Olga Camargo has over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry. In 2006, Olga authored a graduate thesis, which focuses on the imperative need for financial institutions to provide culturally-relevant financial services to better engage today’s culturally diverse society. She has based her financial practice and new fintech project, SHENIX, on her research and community needs.
She is the Founder and CEO for FARO Associates LLC (Latina/woman-owned/Minority Business Enterprise), providing consulting services to government, corporations, and small businesses. Olga was selected by Chicago’s 1871 Chicago’s Technology and IHCC’s LatinX Incubator and is currently developing SHENIX, a fintech app that will help Latinas close the wealth gap across the U.S.
She is also Co-Head of FARO Advisory (a division of TOROSO Investments) and provides investment advisory and retirement plan advisory (virtual) services to clients that include high net worth individuals, business owners, public and private corporations, public sector entities, and not-for-profit entities and foundations.
She served as the 2021 Chair for FORBES Business Council’s Financial Services Industry Group. Negocios Now named Olga among Chicago’s Most Influential 50 Latinos. Crain’s Chicago Business named Olga among “Chicago’s Most Powerful Latinos” in 2019. She is an Aspen Ideas Festival Ricardo Salinas Scholar and has been named by Diversity MBA Magazine to its Top 100 Under 50 Executive Leader and Top 100 Women of Influence national lists.
The University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Business Administration inducted Olga into its Alumni Leadership Academy for raising the standing and stature of the college. The Chicago Council on Global Affairs selected Olga for its 2010 Emerging Leaders Program, a highly competitive cohort of Chicago’s up-and coming professionals, leaders who continue to raise the bar for Chicago as a leading global city.
She is a Commissioner on the Board of the Public Building Commission Chaired by Mayor Lori Lightfoot. She is the National Board Chair for the Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement (100k members). Olga serves on the IL State Treasurer’s Hispanic Advisory Council, IL Latino Legislative Caucus Foundation Economic Development Committee, and the Northeastern Illinois University Foundation Board.
She earned both Bachelor of Science in Business and Master of Arts in Language, Literacy, and Rhetoric degrees from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Connect with Olga on LinkedIn.
What You’ll Learn In This Episode
- About SHENIX and Latina Equal Pay Day
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from the business radio studio in Chicago, Illinois. It’s time for Chicago Business Radio, brought to you by firm space, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firm Space.com. Now, here’s your host.
Max Kantor: [00:00:21] Hey, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’m your host, Max Kanter. And before we get started, today’s show is sponsored by Firm Space. Thanks to firm space, because without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. And we’ve got a great one for you today. On today’s show, we have the founder and CEO of SHENIX. I’m excited to talk to her. So please welcome to the show, Olga Camargo. Welcome to the show, Olga.
Olga Camargo: [00:00:47] Thank you so much for having me today. I’m so excited to be here and just have a great conversation with you.
Max Kantor: [00:00:52] Totally. Let’s jump right in. Tell me a little bit about yourself and what is Shenix?
Olga Camargo: [00:00:58] Sure, a little bit about myself. A Chicagoan raised in Little Village and grew up in a family business with my mom and my dad, also helping out with the business, one younger sister. And she’s she’s actually a PhD, really happy about her family’s excited about that. I think in our family we’ve always been about like other families trying to get to that next level and trying to work hard to get there. Right. But also understanding that there are challenges that perhaps just because of our backgrounds, we’re not equipped to effectively handle. So I went to school here in Chicago, University of Illinois, have my degrees, bachelor’s and and master’s degrees from University of Illinois at Chicago. And also, just again, I think that’s where it starts going back to how we’re trying to move ahead, get ahead in life. And she actually came about because of those unique personal struggles, really more more around trying to make good financial decisions to get our families ahead. I certainly saw that growing up. My mom actually struggled with that when I was working with her at the bridal shop in Little Village and her trying to get her head around that and 14 year old me trying to help her translate best I could clearly not equipped to do that. So things sometimes just didn’t get resolved and things you can move ahead with making certain decisions because you just didn’t have all the information that you needed to make that decision. And that’s what she mixed is all about. It’s about helping you make that decision, an important decision for your family.
Max Kantor: [00:02:47] So is she, Nick, specifically for people who are entrepreneurs, have their own business, or is it for anybody?
