Michelle Beetar wins in the Team Leader – Non-Creditor category, Cecilia Fernandez de Cordoba takes Silver in Transformation of the Year

Two leaders at global analytics leader FICO have been honored for outstanding efforts in the Women in Credit Awards 2021, sponsored by Credit Strategy. The winners were announced in a black-tie ceremony on 30 September in London.

• Michelle Beetar, Vice President and Managing Director for Africa at FICO, won Team Leader of the Year – Non-Creditor, Small

• Cecilia Fernandez de Cordoba, Senior Director DevOps at FICO in Germany, won the silver award for Transformation of the Year 

More information: https://www.creditstrategy.co.uk/women-in-credit-awards/women-in-credit-winners-2021 

Michelle Beetar transitioned her sales team in the depths of a pandemic from a group of individual contributors to a strong team dynamic. Despite the challenges posed working in lockdown, her leadership has seen the regularly measured team engagement gain steady traction to leading levels. Her team’s efforts and customer-centric approach led the South Africa organisation to its most successful year since FICO entered the region in a direct capacity. 

“There are many inspirational women at FICO and it is an honour to represent them in receiving this award,” said Beetar. “My sincere thanks go to my team, whose support and dedication during trying times is the reason I was nominated, and to the leaders I have been fortunate to work with during my career, whose strong moral character and ability to harness the very best energy, ideas and skills in a team inspire me every day.”

Cecilia Fernandez de Cordoba led the charge for FICO’s software engineering excellence, driving The FICO Developer Experience (DevEx) initiative that increases the speed of software development whilst improving the quality control. This initiative is critical to merging FICO’s development and operations organizations and accelerating time to market of software innovations.

“I feel honored to receive this award,” said de Cordoba. “This year brought many challenges and joys — among other things, I welcomed my third baby and got sick with Coronavirus. I am thankful for the proof that good things happen to the people who keep on trying!” 

The Women in Credit Awards, now in its fourth year, is the only programme within the UK credit market that champions the role of women across the entire credit and financial services sector, celebrating and encouraging diversity to have a wider impact on the industry. 

FICO has many programs that support and promote women in its workforce, including the Women @FICO Employee Resource Group, designed to enable structured information/experience sharing, education, and professional networking. Last year, Women @FICO produced an award-winning video on the importance of diversity in analytics.