a gap between what type of products were actually happening within the investment management industry and what was actually happening on the ground. And that was obviously exacerbated by Covid. So I decided to quit my job and see in which better ways can I actually address this issue.

Ritu G. Mehrish: and hence why with my co-founder, Sharon Sheriff, to actually build a digital vault. So to basically kickstart a woman’s journey towards better financial security. Okay, great. Thanks for sharing that. I would love to know, firstly, more about the startup. What is it called? what it does. and then I want you to take us to your corporate life, right? So let’s start with your journey with your startup.

Rejina Rahim: Okay, so basically the name of the company is WA Capital. Waine is Maori for women. We decided to do something different because, being Malaysian, the word for women is Juanita. And, we thought, Juanita was a bit too generic and we still wanted to have a word that basically denoted women, but at the same time, be a Kickstarter in terms of people being intrigued and finding out what it is?

So it’s what he made capital. Our first product is a digital vault, so it’s called W Vault, very simple. We just wanted it to basically be a kickstarter because I think the main thing for anyone doing their retirement planning, legacy planning or whatever they need to get organised, right?

So I thought, hey, surely there’s a better way of getting organised. So we’ve pre-populated it to make it easier for people to use it. in terms of getting their information together. And then we have a dashboard. So you have a visualisation of your assets and liabilities, and we’ll be putting in a lot more AI and all that so that people can start thinking, where else do I need to improve in the areas of assets and li so that I can actually plan my finances a lot better and not be financially vulnerable if anything happens. So the key thing here was for us to ensure that women are not financially vulnerable when it comes to death, divorce, retirement, and critical illness, essentially. Yeah.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Wow. It definitely sounds like a great product and a great initiative.Rejina, I want to Go back to your corporate life, because I know you spent a big part of your working life in the corporate world and in the whole investment, management, and space. So tell us, before you started your startup, what were you doing and what were some of the key highlights of your career?

Growing a company to USD 7 billion dollars

Rejina Rahim: So the last 15 years before I quit, I was actually the managing director and country head for Nomura Asset Management, Malaysia. I was the founding staff member when we started in 2006.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Wow.

Rejina Rahim: I grew it to 7 billion, US dollars in size. So basically we were one of the top 10 in terms of assets and management. I had actually started my career as a legal and compliance officer back in 1996. So a bit of a pivot here and there, right? So I’m one for challenges. So when I first started my career, compliance got a bit boring.

So I started harassing my CEO at that point and asking if I could do more and because. I was rather cheeky in saying that the product people were not reading the guidelines properly. I was lucky that my bosses were going, well, since you think you’re so clever, why don’t you try product development?

And that’s what I did and then he said, I don’t think that salespeople are selling the product well. So I got thrown into institutional sales. and I’m glad I did that. I always wanted these challenges because of the fact that I had a range of different experiences and how the headhunter and my bosses in Tokyo actually found my skills to be quite useful because I had a whole range from the back office, middle office, et cetera and so they liked the fact that I was also wanting to push the envelope. Yeah.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Nice, nice. Tell me, as you look back at your career,did you know where you landed?

From stockbroking to investment management

Rejina Rahim: No, not at all. so I’m a law graduate. So I even did my bar. I got called to the bar in the UK and everything. And then I was thinking, definitely I was gonna go do shipping, law, shipping and international law. cuz I guess I’ve always had itchy feet and I wanted to explore the world.

Of course. We all make our own choices. Rejina, tell me, you’ve had an illustration, career and a long career. As you look back, what have been few risks or pivots or some chances, puns, whatever you call it that you’ve taken, that have really landed you where you are?

I guess in that sense, I’ve never negatively seen things. I don’t see it as a risk. I see it as, oh, this is a challenge, this is an opportunity for me to be more visible, right. to start talking to other parts of the business. I’ve always wanted visibility.

the fact that I like trying to figure out what the other parts of the business were, how it worked and all that. And not just in. A matter of, just, taking some guidelines and boxes and figuring out whether they’ve been compiled or not. So I guess in that sense, I’ve always wanted to see how you solve things, right? So, problem solving solution type of challenges is something that I’ve always been very passionate about.

Ritu G. Mehrish: It seems like they’ve served you well. As you went through your career, what have been some of the challenges you encountered, and then how did you overcome them?

Get to know your bosses very well

Rejina Rahim: Get to know your bosses very well, right? So I think one of the key things that I noticed is that whenever I made my bosses look good, it was always a good thing because once you made them look good, then they trust you, right?

