The Most Influential Women in Payments, 2023

March 7, 2023 7:00 AM

The payments industry has always been fast to change, but 2023 may be more transformative than most. The adoption of real-time payments — with the expected launch of the FedNow system — is creating new challenges and opportunities for everyone in a leadership role.

This year's Most Influential Women in Payments honorees are uniquely positioned to make the most of this change, as well as other disruptive factors such as the advancement of artificial intelligence, central bank digital currencies and more.

This year's honorees also know the value of an unconventional work history. Some of them came from outside of the payments and banking industries.

"It's been said more than once that you can't get a degree in payments, so all of us have had to learn the ropes in payments along the way at some point in our careers," said Kara Kazazean, vice president of financial services for Walmart's Sam's Club.

Many have learned the importance of hiring outsiders who can bring in those same fresh viewpoints.

"Your team's next top performer may come from your fiercest fintech rival or they may come from a new automotive startup, an international media company or a boutique consulting firm," said Brooke Major-Reid, chief capital officer at Affirm.

Whether they work in banks, tech companies, card networks or retailers, these leaders showcase the importance of creating opportunities for the teams they manage.

The honorees are presented below in alphabetical order. They will be recognized at Payments Forum, taking place this year in San Diego from May 1-3. Click here to register for Payments Forum.

Profiles below written by John Adams and Kate Fitzgerald. Introduction by Daniel Wolfe.

Shalu Attri

Director, Global Business Development, Payments
eBay

Time in current role: 3 years
Time in payments industry: 12 years

Marketplace maven: In her job driving complex platform partnerships across different banks, fintechs and global geographies, Shalu Attri draws on her MBA, her core background in chemical engineering and her experience strategizing products at Microsoft and fintech partnerships at Citibank. But her toughest training came from launching an independent online social media travel venture more than a dozen years ago, when she built a product, raised money, got it off the ground and eventually closed its doors when her funding ran out. "I learned about creating a marketplace with payments processing at the heart of it. It taught me resilience and humility and it was also my foot in the door into payments," she said.

Pacesetter: As an avid runner who produces watercolor art in her spare time, Attri recently used her intense focus and energy to build support for months with colleagues for a new approach to seller payouts that will reduce company costs and improve revenue. "I pitched the deal dozens of times with the same level of excitement as the first time," and ultimately got approval for the concept in the C-suite, she said. "I would credit 25% of my success to myself for raising my hand again and again and putting myself out there, and 75% to my bench of mentors, women leaders, rock-solid male allies and partners for providing access to opportunities."

Dondi Black

Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President
TSYS, a Global Payments company

Time in current role: 18 months
Time in payments industry: 30

Design it right: As product czar for global payments processor TSYS — which sits between merchants and card acquirers and issuers in the U.S. and Europe — Dondi Black faces the daily challenges of modernizing existing operations while innovating for the future. "Leading these efforts in parallel and effectively balancing the demands of each is difficult when their paths may cross and each effort may be progressing at different speeds," she said. Succeeding requires hiring and training people with the right skills and addressing projects in the right order. "No company or client has the resources to tackle every challenge at the same time," she said. Equally important is ensuring the design of any product or system is right before launch. "Design flavors everything, for better or worse," she said.

Working mom: Raised in a low-income household by a single mother, Black always put her career first, starting out from college as a bank teller where she learned to look at things "through the customer lens" and rose steadily to the executive ranks in positions at Regions Bank, First Horizon National and FIS, landing at TSYS in 2021. Fourteen years ago, while expecting her third child, she wondered if she had the bandwidth for another big job. "Without hesitation, my husband became the primary caregiver so I could take on this new role," Black said, and her upward path continued. "Our professional and domestic success have provided our son and two daughters with an incredible example of what is possible when your family provides unconditional love and support."

Lia Cao

Global Co-head of Corporate and E-commerce Sales and Solutions, Payments
JPMorgan Chase

Time in current role: 2 years
Time in payments industry: 5 years

Master planner: Managing JPMorgan's 700-person global sales and solutions team covering the bank's treasury services, merchant acquiring, commercial card and trade finance is a big job, but Lia Cao's unique background prepared her for it. In her native China, Cao earned a degree in architecture and an advanced degree in urban planning, then obtained a Ph.D. in urban planning and real estate at MIT. After working as a consultant, Cao joined Chase 12 years ago and climbed the executive ranks, devising e-commerce and payments products for corporations by combining her technical knowledge and people skills with an ability to see the big picture. "I believe in cultivating an innovative and collaborative sales team culture," she said.

