Malavika Chugh: Co-founder of Jefa

Malavika Chugh was born in New Delhi and lived there for 18 years before immigrating to the US for college. After college, she worked in financial advisory, but was also interested in entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and female empowerment. Last year, Malavika combined those interests to co-found Jefa (Spanish for “female boss”). Jefa is the first technological platform created by and for women that empowers women to take control of their finances. Jefa also recently raised a $2M seed round.

I spoke with Malavika about her experiences growing up in India and immigrating to the States, how her personal and professional background influenced her to start Jefa, and how Jefa works with (not against) cultural factors to empower women to be the boss of their finances.

Photo courtesy of Malavika Chugh

Rebecca: Can you start by telling me about your upbringing in India? 

Malavika: I was born and brought up in New Delhi, and I stayed there until I was 18. I was brought up in a family that was very close. My parents are doctors and I have a younger sister; we lived in a house with my grandparents. We would always have family meals together and go on family vacations. 

I went to the same school from kindergarten to high school, and the school played a big part in shaping my core values. There was a focus on the arts and creativity; every morning we had a prayer ceremony where we would all sing together. We had classes like music, origami and art, and we were given the freedom to experiment with the creative part of ourselves. Another cool thing was that my school didn’t believe in competing with other people. In education or sports competitions, we never had people ranked as first place, second place, etc. It was always a competition with yourself. For example, if you were running a race, there was a qualifying time and anybody who ran under that time would receive a certificate of completion. There was a culture of improving for yourself, and I associate a lot of my values (e.g., collaboration, being a resource for others) to that school. 

Of course in India, given the huge population, things are always competitive. In education, we have to take exams in high school that determine where we go for college. People study for at least two and half years and every minute of your life is focused on just studying for that test. But my family believes that the world is bigger than your academics; you’re not always competing with other people, because there’s enough space for everyone. That was a warm and friendly space to grow up in. 

My parents are both doctors who started from ground zero and built amazing careers for themselves. They know what hard work can do for you, and I spent my early childhood watching them work hard to get to where they are today. But my parents also prioritized new experiences instead of material possessions. I grew up playing a lot of sports and taking music lessons for a long time. I think from the beginning, my parents highlighted what was important in life. 

Rebecca: What types of holidays or traditions did your family celebrate? 

Malavika: Indian culture inherently has so many festivals, both religious and cultural, so our family would make an occasion out of any festival. For example, on Rakhi, sisters are supposed to tie a piece of thread around their brother’s wrist in exchange for their protection. It sounds like it has patriarchal undertones, but it became an opportunity for us to meet our extended family and have a big celebration. During Diwali, I would see my cousins and we would pray together as a family. At the time these events didn’t feel extraordinary - they felt like an inherent part of my upbringing. But having been in America for so long now, I look back and appreciate and crave these rituals and being able to see my family at festivals. 

Rebecca: When you were growing up, did you have any preconceived notions of what America was like? Did you always want to come to the States? 

Malavika: I moved to America in 2012 when I was 18, and I had never been to the States before. All of my perceptions of this country were based on books, movies, or news. I’d never stepped foot in this country before I decided to uproot my life. The biggest driver of the move was my education, and my parents had instilled in me the importance of higher education. But in India, it’s often hard to find undergraduate degrees at a top university given the highly competitive nature of these exams that we discussed. It was a mutual decision with my family for me to explore going to school in the US. The promise of better education and better employment opportunities was attractive, and I’m fortunate that I had financial support from my parents. 

Rebecca: When you first came to the States, how did your experiences here compare to any expectations you had? 

Malavika: The food was a huge change for me. I grew up on a lot of home-cooked meals, and I was never the kind of person who would eat out. After I came to the States, I realized that everything, especially the food, was on a larger scale and quantity than I was used to. It was also shocking to me how huge my campus was. That’s probably partially a function of me going to school at UCLA and being in LA, but the distances between places were huge. I was also amazed at the diversity here, because India is pretty homogeneous. Even though India has 30+ languages and each state has its own culture, attire, and food, growing up in my community in New Delhi felt very homogenous, and diversity was not discussed back in the day.  

Rebecca: Do you feel yourself becoming more American as you spend more time in this country? 