Olga Camargo: [00:02:54] It’s really for anybody, because honestly, a lot of the information that we shared through Phenix is a lot of we’re bringing in experts, people that have walked sort of like in those in those shoes that I’ve been talking about, like those those those shoes with my experience and how they figured it out. And again, a lot of these are obviously professionally qualified individuals. Obviously, they came to be have that story and also stories of inspiration and how they were able to really get that information to to to be able to prime themselves, to buy at home time themselves, to be able to set themselves up, to start saving for retirement, saving for an emergency fund, saving like it’s like sort of like sharing those stories and then also letting you know where some of those resources are for everyone so that it’s not just part of like not you having to go out and just read. And just at the end of the day, it’s like, okay, I got that. I still have questions. These are individuals that through Phenix, we’re going to be having a couple of recorded sessions, sort of like building up this library, especially as we hear back from people like what else? What here’s here’s stuff that I need to know about. So we’ll bring in those experts so they can start explaining to people their stories, because sometimes it’s about like, oh, these people never had that problem. Know people that already have figured it out, had that problem. And here’s how we’re going to share that story so that everybody can basically get to that, get to be able to make that financial decision. That’s important to them.
Max Kantor: [00:04:30] Totally. And I mean, you’ve like you you shared you’ve been in the business, the finance world for so long and you have so much experience. And it sounds like with Phenix, you can take all that experience, all those lessons learned, both good and bad, and now you can help others who have not cross the bridge you’ve already gone over.
Olga Camargo: [00:04:50] Yeah. And also sometimes when people do cross that wrong bridge, right, Just just they know people have been there. People have been there. Crossed the wrong bridge. But you know what? It’s okay. We we can help out each other with sharing these stories and how we did it to get ahead and sometimes just recognize, Look, I made a bad choice. It’s okay to move forward, right? That’s what this is all about. So what we have through Phenix, Phenix is basically a Web based app at this point. We’ll eventually put it on the mobile, but for now, we don’t have to wait to put it on the mobile to get this information out. We have had lots of great responses from people that want to partner up with us, organizations that want to be part of this platform and deliver this information to really anyone. We we are just, you know, we are focused on helping Latinas. Why? Because Latinas right now are the ones with the widest pay wealth gap in the United States. And we figure if we start talking and focusing to to address these needs first, everybody that is going to be included. Because currently what I see out there is sometimes platforms that fintech platforms or apps that are out there, they are not really focused on really helping people that have that are basically struggling the most. They start up a couple of notches up and then they completely overlook that population that we really also need to be helping. So we figured, well then let’s go down and let’s make sure that we have everybody is able to climb up the ladder, right? Let’s put the ladder in a place where everybody can climb up. And so but again, I think that it’s going to be inclusive of everyone because we are trying to get trying to trying to focus on this group that needs it the most for sure.
Max Kantor: [00:06:53] And I think that’s what makes your, you know, your app so unique is, yeah, you could create just a general finance app that, you know, to help people grow their wealth. Like you could just do a blanket statement, say, you know, Q&A. So but like you’ve created this very niche community and it I, I feel like you’ve created a very safe community for people to come and learn from each other.
Olga Camargo: [00:07:18] Absolutely. And that’s what it is. I mean, it takes a village, really, to be able to help our community right across the nation. And it’s not going to be up to just one entity to be able to do that. It’s going to require multiple entities to come together, to come to Phenix, partner up and be able to say, Hey, this is what I can help out with. We are obviously we are being selective as to who we’re including because they need to be able to really have that sort of trajectory of being in the space, really understanding, also having empathy, and also making sure that again, people feel that they are in a safe space and that they will be able to take conversations, maybe not take conversations offline and be able to continue working with individuals. So again, it’s about being inspired. It’s about understanding that, look, you’re not in this alone, not trust me, when making financial decisions. A lot of people, the majority of people need help. I say like 90 some percent need help.
Max Kantor: [00:08:31] Now December 8th. I didn’t know this was Latina. Equal Pay Day. So can you talk about this day, what this day means to you and what this day means to Phenix?