Breaking down walls: Early last year, Cao collaborated with the co-head of her department to merge the bank's treasury services and merchant services — which traditionally operate in separate silos — into a single unit. "This is a very unique arrangement in the payments industry," she said, adding that it provides deeper visibility into clients' end-to-end needs. On her teams, Cao seeks people with diverse skills who can "spark the maximal level of innovative thoughts and healthy debates." She brings that energy home. With her husband, who is also a bank executive, she's raising a pair of boys ages 7 and 9 and proving it's possible for both halves of a couple to work hard and enjoy a happy family life. "The key is to relentlessly prioritize … and have fun," Cao said.

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Kristy Carstensen

Senior Vice President, Payments CFO
U.S. Bank

Time in current role: 5 years
Time in payments industry: 5 years

Instant and convenient: As technology has grown more advanced and the world more connected, the ability to send and receive payments instantly is already the norm, according to Kristy Carstensen. "COVID-19 caused a disruption in payments and drove demand for speed and convenience," she said. "The mindset exists as consumers and businesses want things to be instant, easy and convenient." The transformation for companies that have already adopted instant payments is widely shared, Carstensen said. "These companies want to increase use cases as they improve customer experience and create additional revenue streams, improved brand reputation and improved efficiency."

Empowering youth: When Carstensen joined U.S. Bank, she got involved with the Sanneh Foundation whose mission is to empower youth, improve lives and unite communities. "This work is not easy. The systemic changes needed can't happen quickly, but I believe that collaborative work resulting in incremental change can lead to significant impact and ultimately break down barriers," she said. "As a mother of young women, I want every barrier that might keep them from living as they want to be removed. As I acknowledged these barriers, I saw obstacles that exist for others as well. I knew then that I wanted to help dismantle these barriers in my community, so everyone has equitable access to opportunities."

Vanessa Colella

Senior Vice President and Global Head of Innovation and Digital Partnerships
Visa

Time in current role: 1 year
Time in payments industry: 13 years

Visionary: One year into her position leading Visa's global network of Innovation Centers, developing and commercializing Visa products and solutions for big tech, fintech, crypto and platform partnerships, Vanessa Colella focused on helping her teams think more creatively about expanding the reach and capabilities of Visa's network and products. Her skills come from an "anything but linear" career spanning teaching junior high school with Teach for America to consulting, data mining, earning a Ph.D. at MIT and spending more than a decade at Citigroup, where she led the Ventures team and helped launch the Citi Bike program. Colella credits her multidisciplinary background for her ability to spot patterns and common traits in systems that often signal opportunity. "This type of thinking and perspective is critical in unlocking new ideas," she said.

Strength through diversity: One of Colella's superpowers is the ability to motivate a diverse group of individuals by encouraging them to tap their own abilities in working together to achieve a goal. "Diversity in team composition brings diversity of thought, which leads to better outcomes," she said. One of Visa's next big goals will be developing real-time payments amid tumultuous competition, while striving to maintain customers' expectations for seamless transactions and zero liability. "At the end of the day, competition is good for payments," she said.

Alisa Ellis

Vice President of Operations Modernization
Discover Financial Services

Time in current role: 4 years
Time in payments industry: 17 years

Build a squad: A couple of years after joining the emerging payments team at Discover, Alisa Ellis took her career to the next level as chief of staff for Diane Offereins, president of Discover's payment services. "Diane became one of my biggest cheerleaders and taught me how to build my own teams," said Ellis, who eventually formed a "squad" of supporters among colleagues and peers at other companies. "Find the people who will introduce you to their networks, give you confidence and help you take a step back from day-to-day work to see the larger picture."

Develop a vision: "Enterprise thinking" has been key to Ellis' steady rise through the ranks at Discover. Applying experimentation and proofs of concept to open banking, blockchain and the Internet of Things use cases, Ellis leads teams that operate like startups within the corporation. "We take a pragmatic approach to innovation in order to be set up for the next generation of capabilities with building blocks ready for what is next." Ellis believes the shift to real-time payments will be an evolution. "Not all transaction types are going to work for real-time payments," she said, noting that winners will succeed by testing, evolving and adapting new payment types to meet user demand.

