Jennifer Lee

Your Story:

I joined Monzo as a Financial Health Digital Associate in 2022, needing a fresh start and also wanting to find an inclusive, warm environment. Being selected to be a part of Monzo was an incredible opportunity - and I have managed to refine a lot of my skills from my previous working environments.

Having an opportunity to apply for this powerlist is amazing as well. I think it’s so important to have visibility of the LGBTQ+ community for every section that you’re in - whether you’re new to your career or well-established in the financial sector. I hope that if I’m selected, I can help inspire people to not be afraid to be out and who they are wherever they work.

At Monzo, I work primarily to help our customers who are struggling financially on a day-to-day basis and people with additional support needs. This includes helping people who may be struggling with the cost-of-living crisis or people who are facing mental health struggles. I work to give them some relief during these hard times and to explore options that can help them with their borrowing.

Over the course of my career at Monzo, I’ve been an advocate for diversity and inclusion by using my skills as a multi-faceted creative. I have recently been given a position on the LGBTQ+ Employee Resource Group Committee as an engagement lead which will allow me to focus on creating a warm, inclusive environment at Monzo and educate people on what being part of our LGBTQ+ community within this is all about.

As someone as non-binary, I’ve found that it has been very difficult to be seen, heard and respected for who I am. However, I’m very grateful that Monzo has not only welcomed me with open arms - but also given me so many opportunities to get involved. I have been part of many pride events, including most recently a pride panel talking about culture and identity, and I have had the chance to speak about many things that are close to my heart, such as neurodiversity and bisexuality.

Overall, at Monzo, I've found that I’ve really managed to explore my passions and be really involved in the diversity and inclusion world but also have somewhere that wants to help me continue to grow. It was exciting to be able to join a modern bank that had an innovative way of helping their customers and using my expertise to not just help customers - but colleagues too.

Prior to Monzo, I have worked at other firms and also had a career as a ghostwriter. During this time, I wrote about financial health and wellbeing including articles about budgeting, how to navigate the impact of COVID restrictions (both financially and mentally) and even had the chance to work directly with some companies to help their customers.
With regards to my life beyond my career, I have published a few books myself around poetry and LGBTQ+. It was definitely one of the highlights of what I’ve done before I came to Monzo - as this really helped me understand my own identity and bisexuality. This also allowed me to have some great prior experience, as I was a co-lead for our internal poetry Pride competition this year, and felt that from it I was able to have a deeper understanding of how the creative world can intersect with being part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Your Impact:

Personally, I would love to be a part of the powerlist to continue to show that no matter where you start - or when you come out - you can make a difference. I only came out as non-binary in 2023 and as bisexual three years ago. Even though I have only been vocal about who I am recently, I am proud of who I am, where I am and I want to inspire others to do the same.

With creating a more inclusive environment for people within Monzo, I’ve worked really hard to be a vocal advocate of areas I am passionate about. I worked with the diversity and inclusion team and helped highlight current needs within various different communities. A good example of this, is that we’ve overhauled our neurodiversity channels and support for our neurodiverse employees. Now, managers have more training around this, our employees have a range of resources they can access to make sure that we’re accommodating their needs and we have more visibility of day-to-day life for people who are autistic, have ADHD and all other areas of neurodiversity.

I am also very proud to always be vocalout about what it means to be part of the LGBTQ+ community and in particular how my identity can be a part of everything I do. As someone who’s pronouns are not recognised officially in the United Kingdom, it can be hard to stand up and speak out about it on behalf of the community, but I had an opportunity to share my perspective with colleagues during Pride month -.

I continuously share helpful resources with colleagues - last year I made a post on bi-visibilty day which was available to our Financial Health team and will do so again this year which will be accessible Monzo-wide, talking about my own experiences of a bisexual person, including discrimination I have faced in my previous employment. I have also raised awareness of the autistic Pride day, as well as sharing resources for the community and non-binary people’s day - bringing a lot of recognition to the struggles and highlighting how to be a better ally. I shared information with colleagues about IDAHOBIT day, Autism Acceptance Month and discussed current issues that non-binary people can face within the UK - which in turn promotes a safe space for all of our employees.

I am also part of a working group at Monzo in the Financial Health sector, where we mark various diversity and inclusion days throughout the year, speak about issues different communities face and aim to make Monzo a more inclusive place for all of our staff.

I also believe that by talking about these things with our staff, we’re better able to serve all of our customers. I pride myself in being involved in many areas of the diversity and inclusion community and we have amazing things in place at Monzo to help all of our customers feel welcome - a great example of this being that we use customer’s preferred names whenever they get in touch with us.

Outside of work, I also try to have a strong, active voice in the community - I’m an LGBTQ+ writer in Liverpool and I also like to talk about ways to be more inclusive on my LinkedIn - where anyone can see this. Most recently, I talked about tone tags and how they can have a positive impact on autistic employees and help them better navigate online communities and channels.

Your Advice:

Personally, I am still quite new in my journey and career - I have only worked at Monzo for a year and a half (however, that has flown by!). I think the best piece of advice I can give is to be open about who you are from the start.

Also, Monzo has a really great internal LGBT+ community. I think finding somewhere that has a really amazing internal community can help you find somewhere that’s right for you and what you want. I am also very passionate about diversity and inclusion as a whole, and having somewhere that I could be involved in this very early on for me wanted to make me stay and grow within Monzo.