WoW Woman in Fintech I Emily Luk, CEO and co-founder of Plenty
Emily Luk is the CEO and Co-Founder of Plenty, the first-of-its-kind financial platform that helps couples invest and plan for their future together.
Prior to Plenty, Luk was involved in the scaling of two prominent fintech companies, Even (later acquired by Walmart), where she was the VP of Strategy & Operations, and Stripe, as a founding member of the Finance & Strategy team. An entrepreneur at heart, Luk began her career as a venture capitalist at 20 years old and began angel investing alongside that.
Plenty marks the beginning of Luk’s own entrepreneurial journey, with a mission to bring wealth to every household. With a firm belief that building wealth shouldn’t be a luxury that only the wealthy can afford, Plenty brings everyday households access to the same key products and tools that wealthy families use. Plenty’s product provides a tech-first approach to goals-based planning for couples and individuals through an affordable membership.
Luk holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree, specializing in Accounting and minoring in Economics and History from the University of Toronto. In addition to this, Luk was one of the youngest in North America to complete the Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Professional Accountant examinations.
Tell us a bit about your background and your projects so far.
First and foremost, I’m a second-generation Canadian who came from two generations of non-tech entrepreneurs. So in my bones, there’s always been a feeling of building a business from the ground up and going against the status quo along with a healthy dose of courage. I always planned to start a company one day, but I wanted to equip myself with the foundation and experience to do so. I also wanted to wait for the right time, and idea, and the stars aligned for me to start Plenty.
I began my career in venture capital at 20 years old before moving to San Francisco to join Stripe in 2015 as an early business and finance team member, as the company scaled from 300 to 1,600 team members. Stripe was a whirlwind experience; I was responsible for creating the startup sales playbook, launching our global pricing function, and working with product and engineering teams to account for all planning and forecasting of this rapidly growing startup. There was no better place to immerse in the world of fintech and no better environment to rapidly execute within.
Once the company was over 1,600 people, I followed my heart to Even, a mission-driven startup focused on helping individuals live paycheck-to-paycheck. I was the CEO’s right hand - initially joining as Chief of Staff before scaling into the VP of Strategy and Operations with Finance and Business Operations reporting to me. I helped the company graduate from the early unstructured startup phase into a company that had a sustainable infrastructure for planning, goal setting, investor relations, and more. During my time, we scaled our product to support over 1.5M individuals who saved hundreds of millions of dollars by using Even.
How did you get into this industry? Has it been an easy industry to get into or have you had many challenges?
Growing up, my parents regularly reminded us of the privilege that we had. To have the freedom to choose our own careers, to have the upbringing to have access to opportunities, and to have the financial stability to generally do so without limitations.
My parents immigrated to Canada in the 1980s and started their textile manufacturing business – not out of choice or passion, but out of necessity. Their friends were all small business owners, so it often felt like the normal path was to grow up and start your own company. Our dinner-time conversations at home were often about business – my parents thought understanding business was a skill as important as learning to swim.
Once I graduated from business school, I still felt there was more to learn, especially about personal finances. So, I created my own curriculum and completed my Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) and Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designations. In 2016, I was one of the youngest people to complete all the exams in North America. From here, I dipped my toes into venture capital and fintech startups.
I believe hard work creates luck and I was lucky to be given the opportunity to join Stripe. Being an early team member, I met so many brilliant, down-to-earth, people who were experts in what they did. Then with Even,, I worked alongside so many mission-driven peers, including my business partner (and fiancé) Channing. Relationships are everything in business and that was something my parents taught me from a young age: how to build and cultivate relationships rooted in sincerity.
Venture and fintech startups aren’t easy industries to get into; especially when you’re 20 years old trying to enter it, or trying to get a visa sponsorship to join a startup. There’s no ‘easy answer’ – I probably had 50 conversations and relationships I cultivated without knowing where it might lead before I met the VC who would eventually be my boss. It helped that my job was to talk to startups but I talked to dozens of startups before meeting Stripe.
How long did it take you to be where you are now? What was the biggest obstacle?
I’ve been building my career for a decade now. But in many ways, it feels like all my life experiences have led me to build Plenty. All the kernels starting from the old-fashioned lemonade stands and fundraisers as a kid, side-hustle businesses as a teenager, president of the investing club in high school, investing in myself for the CPA and the CFA designations, starting off in venture – it’s all led to this point, without me knowing it at the time.
My biggest obstacle has probably always been myself - my own confidence in my path. The hardest times I’ve probably had are when I’ve doubted myself and my own ability.
What are the challenges of being in the industry you are in?
There are two ways to answer this question; one is through the lens of being someone who works in the industry and the other is through the lens of someone who is also a consumer of the product the industry puts out.