Malavika: Oh yeah, I’ve gone through so many levels of identity crisis in my time in America. The context or society you’re in can deeply impact how you view yourself. I’ve been in the States for ten years, so I’ve seen different perspectives on family, relationships, and friendships. I’ve seen how people view the government and what political activism looks like. I’ve also seen how I perceive the legitimacy of rules and regulation and how my gender impacts my day to day life. All of this deeply impacts me and my values. 

In America, people view my identity a certain way, since I’m a minority. People sometimes stare at me, my food, and my attire, so that has changed the way that I present myself to the world. In some ways, that has made me stronger, because I’ve had to re-evaluate my worth and stick to my roots. But at the same time, I have changed and my accent has changed so dramatically. I didn’t intentionally try to change it, but I’ve had to constantly correct myself or repeat what I say or talk louder in a room, because people didn’t understand me. Other things like the type of music I listen to and how I dress have also changed. I’ve had a lot of formative experiences here, like going to college and starting my first job, so it’s not unexpected that I’ve changed in these ways. But I do often pause and reflect on my growth and the cultural identity part of that growth is top of mind for me. 

Rebecca: Has it been challenging reconciling the Indian and American parts of yourself? Or do you feel like it’s pretty seamless and you can make the best of your unique identity? 

Malavika: Yeah, I went through this exercise where I felt that I couldn't necessarily call myself fully Indian or fully American. I had to get comfortable with the idea that I probably exist somewhere on the spectrum of this identity. It’s been helpful for me to think of it not as an isolated pocket, but rather a more fluid identity. My family and closest friends are in India, so whenever I go back, the Indian in me comes out in ways such as the language and how I engage with people. In the US, I’m actually married to an American, and his family is becoming part of my support system here. There are a lot of different forces at play. It’s a hard question and I don’t try too hard to reconcile it, because I’ve accepted that this fluid identity is what makes me who I am. Instead of trying to pigeonhole myself into one or the other, I just go with the flow. 

As my husband and I think about having kids, I do think about how I’ll be able to pass my culture onto my children. It’ll be an interesting self-reflection to think about what parts I teach them versus how much I let them explore for themselves. I do know that my family will be very involved in the life of my children, so my children will be close to Indian culture through the rest of my family. If my kids are anything like myself or my husband, they will be curious to learn more about where they come from. We’ll just have to let them go through their own identity crises and figure out for themselves what makes them most comfortable. 

Rebecca: I’d love to pivot and discuss your company, Jefa. Can you start by telling me how you started Jefa? 

Malavika: I decided to do my MBA, because I wanted to pivot from the financial advisory work I was doing previously. I was interested in the startup ecosystem, so before starting Kellogg, I reached out to a VC named Claire Díaz-Ortiz. She’s the biggest advocate of women, both in startups and VC, and she introduced me to my co-founder, Emma Sánchez Andrade Smith. Emma had previously founded another fintech company, and she had this amazing idea to bring digital financial services to women in emerging markets. Given my professional background in finance and my personal interest and involvement in organizations supporting women empowerment (e.g., tech, coding, financial literacy), I realized Jefa was the perfect combination of all the things that I love and want to grow in. Emma and I got along well and decided to start Jefa together. We’ve been working together for over a year now and have a team of 14 people. 

Jefa focuses on Latin America (specifically Mexico) for now, because the region is shifting from a cash-based economy to a quickly digitizing economy. The near term goal is to expand to the rest of Latin America. We realize this problem and opportunity is so pervasive though, so we’re building a solution that’s scalable across geographies. 

Rebecca: What drew you to this interest of Fintech and woman empowerment? 

Malavika: There are 1.3 billion women in the world who are unbanked. 70% of Latin American women have never had a bank account, and 32 million of those women live in Mexico. It’s clear that this is the status quo in the banking industry (which is primarily run by men) or as we call it, “one size fits man.” I was curious to explore how to use fintech and my personal experience in credit underwriting and financial services to impact equality in the financial services.

Previously, I’ve been involved with nonprofits such as the Global Girl Project. This nonprofit helps young women in emerging markets develop an entrepreneurial toolkit and focuses on providing financial literacy to students. Another thing is that growing up in India, I’ve seen how the lack of financial independence for women can impact their health and their children’s education. I was immediately drawn to doing something concrete about this issue. I’m still learning about different ways in which women’s lives can be empowered with the right financial tools. It’s a journey that means a lot to me personally and drives a lot of what I do everyday. 