Kim Fitzsimmons

CEO
Talus Pay

Time in current role: 3 years
Time in payments industry: 34 years

Staying focused: Talus over the past year underwent a major customer relationship management software conversion. "To ensure success, I brought in outside expertise to augment our internal team, gave clear objectives and then empowered and trusted my team to execute," said Kim Fitzsimmons. "During the conversion process, I worked to remove as many obstacles and distractions as possible so that the team could maintain focus and keep to our implementation timeline."

Looking for talent: Given the complexity of payments, Fitzsimmons prefers to hire people with payments industry experience. But she takes a different approach when recruiting for sales positions, preferring to hire people with demonstrable sales talent and success. "Sales skills and discipline are more critical for revenue generation success and tougher to teach than industry knowledge," she said. "You either have it or you don't."

Mary Ann Francis

Associate Partner, Payments
IBM Consulting

Time in current role: 3 years
Time in payments industry: 40 years

Checking up: Mary Ann Francis recently questioned the industry stance on check conversion. "The traditional method of processing paper-based checks had long been a significant source of power, impact, and revenue for many industry players," she said. "However, the push to minimize or eliminate checks and check processing through imaging and conversion to e-checks was met with fierce resistance." To address this challenge, Francis helped lead an effort to connect the check and ACH systems together. "By doing this, we were able to capture and report check items that were converted to e-checks, ensuring that they would be properly tracked and accounted for," she said.

Worth the wait: Francis says success in achieving real-time payments will be measured by the seamless integration of real-time technology across all systems including core banking systems, general ledgers, enterprise resource planning systems, central banks, reporting, and analytics. "This is a daunting task and will take more than just updating payment systems. It will require a comprehensive approach that ensures all systems are in tune and working together in real-time," she said. "I believe that it will take at least 3-5 more years for this to happen, but it will be worth the wait. The benefits of real-time payments are transformative and will change the way we conduct financial transactions."

Charu Goel

Senior Technology Leader and Vice President, Payments Technology
Bank of America

Time in role: More than 3 years
Time in payments industry: 12 years

Cloudy forecast: As part of her job, Charu Goel manages the payments technology team, reviews changes and works to ensure seamless uses for new payment products. Recently, that has included work on the bank's cloud strategy. Goel collaborated with technology partners and lines of business when developing a plan for the project. "Leading payments technology taught me the most since it's a very dynamic, constantly changing industry," Goel said. "Banks are investing in digital transformation and [the] existing landscape to be ready to serve customers better and have robust risk mitigation plans."

A bigger pool: As much as prioritizing new hires from the payments industry is critical, it's also important to remember that there is a great pool of talented people who are eager to learn and contribute to the advancement of the payments industry, Goel said, adding there's an opportunity to find skilled innovative people in a variety of industries and backgrounds. "A balanced approach is necessary and a robust hiring process to bring in and develop the right talent," she said.

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Carol Juel

Executive Vice President, Chief Technology and Operating Officer
Synchrony

Time in current role: 2 years
Time in payments industry: 28 years

Paving the way: Named chief technology and operating officer at Synchrony about two years ago — several years after becoming the company's first chief information officer — Carol Juel reached another milestone in her mission to inspire other women in her field. "Closing the gender gap is a passion of mine," said Juel, who is active on numerous boards and organizations promoting women in technology, including the nonprofit Girls Who Code. During this phase, Juel was a mother to three young children. "This experience also prompted me to start advocating more aggressively for women in the workforce and start important conversations about how challenging it is to be a working mom," Juel said.

Digital dedication: Over the last eight years under Juel's leadership, Synchrony built data centers designed to deliver digital-first services and laid the groundwork for a private cloud infrastructure infused with machine learning, all without disrupting ongoing services. "It was like driving a school bus down a highway in a snowstorm," Juel said, highlighting several positive outcomes. PayPal's Cashback credit card relies on Synchrony APIs to manage rewards, purchases and payments using the PayPal app or the web. Synchrony's "Direct to Device" technology allows customers to securely apply for credit from their smartphones and add it to a digital wallet for immediate use. As a result, 10 million fewer calls came into Synchrony's call centers over the last year as customers' needs were met with intuitive processes within apps.