Olga Camargo: [00:08:42] Sure. So Latina Equal Pay Day was just about a couple of weeks ago. And I actually we myself and my co founders, Patricia Mota and Carlos Avila, also, again, founders of Phenix as well. We were actually out in New York City and we talked about the importance of addressing this this issue. So Latina Equal Pay Day basically says December 8th. So if you think about the pay gap, the disparities, Latinas right now have to work 23 months, close to two years now, because I work December 8th, close to 24 months to be able to make the same amount of money that a non Latino white men makes. Wow. So imagine working 100% of the time. Would you like to get 50% of that pay right now? No one does. No one wants that. But that is in effect happening and that is, again, the widest pay gap that this group is facing. Right. So this is this is the group that is facing that white is the widest gap. So we need to make sure that as we move forward, she is is she an expert in all this? Everybody has to play a role here because everybody does get affected. But she nix’s role in all of this is to be able to help Latinas obviously find that opportunity, make sure the resources that they are getting their fair pay. And it all depends, obviously, where you are in the nation and and where you live, zip codes and whatnot. But you should be getting 100% pay that is due to you.
Olga Camargo: [00:10:31] Right, compared to all of your other peers, as no matter who they are, you have to have equal pay. And then once you have equal pay, you have to also understand that you have this position. But if it is in your desire to continue growing within within that role, within that company organization, whatever it is that you are also equipped to have the conversation right, that we have competition that goes along with that so that you can sit down and discuss with your supervisor, with your manager, Hey, I’m here. But what I want to continue growing. Where do you think I can be in a year or here’s what I want to be in a year, right? And so that they can they can, they can progress. And once they’re progressing, also, it’s about, hey, now let’s talk about how you’re going to be saving for that house that you want to buy, how you’re going to be saving for. And maybe it’s education, right, for yourself or for your family, a loved one. Maybe it’s about saving for retirement and the list goes on and on. Or it could even be, of course, opening up your own business. That’s what we’re trying to make sure that everybody is going through a process and that they have the information that they need, that they already understand how they’re supposed to be negotiating and then also how they’re supposed to be also talking and discussing about their career growth and setting them on that pathway to be able to build that financial legacy.
Max Kantor: [00:11:55] So what are some future plans for Phenix?
Olga Camargo: [00:11:59] So next year? So again, we are Web based right now. Next year, future plans. We are going to be taking a lot of our conversations stream some of those on LinkedIn. We are also going to be our website is going to also have an extra just developing our library with experts from around Chicago, around the nation to again start helping our community. So people, if they’re up at 2:00 in the morning and they want to like, look out, learn about something, they can go to Phenix and hear a couple of videos or read some some articles about how to empower themselves financially and also obviously taking the app onto the mobile next year.
Max Kantor: [00:12:50] Now, Olga, a question I always ask my guests. It’s my favorite question of every show for you. What is the most rewarding part of what you do with Phenix?
Olga Camargo: [00:13:03] You know, it’s always been I’ve been in this industry for a while over 20 years. Being in the financial industry as a financial advisor, I am an investment fiduciary, which if people know what that is, that’s that’s basically who you want to be working with no matter where you are in the country. You know, make sure you ask that question. My. We are basically legally bound to do what is in the best interests of our clients. But if I want to be able to take what I have learned in this specific space of doing what is in the best interest of individuals and taking it and applying that to how we’re going to be delivering information to people throughout within Phenix. And for me, the most rewarding is just to really see people flourish. I want them to be able to feel that they are living their life the way they want to live their life. And I don’t. No one likes to see people struggle. I certainly don’t. And if I can do something at this point to be able to help out, I will. She right now is self funded by myself and my two co-founders because we believe so much in this mission. We are in the process of becoming a social enterprise at this point, and we would welcome anyone that wants to join us as a partner to contact us.
Max Kantor: [00:14:33] So for anyone who wants to learn more about Phenix, where can they find you guys?
Olga Camargo: [00:14:38] Sure, it would be Phenix s h e and I got AP.
Max Kantor: [00:14:45] Awesome. Well, Olga, thank you so much for being a guest today on Chicago Business Radio. You guys are doing great work with Phenix and we just appreciate everything you’re doing for the community.
Olga Camargo: [00:14:55] Thank you so much. And thank you for having me.
Max Kantor: [00:14:58] Thank you to listening for another episode of Chicago Business Radio. I’ve been your host, Max Kanter, and we’ll see you next time.
Intro: [00:15:07] This episode of Chicago Business Radio has been brought to you by firm space, your private sanctuary for productivity and growth. To learn more, go to firm Space.com.