And so when they trust you, they’ll be open to ideas, right? So I never pushed for the fact that I said, you’ve gotta give me credit, right? So I just said, I think, this is how you should do things. And this would make us look good, right? so the bosses were very happy that they could take away and implement quite quickly, and make themselves look good. And that made me quite valuable to them as well. And, and that basically created that visibility that I wanted, right? So that I could also do other opportunities. it was also a matter of not expecting people to create opportunities for me, but trying to figure out by myself, what else could be done. Even now, we’ve just released the digital vault. It’s still very basic, right? But I’m always trying to figure out, what else can be improved?

Ritu G. Mehrish: How do we tweak it? How do I get people to be hooked on my product? You’re obviously trying to empower women through the whole financial literacy and empowering them through having a good understanding of their finances, assets and settings where is it that we together as women, struggle the most? Or what are some of the barriers we put on ourselves or that get put on us? What’s your view on that?

Women need to be more in control of their finances

Rejina Rahim: There’s a lot of cultural nuances that need to be taken into account, but essentially, I think that generally as Asians, we live in a very patriarchal society, right? So a lot of financial issues and, responsibilities are always, been left to the men,

I see it in my mother she’s a data scientist, when you ask her, we’ve gotta sort things out. You’re not getting any younger, blah, blah, blah. How do we ensure that there’s all these assets that she gets translated to your grandchildren? And the first thing that she would always tell me would be, yeah, go and tell your dad that, make sure that daddy knows what to do.

I guess growing up with a mom like that, even though she’s a professional, I couldn’t understand why women did that. and I see it, my friends, they all go oh, my husband will sort it out.

But women, we outlive the men, right? In Southeast Asia at least, it’s at least five years on average. So the fact that we also get married a lot younger than the men. So let’s say on average we’re five years younger, that already means 10 years being single. So if you think about it, you’re gonna have to be very independent, right?

And it’s, and when it comes to all matters in life, it always boils down to money, right? So this is where. For us, when we started coming up with the idea, I was thinking, okay, what’s the pain point?

We all know that we need the money. We know we have a better plan the financial products out there are not something that you go out and buy, like make-up for clothes. So how do we connect that? So at the end of the day, we are very emotional beings, right?

Ritu G. Mehrish: Yeah.

Rejina Rahim: So whatever information that we, you know, Whatever decision making that we need to do, it’s got to have an emotional trigger. It’s gotta be something that we feel comfortable with and it’s something that, whatever situation that we’re in, this is something that I want to do. I think that’s where the disconnect has been so far because men are very different, right?

Because they’ve always been told. Even if you’re not prepared, just go for it. Whereas for women, be 150% prepared and you’re still going, I still think I’ve got room for improvement, right? So there’s a lot of limiting beliefs that we have that actually, that, basically prevents us from taking charge.

Which is why W Vault is very simple. We’ve pre-populated about seven different areas within the assets. Just to say, these are the main things that you should be thinking of. If you don’t have it, perhaps this is something that you need to think about.

Ritu G. Mehrish: That’s so great and there were so many nuggets there. As you were saying it, I was thinking, sometimes even I’m guilty of saying if my husband will take care of it, or sometimes he asks me, I’m like, you just take care of it. It’s not my thing. And I was like, wow. I guess I need to re-look at myself first.

I turned my hardships into opportunities

Rejina Rahim: It’s a very sensitive issue, right? Because no one’s gonna admit that actually they’re being very biassed towards men or, or vice versa as well, right? So I think, so definitely within Noura there was, it was the fact that I was a foreigner,

Ritu G. Mehrish: Sure.

Rejina Rahim: And I didn’t speak the language, right? So that was very scary. But at the same time, I use the fact that I’m a foreigner and I don’t speak the language to get things done and show the results. because I think the key thing for any organisation is they’re never gonna believe you until you show the results.

Ritu G. Mehrish: Yeah.

Rejina Rahim: I never hit the fact that I don’t speak the language or I didn’t know this and that. but I would actually, leverage on the fact that what is it that I am strong at, which means that I know my market, and I know the Malaysian fund management industry very well.

I know our clients very well here. and that’s basically what I did and that’s basically what I proved. So I basically showed Tokyo that I don’t have to speak their language. I don’t have to go out drinking with them or, do the things that men would have to do.

So there were some upsides as well and there’s never a cue for the bathroom, during breaks when we meet up. Because there are just hardly any women.

Ritu G. Mehrish: I love that there’s no cue for the bathrooms. and when you say language, what language are we talking?