Money and finance is still an old-fashioned industry. And that’s not a bad thing – regulation and compliance protect consumers. It does mean though that there’s more complexity, context, and relationships required to build anything quickly. It’s taken me years to build up a network of individuals to be able to build Plenty as quickly as we’ve had. I easily think it would have taken us an extra year had the team not started with a background in fintech. For building consumer fintech, it’s also highly competitive. It’s hard to break through and carve out a space for yourself but it’s also the most rewarding experience to be able to see how Plenty is helping so many couples through big stages in their lives.
As a consumer, what's been really apparent to me is the clear divide between males and females when it comes to finances and planning. I saw it with me and my fiancé (and co-founder!) in our own lives, which was the inspiration behind Plenty. There are still very gendered considerations for long-term goals. Almost 60% of women do not participate in the longer-term investment sides as a couple, yet, 80% of women are highly involved in short-term finances (daily expenses, budgeting, and cash flow). Because of this antiquated approach, ‘modern’ financial products weren’t available and if they were, they were extremely expensive. With Plenty, I hope to change that and breathe new life into goals that are representative of relationships and societies.
What are your biggest achievements to date?
After a decade in Silicon Valley, launching Plenty has been such an incredible adventure with the team we’ve built. Our team dreamed an idea into existence and now we’re hearing that it helps couples effortlessly plan and manage their finances together – that’s what it’s all for.
It goes without saying but life is really expensive and more expensive than it has ever been. It feels like affording the things you dream of like homes, kids, cars, whatever are so far out of reach even when you’re making the most money you’ve ever had. I know so many stories like this; Millennials are now entering the highest earning years of their career, yet most still juggle financial headwinds like student debt and inflation, all while balancing affording to live and planning milestone moments. So being able to launch a company like Plenty that removes the high price tags for great financial advice and planning has been incredibly rewarding and we hope a sigh of relief for others who are trying to figure it all out.
When we were building Even, we built a product and company that scaled to support millions of people before we were acquired by Walmart. I’m looking forward to doing even more this time around.
What are the projects you are currently working on?
Right now, we’re laser-focused on Plenty; our vision is to be the future home for families building wealth collaboratively together – what we’ve built so far is just our first step in that direction. We know that all paths aren’t linear in life so our product needs to evolve and be fluid as well.
One addition within Plenty is financial considerations and plans for those who want to have a family. At 27 years old, I froze my eggs. It cost $16,000 and my medical insurance didn’t cover any of it. As Millennials, there are so many more things to account for and potentially save for than prior generations, yet fertility issues and egg freezing were never really talked about as one of them - I was public about my journey on social media and received so many questions about why I was doing this (and so early!). There are a lot of question marks when it comes to predicting the costs associated with the procedure and having children in general, especially with most folks not having the luxury of employers including these procedures in their employee perks. So providing products that pertain to our generation like this on Plenty is what we will continue to develop.
Is the #WomenInTech movement important to you and if yes, why?
It is so incredibly important to champion and uplift other women, period. Personally, and with Plenty, I am surrounded by inspirational and women-led investors, teammates, and mentors. I’m so thankful for that.
Plenty’s entire blueprint is rethinking and challenging the archaic ways of financial wealth. Most financial decisions up until the 60s were completely run by men or the man in the house. As society has progressed, as well as tech, it’s provided more opportunities for women to help steer the future of the industry and what’s needed to operate better in our modern world. I stand by challenging the ancient nature of men ruling the tech world. Women are fierce leaders and we deserve to be empowered.
What will be the key trends in your industry in the next five years and where do you see them heading?
The last decade of innovation in fintech has been building new product experiences for a sliver of your financial life; infrastructure was poor and that meant that it was incredibly difficult to build just budgeting, or just robo-advisory, or just a bank account. Entire companies rose and grew on a single product and built much of their own infrastructure and relationships to offer this.
We had a massive funding boom in fintech over the past 5 years, and that has led to the rapid growth of financial infrastructure that now enables new entrants to build an investing experience in <6 months, which is better than the investing experience a competitor has built over the years. That’s just the tip of the iceberg; I think we’re going to see new companies built more rapidly than ever, uniquely combining the tools that are now available in platforms. We’ve been talking about the next ‘platform’ for over a decade, but it’s never been possible until now.
Over the past couple of years, we’ve also seen a rapid rise in growth in companies with a laser-focused target market; whether it’s products for couples, immigrants, Latinos, etc. and I think this trend will continue because money is inherently personal. The ways money already moves and how people think about money should result in different product experiences that support that.
What is the most important piece of advice you could give to anyone who wants to start a career in this industry?
Embrace the complexity - the earlier you learn to love it, the faster you’ll learn and build a knowledge moat for yourself.
Who are three inspirational women in your respective industry that you admire?
Sallie Krawcheck
Mary Meeker
Susie Huang
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This interview was conducted by Marija Butkovic, Digital Marketing and PR strategist, founder, and CEO of Women of Wearables. She regularly writes and speaks on topics of wearable tech, fashion tech, IoT, entrepreneurship, and diversity. Follow Marija on Twitter @MarijaButkovic and read her stories for Forbes here.