Kristine Beese is the CEO and Founder of Untangle Money, a financial technology company reimagining personal finance for women. Her work sits at the intersection of money, design and equity – challenging long-standing assumptions in financial advice and replacing them with tools that reflect how women actually live, earn, spend and plan. She is an Innovation Women Classic member who’s active in our online community, attends online Innovation Women events and uses the Green Room to find speaker resources.
What challenges led you to us?
I was looking for a community of speakers, and I felt more at home in a women’s community.
Tell us about your best speaking success story! How have you used the Innovation Women educational resources, network, database and/or services to help you drive business, book talks, make key connections, or land new opportunities?
Innovation Women has helped me so much in my speaking journey! For me, Speaker Friends is huge. I also found (and still find) the Green Room resources incredibly useful, specifically the resources that help you get value from unpaid appearances.
Has Innovation Women helped you find speaking engagements, talks, events, conferences or networking opportunities?
Innovation Women helped me find and connect with other incredible speakers. When we were all getting started, we created our own speaker series so that we could showcase our talents to our networks. We also successfully applied as a panel to an online conference.
What is the most significant impact that Innovation Women has had on your career or business?
Innovation Women played a pivotal role at the start of my speaking career. Innovation Women helped reduce the fear around public speaking by demystifying how the speaking and events world actually works and giving me the insider perspective I couldn’t have found on my own. Beyond confidence, it provided practical tools, visibility and access to opportunities. It was critical to my growth as a speaker.
What is one thing you learned from Innovation Women that you will carry forward?
Listening to other members’ one-minute introductions showed me how overwhelming too much messaging can be and reinforced how important it is to keep things focused and clear. Practicing my own one-minute introduction helped me sharpen and refine my message and communicate with greater confidence. It’s not easy, and practice makes you better.
What specific results or achievements are you most proud of?
3 speaking events – Opening Keynote for the Globe and Mail (Canada’s newspaper of record), being a guest on OMERs Pension Blueprint Podcast, and Speaking to the Toronto Tech community at TechTO.
Did anything about Innovation Women surprise you or exceed your expectations?
The number of resources and the thoughtfulness of what is included in the membership are amazing. From helping with your profile to being part of an active community, it feels like all parts of the speaker journey have been thoughtfully addressed.
What do you like best about our approach/support?
You have both independent resources like the Green Room and a lot of real-time virtual resources and community like Speaker Friend Fridays and the Innovation Women Network.
What would you tell someone considering our services, but on the fence about joining?
Innovation Women is worth it. It is so valuable. It has everything you need to support your speaker journey.