Kara Kazazean

Vice President, Financial Services
Sam's Club, a division of Walmart

Time in role: 1 year
Time in payments industry: 21 years

Joining the club: Kara Kazazean assumed her new role at Sam's Club in the fall, taking responsibility for the Sam's Club credit card program, along with the development of other financial service products. The transition from senior director of financial services, U.S. for Walmart required learning a new team and role while handing off projects that were already underway. There were also realignments that came with the launch of Walmart's fintech venture. "With any change or challenge, I prioritize sharing as much as I can with my team, so they have awareness and context. At the same time, I strive to balance that sharing with not creating unnecessary 'noise' while we work through whatever is placed in front of us," Kazazean said.

A degree in payments? How important is it to prioritize new hires with payments industry experience, compared to bringing in talent from other industries? "It's been said more than once that you can't get a degree in payments, so all of us have had to learn the ropes in payments along the way at some point in our careers," said Kazazean, who prioritizes curiosity and a passion for learning when looking to bring in talent from other industries. "Those attributes cannot be taught, payments can."

Mina Khattak

Senior Director, Vertical Growth Crypto & Web3
Worldpay from FIS

Time in current role: 2 years
Time in payments industry: 3 years

Having fun: Mina Khattak, who has 10 reports, addressed the challenge of leading a remote team across multiple geographies in an environment in which there is no team presence in a centralized location. "I resolved this by ensuring we dedicated an hour a week to catching up to have fun," she said, adding connecting outside of work tasks and engaging in fun virtual activities helped the team stay connected. Khattak also carved out a budget for an in-person team offsite to build a sense of camaraderie.

Game of risk: As part of her job, Khattak is responsible for leading growth for Worldpay's crypto and Web3 team, covering a mix of emerging innovation as well as the swings that accompany cryptocurrency. "Leading growth for one of the business' highest risk sectors has required me to gain deep knowledge of multiple internal functions such as compliance, legal, risk, and product; as well as build strong relationships with partners that we depend on to get a product over the line," Khattak said. "Navigating both the internal complexity of gaining buy-in with various decision makers at a suite of approval forums as well as collaborating with third parties to offer the best suite of payment products to crypto merchants has required deep knowledge and excellent people and leadership skills."

Editor's note: Worldpay is in the process of separating from FIS. Khattak is on the Worldpay side of the business, according to the FIS public relations office. "FIS and Worldpay will maintain a commercial relationship, preserving a key client value proposition for both businesses and minimizing potential dis-synergies. Worldpay's clients will continue to have access to FIS' suite of next-generation banking and treasury solutions," FIS/Worldpay said in an email.

Mandy Killam

Chief Transformation and Operations Officer
Bottomline Technologies

Time in current role: 1 year
Time in payments industry: 28 years

Raising her hand: Mandy Killam turned to her colleagues to help manage a crisis in her personal life just two months after joining the company, deciding to share the issue with her boss, peers and direct reports. "I knew there would be days that I wouldn't be able to give 100% and would need to lean on those around me," Killam said. "I embraced the vulnerability and decided to trust my network. I talked to people individually, and many times became emotional discussing the issue. This very uncomfortable situation actually created deeper relationships with those around me. I learned to raise my hand on days where I was struggling."

Getting an education: Killam was a COBOL programmer early in her career, and she eventually began leading teams and functions in technology. "However, I wanted to work my way into general management roles and started my career journey where I spent two years in different leadership roles in different functions," she said. "This variation helped me see the world of payments from many perspectives, and allows me to relate to customers in the many different roles they serve."

Brittany Marten

Managing Director, Head of GIG Large Corporates, Global Transaction Services
Bank of America

Time in current role: 7 years
Time in payments industry: 28 years

A powerful pivot: Leading client coverage for Bank of America's Global Industrials Group, Brittany Marten serves giant corporations within the auto, chemical, aerospace and defense industries that need visibility into data flows and liquidity to schedule payments at the optimal time for each company's working capital. But initially this was unfamiliar territory to Marten, who pivoted to business-to-business payments within BofA from consumer banking after moving overseas with her husband. Diving into new, unknown disciplines paid off. Within six months, Marten was promoted from an entry-level position in transaction services to treasury sales officer and began a steady rise up the ladder within global treasury and cash management.

