Women in Technology: Chargeback911’s Monica Eaton

Throughout the month of March, Finopotamus will celebrate Women’s History Month by featuring intriguing profiles and unique stories impacting the credit union and fintech industry. In the latest installment in our “Women in Technology” series, we visited with Chargebacks911 Founder and CEO Monica Eaton.

By W.B. King

While operating an e-commerce business in the early 2000s, Monica Eaton began seeing an uptick in chargebacks. At the time, her career trajectory was tech adjacent, but as the proverb states: necessity is the mother of invention.

“There were very few tools available to help merchants understand or manage disputes effectively. What started as a business problem quickly became a technology challenge,” she told Finopotamus. “I became deeply interested in how data, automation and better system design could reduce friction across the payments ecosystem. That curiosity, combined with frustration at the lack of practical solutions, ultimately led me to build Chargebacks911 and later Fi911.”

Monica Eaton

Founded in 2011, the Tampa Bay, Fla.-based company bills itself as developing the world’s first end-to-end chargeback management solution for merchants. Eight years later, Eaton launched Fi911, a subsidiary that provides solutions for financial institutions (FIs), including credit unions. Today, the company has more than 100 FI clients.

When Finopotamus asked Eaton what shift in ideology and management she has experienced since starting her career, she said the technology space is more proactive than reactive. “Earlier in my career, many technology teams were viewed primarily as back-office support functions. Today, strong tech organizations are embedded directly into business strategy and risk management discussions,” she noted. “That evolution has been especially important in payments and fraud prevention, where speed and data visibility matter enormously.”

Another area of positive change centers on a hallmark of the credit union movement: collaboration. “Cross-functional teams are far more common now, and there is greater recognition that customer experience, risk and technology cannot operate in silos,” Eaton shared. “Management styles have become more agile and iterative, which better reflects the pace of change in financial services.”

Providing Practical Guidance

While Eaton said there is more visible participation by women in technology and fintech today opposed to 20 years ago, which she finds encouraging, the majority of positions are at the mid-career level. “Representation still becomes thinner at the most senior technical and executive decision-making levels. The pipeline is improving, but it is not yet fully balanced.”

The noted pipeline, however, has been freed from many obstructions due to senior leaderships’ commitment to conversations centered on merit-based inclusion. “Organizations are more willing to examine hiring pipelines, mentorship structures and promotion pathways,” she continued. “I am also seeing more women entering payments and risk-focused roles, which historically were quite male-dominated. Continued progress will depend on sustained focus.”

Throughout her career, Eaton has been fortunate to work alongside a number of experienced operators and industry leaders. These folks, she noted, were generous with their time and perspectives at key moments.

“Rather than a single formal mentor, my growth came from a network of people who challenged my thinking and encouraged me to question assumptions,” she said. “That experience strongly shaped how I approach mentorship today. One of the most important ways I try to pay it forward is through structured micro-mentoring and industry education initiatives focused on helping women navigate real-world career decisions in fintech and payments.”

Explaining that the company has more than 350 employees, her management approach includes providing practical guidance at the onset of a career. “This can significantly change someone’s trajectory, and I believe leaders have a responsibility to make that access more consistent,” Eaton noted.

Creating a Better Member Experience

In recent years, Eaton said her team has focused on helping gain clearer visibility into the true sources of disputes and first-party fraud. To this end, through Fi911 and its DisputeLab platform, the company helps FIs across the globe streamline back-office dispute workflows, improve case management efficiency and provide better data intelligence.

“So, institutions can make faster, more informed decisions. Credit unions, in particular, benefit from tools that reduce manual burden, while maintaining strong member experience standards,” she continued. “The goal is to help institutions move from reactive dispute handling toward more proactive risk and member support strategies.”

Among tech trends on Eaton’s radar is the “growing maturity around intelligent automation combined with better behavioral data analysis.” This marriage, she added, has allowed the industry to move beyond simple rules-based systems and toward more adaptive environments that can identify patterns across the full dispute lifecycle.

“When implemented thoughtfully, this allows financial institutions to reduce unnecessary friction for legitimate customers while identifying higher-risk behavior earlier in the process,” she noted. “I am also encouraged by the increasing focus on ecosystem-level visibility. Payments do not operate in isolation, and technology that connects issuers, acquirers and merchants more intelligently has the potential to reduce disputes significantly over time.”

Applauding the credit union industry’s member-first mindset, which influences how they evaluate and adopt technology, Eaton said credit unions are always looking for solutions that balance operational efficiency with member experience in a deliberate manner.

“They tend to ask thoughtful questions about transparency, long-term value and service impact rather than focusing purely on short-term cost reduction,” she shared. “From a technology partner perspective, that often leads to more collaborative implementation conversations and a stronger focus on practical outcomes for the end user.”

For the credit union movement to continue to thrive, especially considering the pace of change in payments and fraud, which requires a level of specialization, she said it’s important that credit unions collaborate with like-minded fintechs.

“When credit unions partner with fintechs that understand their member-centric philosophy, they can accelerate innovation while still preserving the trust and service quality that differentiate the credit union model,” she said.

“The most successful partnerships I have seen are the ones where both sides are aligned on outcomes,” Eaton told Finopotamus. “When the fintech understands the operational realities of the institution, and the institution is open to modernizing legacy workflows, the result is usually faster improvement and a better member experience.”