Rejina Rahim: The Japanese are very comfortable with their language obviously. so they do understand English, but they don’t speak it as much. I did consider learning Japanese earlier on when I first joined, but I also noticed that the foreigners who spoke Japanese still had to go through the cultural way of doing things.

Meaning that is very hierarchical, that they couldn’t just approach a subject directly. It had to be, layered. in terms of how, how polite it has to be and stuff like that from a business point of view. Whereas I’m a co-foreigner, I could just send an email and just say, these are things that we need to do, I could do the direct approach.

I love the fact, because basically what you’re saying, that leverages your difference here, right? don’t try, if you are working in an environment, just don’t try and be one of them, but you can leverage your difference, as you said, being a female, being a foreigner, it gave you.

Rejina, there’s one question I wanted to ask. Again, given that you worked for so many years in organisations, what is the role of an organisation that you see that can help nurture and, and support women leaders? Does organisation play any role at all? And if it does, what kind of role do they play?

What role does an organisation have to play to support women leaders?

Rejina Rahim: At the end of the day, when it comes to organisation, it’s always people, right? You can implement all sorts of systems and processes to be very encouraging of women, but at the end of the day, you need to have the right people, right? So I always tell my mentees and my coaches to try and suss out who your bosses are, right?

So if your immediate boss might not be the most, facilitative, I would always say that, cast your net a lot wider and find out other people that might be of use that you can then leverage on and say, okay, these are interesting people that could actually help me be more visible or get me the recognition that I need.

So I just came across a male ally, the weak, who was telling me about the cookie policy. So he disputes a lot of cookies so that he goes, you never know who you are going to need, a favour from, so apparently every year he has truckloads of cookies being delivered to people within the organisation.

And then that reminded me of how I used to feed a lot of my staff or whoever I thought I needed a favour from. So I used to be very nice to the secretaries of the bosses so that I could always just walk into the boss’s room without getting any issues. Yeah. So that was my version of a cookie policy.

Ritu G. Mehrish: That’s nice, I think just environment wise, it’s the right time because there’s so much focus on D Nni, in Asia, a lot of focus on gender, bringing up more female leaders. So I think it’s also a great opportunity for women leaders to leverage and to make sure they are there and to grab opportunities to be able to succeed.

Rejina Rahim: The time is perfect the fact that there’s recognition and you’ve got the SDG goals and all that and you know that definitely they’re more women that attain higher education compared to their male counterparts, but the issue is always the fact that.

From an organisational point of view, it’s not very facilitative for women to stay in the job. Because, unfortunately, because we are a patriarchal society, we tend to still bear the brunt of taking care of the kids as well as ageing parents, right? So that’s another whole area that organisations need to also be mindful of because most of Southeast Asia right now is an ageing society and going to be, aged or severely aged very soon.

So if you are looking at 2030, you’re looking at only 2,700 odd days. So if you start, bringing it down to numbers like that, you’re thinking that’s not much time for us to sort things out, if I were to ask you to, have you thought about advanced care planning? I doubt the answer is yes.

Ritu G. Mehrish: The answer is no and I say that not with pride at all. Yeah. The answer is no.

Rejina Rahim: So that’s the issue, right? There are a lot of things, the fact that we’re ageing and stuff and we are a patriarchal society. And the challenge for organisations is that yes, you’re gonna have a lot more people coming in, but there’s also a lot.

of, part of your workforce is going to be urgent, and how do you deal with the fact that most people will say, I need to have time off because I need to sort out my parents?

Ritu G. Mehrish: No, I think that’s a really good point. So organisations do have an important role to play and, at some point in time, organisations will have no options but to be facilitative if they want to, because 50% more working populations are going to be women there’s gonna be a shortage of flavours.

So organisations, you have an important role to play and you better take care of your women leaders so that they not only come in, but they also stay in and continue to stay. I’m gonna switch Gail a little bit and ask you something outside of his business. How do you, Rejina, personally, define success?

Rejina’s definition of success

Rejina Rahim: So at different ages, it would be very different things. So when I first started working, It would’ve been, if I was a c-suite, that would be the best thing ever but having been the MD and c o at the age of 34, I realised that I want, to me, success means what do other people say about you?

Have you made a positive difference in their lives? And I think that is more meaningful. so if I were to exit this world, I would like to think that I would have made a positive impact on at least a few, a handful of lives, right? because it’s never about your wealth or your money or your title or whatever, I think that is much more meaningful. And that to me is what is successful.

Ritu G. Mehrish: I love that. It’s a great definition switching again, back to business, Rejina, if there were two pieces, you would give your younger self, what would that be? Looking back?