Doubling down: Returning to the U.S. from two years in BofA's London office, Marten steadily won bigger leadership roles within the global transaction unit and soon welcomed a daughter. Taking on heavier duties in an expanding business while raising a child was a much tougher transition than she expected. "There were times when I thought I might fail," Marten said. With guidance from mentors inside and outside the organization, Marten found balance and developed a team of self-reliant leaders around her with whom she shares credit for her success. Constantly sharing best practices with other women and mentoring them has deeply enriched her work experience. "One day my daughter will enter the workforce and I want her experience to be filled with influential and successful women who have learned how to be powerful," Marten said.

Shruti Patel

Director of Product Partnerships and Monetization
Shopify

Time in current role: 2 years
Time in payments industry: 15 years

Inventor: Shruti Patel rose steadily in emerging finance executive roles at American Express, where she spent 11 years, followed by four years at JPMorgan Chase as head of digital payments products and partnerships, before joining Shopify in 2021. "Payments innovation is my passion," said Patel, who has co-authored five different payments product patents. As the pandemic's explosive e-commerce growth overwhelmed internal capital and resources, Patel led efforts to get strategic help from third parties for such tasks as building a local payment gateway in India to accelerate merchant payments, and standing up a white-label approach for managing merchants' cross-border commerce. "Building these things ourselves would have taken triple the amount of time," she said.

Outsiders in: Known for combining a "fierce" leadership style with empathy, Patel is a passionate advocate for mentoring and developing talent from the ground up. She has seen the benefits of hiring diverse minds in payments and bringing people into finance and technology from nontraditional backgrounds. For example, when she was at Chase, Patel led the Second Chance Project with peers, coaching people who had previously been incarcerated. "I'm a firm believer that no matter the circumstances, people deserve a second chance and we in the corporate world should leverage our platform and create opportunities for individuals to thrive," she said.

Eva Reda

President, Consumer Banking
American Express

Time in current role: 2 years
Time in payments industry: 31 years

In-house entrepreneur: In 2021, American Express gave longtime executive Eva Reda the task of modernizing the card network's high-yield savings account and creating a set of digital banking services based on the increasingly digital-first mindset of users. "We were at an inflection point in our consumer business," Reda said. To give the project momentum, Reda built a new team from the ground up to develop products including the Amex Rewards Checking account, which has produced strong results since its launch last year.

Group support: "I believe that success at work can't happen without support at home," said Reda, a parent of three, who has leaned on Families at Amex, an internal networking group that offers programs, tools and support for parents and caregivers at the company. "It's important to me to model the balance of work and family for my kids as best I can. There are some days when balance doesn't happen, but I actively work on this each day so my kids grow up with a strong work ethic as well as the knowledge that work isn't everything," Reda said.

Brooke Major-Reid

Chief Capital Officer
Affirm

Time in current role: 2 years
Time in payments industry: 20+ years

Rating 2022: As the Federal Reserve raised interest rates and inflation reached a four-decade high, it became clear that having a diverse and durable funding model would be critical for any lender, particularly a nonbank lender like Affirm, said Brooke Major-Reid. "Risk management is integrated into all aspects of Affirm's business and culture," she said. Affirm utilizes three funding channels to support consumers and merchants to avoid being overly reliant on any single channel or strategy, according to Major-Reid.

Industry agnostic: Fintech is one of the fastest growing and most exciting areas to work in at the moment, and there is a tremendous pool of talented people eager to join the space, Major-Reid said. "Whether companies are hiring executive leadership or entry-level talent, it is important to evaluate candidates based on clear, objective criteria and not solely based on what industry they may be coming from or what companies they may have worked for. Your team's next top performer may come from your fiercest fintech rival or they may come from a new automotive startup, an international media company or a boutique consulting firm."

Christine Roberts

Executive Vice President, President of Citizens Pay
Citizens

Time in role: 1 year
Time in payments industry: 11 years

Variety: As the head of Citizens Pay, no two days are the same for Christine Roberts, whose duties include working on technology projects with partners such as Best Buy and Cox Mobile, traveling for sales pitches, and leading the Citizens' Business Resource Group for Women. Roberts covers all Citizens product development, financials, marketing, systems and innovation and business development.

Innovate now, pay later: Citizens Pay offers installment loans in addition to payments, placing the bank in the thick of the competitive buy now/pay later market. "We had to differentiate ourselves from the traditional BNPLs as a truly pay-over-time provider, and step away from the competition," Roberts said. Citizens uses a more traditional model for BNPL, working with partners and focusing on less risky loans. Roberts has made it a priority to articulate, both internally and with merchant partners, "what Citizens Pay is, but perhaps more importantly, what it is not."

