The 2015 Fintech Finance 35: Maria Gotsch, Partnership Fund for New York City

Civic boosterism and job creation are core missions of the Partnership Fund for New York City, which was founded in 1996 by KKR & Co. co-chairman Henry Kravis and has channeled more than $135 million into some 150 for-profit and not-for-profit entities. Given the fund’s Big Apple focus, it stands to reason that financial enterprises would be among the beneficiaries; microfinance organization Grameen America and derivatives market operator trueEX Group are currently in the portfolio. Led in a more inventive direction by president and CEOMaria Gotsch, the fund became one of the earliest — and remains among the most vocal — promoters of the new wave of fintech innovation. It even takes some credit for popularizing the term, having established the FinTech Innovation Lab in New York in 2010. The motivation was “to make New York City the capital of fintech, not just finance,” says Gotsch, 49, a Harvard Business School MBA who was with investment bank BT Wolfensohn before joining the Partnership Fund in 1999. A joint effort with Accenture — the consulting firm’s capital markets practice leader, Robert Gach, is co-founder — the fintech-acceleration lab has been replicated in Dublin, Hong Kong and London, bringing selected start-ups into contact with industry executives and venture capitalists for mentoring and exploration of ongoing business dealings. Gotsch says one of the labs’ distinguishing features is their “long tail” — the lasting relationships that are kindled by the 12 weeks of boot-camp-like intensity. And she takes pride in the market’s validation of the graduates, such as the September acquisition of BillGuard (class of 2012) for $30 million by online lender Prosper Marketplace. Gotsch recalls: “When we were setting up, people asked, ‘What is fintech?’ Not anymore.”