Rebecca: How did you two decide what solution you wanted to work on with Jefa? 

Malavika: Emma and I have both studied economics and emerging markets. Initially we wanted to start with credit, because we thought that that would enable women to access opportunities that they wouldn’t have otherwise. But as we were interviewing potential users, we found that so many of the women had never even had a bank account, much less a digital one. They had been systematically financially and digitally excluded, so the idea of credit was a bit new and overwhelming for them. That’s why we decided to change our strategy and start with a core solution like foundational banking services. The MVP for Jefa right now is a digital wallet that’s associated with a debit card, a peer to peer payment infrastructure, and a focus on financial literacy. We have an in-app financial literacy platform that helps women make financial decisions that are best for themselves and their families. As our users grow with us, we’ll work on more sophisticated financial products that help women invest or build their credit. 

Rebecca: I’m interested in this cultural element you mentioned about some women being more wary of credit, because they don’t have as much exposure to or experience with it. How has your team thought about addressing this piece specifically? 

Malavika: Even though women are nervous about credit or digital financial services, they still end up making 80% of household spending decisions (e.g., buying groceries, taking care of the children’s health and education). Women are already empowered to make these decisions, but they don’t have the independence and the right tools to do it in a way that works best for them. In a lot of emerging markets, the heavy patriarchal culture makes this an even bigger issue. 

There are other macro reasons; in Latin America, for example, more women are employed in the informal economy instead of the formal economy. They don’t have regular sources of income, so even if they know how to spend money, they might not know how to handle money over longer periods of time. Understanding these cultural factors takes time, so we’re not trying to revolutionize things overnight. We want to focus on being a bridge from a cash-based economy to a digital one. 

One of the projects that we’re working on is called Tandas, which is a rotational savings and credit program. For instance, you might have six women and every month they each put in $50. Each month, the pool of $300 goes to one of the women in this group. For the first woman, it’s essentially an interest-free loan, and for the last person, it’s a savings account that she’s been contributing to. The last person can better manage her cash flow, because she knows in a few months she’ll receive $300. This concept is pervasive all across Latin America; in Mexico, 31% of people are part of informal savings programs like this. We think this is an amazing kind of innovation, and we want to support it and make it more scalable. We don’t want to fight cultural norms - we want to work with them and enable their behavior in more efficient ways. 

Rebecca: How has the reception for Jefa been so far? 

Malavika: It’s been fantastic! We have a waitlist of 115,000 women and a lot of the growth has been organic. It shows that there’s already this need for better financial services and women are actively seeking it out. The reception from investors and other stakeholders has been positive, because they recognize that this problem really exists. Currently we’re running a private beta, so we have 1,700 users today. We’re hoping to do a public launch in March and see some more growth then. 

In general, it’s great seeing new banking services for women being started across the world. There’s a company in Pakistan called Oraan that’s doing something similar to Tandas. They’re called committees and Halima Iqbal, the CEO of the company, has been scaling those up. Emma and I are angel investors in Oraan, because the need for financial services for women is something we’ve been shouting from the rooftops. 

Rebecca: That’s great to hear! What are some of the lessons you’ve learned from working on Jefa? 

Malavika: The first thing I’ve learned is how to be more comfortable with unpredictability. I used to be the kind of person who wanted things to go according to plan, but I’ve had to learn to roll with the punches. I’ve also learned to trust my own gut. A lot of women face imposter syndrome and might not speak up in a room unless they’re 100% sure that they’re right. I was never the person who would ask questions in a crowded room. But the daily decision making that I have to do now comes with so many responsibilities, and over time, I’ve learned to believe in my own decision making abilities.

Finally, I’ve learned to work on my self care more, because you can’t pour from an empty cup. I’ve started taking more breaks like a walk or a little nap during the day, which I’ve found to be so energizing. I previously would’ve been too afraid of feeling unproductive to allow myself to do those things. We encourage all of our employees to build their work schedules in ways that work best for them. We don’t mandate working from 9-6 or anything like that, because we know that if an employee has children, for example, their schedule will look different from someone without children. Self-care and mental health are so crucial, and it’s important to allow yourself the grace to prioritize those things.