Rashmi Melgiri, Functional Finance's Co-Founder & CEO, was recently featured in the latest FT Partners Research report, "Women in FinTech: A New Era of Innovation." This groundbreaking report celebrates female leaders who are driving innovation in financial technology through their work in AI, Crypto, and Blockchain, providing valuable insights, career advice, and perspectives on technology's role in financial services.

To read more about Rashmi and other inspiring leaders featured in this comprehensive report, click here to view or download the full PDF.

Rashmi Melgiri is the CEO and Co-Founder of Functional Finance, a company dedicated to revolutionizing the financial operations of insurance providers. Before founding Functional Finance, Rashmi co-founded CoverWallet, a groundbreaking tech company that transformed the $100B commercial insurance market for small businesses. CoverWallet’s success culminated in its acquisition by Aon, where Rashmi continued to drive innovation.

Rashmi holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. As a female minority leader in the tech and insurance sectors, she is passionate about supporting women in STEM fields. Rashmi’s drive to start Functional Finance stemmed from her firsthand experience managing the back office at CoverWallet, particularly post-acquisition by Aon, where she recognized the challenges of manual operations and sought to create a solution.

How did you begin your career and what led you to founding Functional Finance? How did your experience founding and successfully exiting CoverWallet shape the way you have built out Functional Finance?

My career began in a field called “Economic Litigation Consulting.” It's something most people have never heard of, but it's super impactful. Anytime the DOJ or the FTC is determining anti-trust violations or merger approvals, they rely on the analysis of these firms to prove or disprove the claims. I was a 21-year-old working on these types of cases using econometric modeling. I later went into management consulting. While I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur, I had the mindset that “once I had the right idea...” I would do it. Later on, a good friend of mine showed me that it's also fine to decide you want to be an entrepreneur, and then find the idea. That’s how CoverWallet was born.

The experience of founding and successfully exiting CoverWallet influenced so much about my second company, Functional Finance. Well, most obviously, Functional Finance is the FinTech platform I wished had existed when I was running CoverWallet. Managing the flow of funds in insurance is, for many, a laborious, manual effort, and the tech solutions are non-existent. I wanted to change that. In addition to inspiring the product, CoverWallet also taught me the importance of hiring the best and building that group of individuals into a team that trusts and respects each other. The problems we are working on are so complex that we have to have the best minds working on them collaboratively. CoverWallet also taught me to listen intently to customers—they are really the only thing that matters. If you’re not solving customers’ problems, you don’t have a company. Finally, CoverWallet gave me the muscle memory to "build for success." Rather than developing tons of operational or tech debt just hoping that the company will get to the next milestone, we build assuming success here.

What is the breadth of automation solutions that Functional Finance provides? What key pain points does the platform solve for insurance companies?

At its core, Functional Finance is streamlining how money in insurance moves. We streamline premium collection (collecting funds) and disbursements (paying commissions and ceded premium). When a policy changes mid-term, the platform automatically recalculates every financial domino—from premium adjustments to commission clawbacks. What once took days happens in seconds. The platform's intelligence extends beyond basic calculations. When a policy cancels, it automatically initiates commission clawbacks, adjusts premium allocations, and handles refund processing—all while maintaining strict compliance with non-commingling requirements.

AI is obviously a hot topic in the industry - how are you thinking about this technology strategically? Is there anything on your product roadmap leveraging AI?

AI’s value lies in solving tangible operational headaches—like the ones I experienced firsthand at CoverWallet—and unlocking new strategic advantages.

We’re streamlining financial operations, such as automating reconciliation by intelligently matching payments to invoices. We’re also building AI-powered tools to extract key information from policy documents, reducing the need for manual data entry.

Beyond automation, we see AI as a game-changer for underwriting and risk management. With the extensive payment data we process, we believe we can provide underwriters with new insights into payment behaviors—an often-overlooked but powerful pricing signal. By transforming financial data into a strategic asset, we can help insurers price risk more effectively.

What do you see as some of the challenges in using AI in your business, regarding regulatory, legal or compliance considerations?

AI holds enormous potential in the property and casualty space, but the main challenges around its adoption will come from change management. Traditionally, fund allocation and movement have been handled by people or by highly customized technology developed specifically for each company. This customization makes companies hesitant to transition to AI-driven solutions. Moving to AI requires a shift from having humans perform every action to auditing a smaller sample of actions.

This shift is also challenging because the consequences of mistakes in such a highly regulated environment can be significant. For example, if funds aren’t applied to the right policy and a policy cancels, it could result in a lawsuit. So, while the transition is challenging, the importance of careful change management is clear.

As a successful leader, what values do you instill in your team in order to shape company culture?

Communication is probably the most important value I instill. This is the ability to be direct and say exactly what you mean as well as being responsible for whether you are understood. That last one is tricky, but it's something I cannot stress enough for high-functioning teams. It's not enough to say the thing, you have to make sure the thing was heard and understood.

My team probably gets sick of me belaboring explanations and repeatedly asking “ok, now you explain that back to me.” I think it's super effective for getting stuff done. It's the way high performing kitchens work (think: The Bear)—the chef calls out something, and often the staff repeats it back as a way of giving everyone involved comfort that the message was received.

What obstacles or challenges have you faced in your career and how did you overcome them?

Early on in my career, I over-indexed on likability. I worried a lot about whether my bosses and peers liked me and avoided any conflict, even intellectual debate, which I thought might lead to a loss of affinity in relationships. I focused on executing what I was told rather than expressing my own point of view. Over time, I got tired of feeling like I was producing inferior work and began to test speaking up more. I built my confidence by working hard and knowing my material thoroughly, so I could be confident in my contributions.

It's like that Steve Martin quote: “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”

Eventually, I learned to speak up and share my ideas, even if they weren’t fully formed, and became comfortable with being wrong. The key to overcoming this was building a strong track record and believing in myself, so I could be more relaxed about speaking up.

And it’s also important to recognize that likability is important—it's hard to get stuff done if people don’t want to interact with you. But have the confidence in your own personality and character to know that people will like you for you—not because you agree with them.

Advice for Women Interested in FinTech

My advice to women in the FinTech sector is to ignore the stereotypes and tropes about how women should behave in finance or in tech. Just be yourself and focus on what’s effective for you. Concentrate on doing good work and don’t worry about how others perceive you. Men often succeed because they have the confidence to be themselves, and that’s the most important thing you can do as well. Just be confident and authentic.