Building exceptional teams in financial technology requires more than just hiring smart people and hoping for the best. Success comes from understanding what drives high performance in an industry where rapid change and constant innovation define daily operations. Nicki Bull Bisgaard, founder and CEO of PayTech Group, brings three decades of experience in retail banking and payments to this challenge.
Start With a Clear Sense of Purpose
You can’t just tell people to work harder and expect magic to happen. Bisgaard learned this the hard way during his three decades leading teams across different markets. “High-performance teams start with a clear sense of purpose,” he says, and he’s not talking about motivational posters on the wall. Most fintech teams get buried in technical details and lose sight of why they’re creating their solutions. Bisgaard takes a different approach at PayTech Group. “It’s not just about building products. It’s about solving real-world problems for customers and markets,” he explains. Every project connects back to the company’s main mission, so people understand how their daily work fits into something bigger. When team members see the impact of their work, they become more motivated without external pressure.
Building Trust to Drive Bold Decisions
The best talent doesn’t stick around when micromanagers are breathing down their necks. He figured this out early in his career. “The best fintech talent thrives when they feel empowered to make bold decisions,” he notes, describing how top performers respond when they’re given real ownership over their work. But giving people freedom doesn’t mean abandoning all oversight. “I believe in giving teams ownership and the freedom to experiment while providing the safety net of trust,” Bisgaard says. The key is creating space where smart risks get rewarded and mistakes become learning opportunities instead of career killers. That’s where breakthrough innovations actually come from, not from playing it safe all the time.
Leveraging Diversity for Stronger Innovation
Most companies hire people who all went to the same schools and worked at the same competitors. He does the opposite. “FinTech is at its best when technology, business insight and customer understanding come together,” he observes, explaining why his teams include people from completely different backgrounds. The results speak for themselves. “I’ve seen time and time again that diversity fuels creativity,” Bisgaard says about his hiring approach at PayTech Group. When someone from retail banking sits next to someone from tech consulting and someone from customer service, they challenge each other’s assumptions. That friction creates better solutions than any group of similar thinkers could produce on their own. Different perspectives aren’t just nice to have in fintech. They’re essential when you’re trying to solve problems for diverse markets and customer bases. Teams that look and think alike miss obvious solutions that diverse teams spot immediately.
Building great teams takes real work, not just good intentions. “In the fast-paced world of FinTech, high-performance teams don’t happen by chance,” he points out. You need all three pieces working together: clear purpose, real empowerment, and diverse thinking. Most fintech companies get one or two pieces right but miss the third. They might have a clear mission but don’t trust their people to make decisions. Or they hire diverse teams but don’t give them a compelling reason to push through tough challenges. Bisgaard’s experience shows that you need all three elements working together to create teams that can handle whatever the industry throws at them next. The fintech world keeps moving faster every year. Teams built on this foundation can adapt to changes while still delivering results that matter to real customers dealing with real financial challenges.
Connect with Nicki Bull Bisgaard on LinkedIn to explore more insights on FinTech leadership.
