Ep 79: [Republish] Vennesa Van Ameyde: Earning a Seat at the Table: A COO's Journey to Leadership and Influence

Vennesa Van Ameyde serves as the Chief Operating Officer of Kasasa, an award-winning fintech and marketing services company that provides reward checking accounts people love, the first-ever loan with Take-Backs™, and ongoing expert consulting services to more than 600 community financial institutions nationwide.

As COO, Vennesa manages the day-to-day operations, marketing, creative services, client implementation & support services, internal application infrastructure, operating standards, people programs, and culture at Kasasa.

She is a senior operating executive with demonstrated talent for transforming and scaling organizations by developing the operational infrastructure, systems, processes, reporting, and organizational strategies to foster rapid growth. Vennesa is a people's champion, passionate about creating a best-place-to-work culture via the development of innovative programs that focus on talent attraction, development, leadership training, engagement, reward and recognition, community outreach, and DE&I.

She holds an MA in Diplomacy from Norwich University and a BS in Political Science and Anthropology from Vanderbilt University. Vennesa received Lean Six Sigma training from the University of Michigan College of Engineering and studied Theory of Constraints for Operations at The Goldratt Institute. She has been honored to receive recognition by the Austin Business Journal as a “Profiles In Power & Woman Of Influence” Finalist in 2015.

Key themes emerging out of our conversation:

• Leadership lessons from team sports.
• Knowing your value, knowing your worth.
• Not letting perfect get in the way of progress.
• Emotional leadership and business leadership.
• Advocating for other women, providing allyship .
• Imposter syndrome, to be worthy of sitting at the table.
• Communication tools, emailing vs meeting, when and why.
• Leaning in, leveraging an opportunity before it passes you by.
• Being human, being vulnerable and being willing to talk about what you're capable of and being able to ask for help.

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