Rejina Rahim: I would have had those tough conversations with my husband earlier about money. I would have said, I think you need to do a bit more, and I don’t need to be, be the superwoman and handle all our finances. So I think that would’ve been number one, because then I would have a bit more of, a nicer, bigger honey pot, at this end.

not that I regret spending most of my money on the kids, right? I think that’s the thing about women, right? most of us would be spending on the home and the family. That’s it, right? So I think, yeah, I would tell my younger self, please, it’s a partnership, right? So split it. Split it up. Really? Yeah.

Ritu G. Mehrish: That’s great advice to your younger self. Again, going back to our audience, emerging women leaders, especially in Asia, our cultural nuances are quite different, from the West. What would be those top one or two advisors that you would tell women leaders who are navigating through their career as of today?

Advice for women leaders

Rejina Rahim: Whatever it is as a woman, you don’t need to be a man to succeed, right?

Ritu G. Mehrish: Yeah.

Rejina Rahim: And, not to be afraid to be wearing colours because I think a lot of women don’t like wearing colours. so I like to wear coloured suits, especially where there’s a sea of black suits. and it’s easier because people will remember you, right?

I still get people going oh, where’s Rejina? I don’t see her because she’s missing in this, in the sea of suits. I’m always the one wearing either red or yellow or whatever it is, right?

Ritu G. Mehrish: Rejina, you’ve touched upon such an interesting topic, a lot of time we call it presence, build your presence of how you show up the other thing, again, is the point about, selecting colours, it’s also a lot about consciously building your brand. What you wear, how you show up, and also creating that recall value and I know from my own experience of working with a lot of women leaders, people say, oh, but I’m doing a great job.

I’m performing very well, so I should get noticed, or people will notice my work. And sometimes they underestimate their power. Of building a brand, investing in building a brand for themselves or investing in creating that presence for themselves. So I’m so glad you bring that, we still need to, irrespective of what kind of work we are doing, we still need to invest in ourselves, in self-care or in, how we show up.

Rejina Rahim: I, so I always, because I do coaching and mentoring on the side, I tell them, it doesn’t hurt to just invest in, lipstick at least. As we are closing, and before I start summarising our conversation, is there any last piece, a story or anecdote that you can remember from your 25 years of career, that either shaped you, pivoted you, something that you remember looking back on, is there anything you can share with the audience?

Quite a few, but I’ll pick the first one that comes to mind, which is basically my first board meeting as a compliance manager and I had just started this new role, and, so everyone was new, And there was a major issue of compliance. I think I was a week and a half into the job.

And this CEO of mine, and he’s Australian he’s a friend now, but basically, he threw me under the bus. It’s the compliance problem, she’s gonna have to sort this out, this complete mess that was done before and stuff like that.

I had all these board members, basically who’s who in the industry. and that was not a great first impression of me, obviously. I got very upset, went to the bathroom, cried a bit, and one of the senior manager ladies actually came up to me and said, I’ll give you a bit of advice, whatever it is, cry your heart out, clean your face, and make sure that this never happens again.

I thought that was the best advice ever because I always knew. Expect the unexpected. Especially in board meetings or whatever. Nowadays, I’m always over-prepared rather than under-prepared. So rather than having someone, tick me off for saying, why didn’t you think about this?

Or whatever, I’ve always got an answer, for them. yeah. So always be over-prepared rather than under-prepared. And yeah, never show your emotions in front of other people. But, the bathroom stalls are pretty good.

Wrapping up

Ritu G. Mehrish: Love that story. I got so much and we can go on and on, but I also, I’m conscious of your time. So for me, the key takeaways from our conversations were, the fact that you said, don’t expect others to create opportunities. Go and look for them and create them.

I think That is one of the key takeaways. The second one I loved about, leveraging the difference. you could be, like I said, you could be the only female in that boardroom or in that meeting, so leverage that instead of trying to fit in. And I think that’s a very powerful message and a lot of women leaders out there can resonate with that, because they are still a lot of women who will be one or two in a group of 10 or 12, even today and the third one, It is for all the women. We all have to invest in ourselves, and of course. Thank you so much Rejina. It was such a pleasure having you on our show. Love the conversation.

Rejina Rahim: Thank you.

Our Guest: Rejina Rahim

Rejina started off her career in stock broking before joining the fund management industry in 1998. She has under her belt 25 years in the Malaysian capital markets,  spent mostly in the investment management industry.  Up till end 2021, Rejina was the Founding MD for the Malaysian office of Nomura Asset Management which she grew from scratch to an award winning firm with over MYR30 billion in assets under management.