Anusha Ramanujam

Head of Payment Partnerships and Product Enablement
Square

Time in current role: 2.5 years
Time in payments industry: 19

Relationship expert: Tasked with making new payment products and hardware work, Anusha Ramanujam's team helped drive Square's enablement of Tap to Pay on the iPhone during the pandemic era, which demanded creative leadership. "One team member stepped away to care for family, another switched positions within the team and I created an opportunity for someone else to take on a stretch role, allowing us to deliver some really cool outcomes," she recalled. Using asynchronous communication tools, Ramanujam also developed a global-local approach for her team to work seamlessly across time zones.

Payments 24/7: With a background in a range of financial services disciplines at companies including Visa, Green Dot, Washington Mutual and HSBC, Ramanujam developed deep expertise in commercial negotiation and nurturing partnerships, which are key to her role at Square. One of the things Ramanujam loves is seeing how Square's payment innovations play out in her life around the clock, whether it's helping a chef-mixologist get paid quickly after hosting a liquid tasting-menu dinner or the teenagers at home splitting expenses with friends, she evangelizes digital payments everywhere she goes. "I find a way to bring payments into almost every conversation," she said.

Whitney Stewart Russell

President, Digital Solutions
Fiserv

Time in current role: 3 years
Time in payments industry: 25 years

Central station: In the last year, Fiserv consolidated all digital banking platforms into one team — Whitney Stewart Russell's team. "These platforms had been attached to different businesses from acquisitions over many years and had largely run independently," she said, adding Fiserv restructured teams focused on driving client value across products, services and technology. "Everyone understood their role in helping our clients," Stewart Russell said. "We are one team — Team Digital — working effortlessly and having fun all in the name of helping our clients."

Playing catch up: The bank-led Zelle peer-to-peer transfer app has been a huge catalyst to help the market understand how real-time payments can improve client experiences and better meet consumer expectations, Stewart Russell said, adding card payments have also influenced how consumers and businesses feel about how money should move. "The rest of the payment ecosystem, at least in the U.S., has some catching up to do, but The Clearing House's RTP network and FedNow help us take the right steps," she said.

Bunita Sawhney

Executive Vice President, U.S. Financial Institutions
Mastercard

Time in current role: 3 years
Time in payments industry: 25+ years

Instant innovation: The impact of the pandemic increased customer expectations for "always-on" capabilities, according to Bunita Sawhney, who said that financial institutions are embracing this change and revamping their customer experience with an eye on retention, loyalty, engagement and benefits. "As our digital interactions are near instant, payments have become the same way, in turn boosting transparency and trust across the financial ecosystem that eliminates the unreliability of cash, check or ACH payments," she said.

A new day: Having held both global and regional roles within Mastercard, Sawhney has been exposed to the company's business-to-business-to-consumer model, as well as the needs of clients across different markets. She's also learned how competitors operate in different locations along the way. "There isn't a day that has passed where I haven't heard or experienced something new. Each job has brought its different set of challenges."

Carol Wang

Senior Vice President, Commercial Payments
KeyBank

Time in current role: 2.5 years
Time in payments industry: 22 years

Building expertise: After spending 20 years in payments at companies ranging from American Express to Worldpay and Fiserv, Carol Wang joined KeyBank in 2020, bringing her payments experience to a bank for the first time. "I knew very little about banking at the time," Wang recalled. But KeyBank specifically wanted her expertise in what has become a critical area for banks to differentiate their services. Wang is now helping to ready more than 800 of KeyBank's commercial clients for the advent of real-time payments. "I think it will be most transformative for business-to-business payments, which still rely heavily on checks and traditional treasury services," she said.

Home sweet work: Arriving at KeyBank in the middle of the pandemic was challenging, and one of the hardest parts was fighting to hire and keep top talent, according to Wang. "We haven't wavered or settled in our search for talent and we brought on amazing individuals over the last year while meeting our business objectives," she said, noting that through it all she stayed put in New York City. "Many people ask me and my husband how we can raise three little kids in the city and in a tiny apartment, but we love it. Even during COVID-19 we never left, although honestly that was rough!"