Key Insights
Embedding Risk and Compliance as Enablers of Speed
By bringing legal, compliance, and risk partners into the process from the start, teams can remove friction later and deliver faster, safer outcomes. This approach transforms what’s traditionally seen as a barrier into a strategic advantage, creating alignment between business velocity and regulatory responsibility. Zamina highlights that the fastest path to innovation in regulated industries isn’t bypassing governance but integrating it early. Her mindset offers a blueprint for scaling innovation responsibly: instead of slowing projects to accommodate risk, leaders can design workflows where trust and oversight are built in from day one.
Balancing Structure and Agility to Scale Growth
Growth only becomes scalable when standardization and discipline are in place, allowing teams to move decisively within a shared framework. Technology leaders managing complex transformations should understand that agility and governance must evolve together. At EQ Bank, Zamina focuses on accountability and process as the foundations that enable, not constrain, speed and creativity. It’s not about choosing between startup energy and enterprise maturity, but creating a system where both coexist, one that empowers teams to innovate confidently while maintaining the rigour and repeatability that large organizations demand.
Applying AI Where It Drives Measurable Business Impact
Rather than viewing AI as an abstract opportunity, leaders must focus on its practical value across customer service, underwriting, marketing, and compliance—areas where automation and intelligence directly improve customer outcomes and operational efficiency. Zamina points toward AI-driven lead generation as a next phase of growth. This approach underscores the importance of clarity and focus when deploying emerging technologies: start with use cases that meaningfully improve performance, scale them responsibly, and ensure human oversight remains central. It’s a pragmatic model for realizing AI’s potential without losing control or direction.
Episode Highlights
Early Lessons in Customer Obsession
Zamina traces a shift from consulting to building, then distils what she learned during a pivotal stretch: growth comes from truly understanding customers, exceeding expectations, avoiding stagnation even when winning, and investing deliberately for growth. This moment anchors her later focus on CX, speed, and accountability with a clear throughline grounded in direct experience.
“What I learned was the importance of knowing your customers and going beyond their expectations. Giving them experiences they didn’t even know that they wanted.”
Scaling Growth Through Accountability
Zamina reflects on joining EQ Bank at a stage where growth needed structure. She explains that while the company was scaling quickly, it required clearer accountability and standardized processes to sustain that pace. Her approach connects startup agility with enterprise discipline, showing how frameworks can enable speed rather than limit it.
“The biggest opportunity once I landed at EQ was to help them scale up, to drive accountability and to use my background from customer experience to help build some of the standardization that we needed.”
Redefining Risk as a Strategic Partner
Zamina reframes risk and compliance not as barriers but as essential collaborators in innovation. She explains how involving these partners early in the process transforms oversight into enablement, helping teams deliver faster while protecting integrity and trust. For her, this partnership ensures creativity operates within smart guardrails instead of being slowed by red tape later.
“My compliance, legal, risk partners—they’re at the table. They’re helping me brainstorm. They’re helping me build the solution. And they’re there through execution. And if you do that, you can actually go much faster because you’re building with risk in mind versus going back after the fact.”
Building Teams for Both Speed and Depth
Zamina shares her approach to hiring leaders who bring both deep expertise and startup agility. She explains how combining technical depth with adaptable, fast-moving generalists creates balanced teams that can scale efficiently while maintaining innovation and precision.
“I think the way that I think about hiring is… I’m looking for depth and technical capability, but also people who can move with speed and urgency, who are adaptable and agile.”
Protecting Focus to Drive Impact
Zamina discusses how she manages focus in a demanding, fast-paced environment by being deliberate about where she invests her time. She shares that saying no to multitasking and distractions allows her to deliver meaningful outcomes rather than chasing constant busyness—a practice that strengthens clarity and execution.
“I’ve learned to protect my time. I don’t really multitask. I like to start things and finish them, and it helps me deliver better quality results.”
