Women in Technology: Informed.IQ’s Jessica Gonzalez

In what is a recurring feature, Finopotamus spotlights innovative women who are positively impacting technology applications in the credit union industry, and beyond.

In the latest installment in our “Women in Technology” series, we visited with Informed.IQ’s General Manager of Auto and Vice President of Customer Success Jessica Gonzalez. The San Francisco-based fintech bills itself as funding more loans faster and reducing risk and fraud by automating the originations process, utilizing AI and machine learning (ML).

By W.B. King

While she has more than 20 years of experience in digital transformation, automation, and AI within financial services, when Jessica Gonzalez attended the University of Texas at Dallas in the early 2000s, she had different career goals.

“I originally thought I would become a polymer engineer and changed majors in 2004 after my first internship at Perot Systems [now a part of Dell Technologies], where I realized I was more drawn to the business side of technology,” Gonzalez, who earned a Bachelor of Science degree, told Finopotamus. “What drew me in was the opportunity to solve real operational problems through technology, while improving both the customer and employee experience. I’ve always been passionate about finding smarter, faster, and more human-centered ways to work.”

Jessica Gonzalez

After three years with Perot Systems working as a business process analyst, Gonzalez spent nearly 11 years at Visa. Roles there included operations senior analysts (CyberSource) and serving as a senior business leader in the company’s corporate financial planning and analysis division. Along the way, she earned an MBA from West Texas A&M University. Before joining Informed.IQ in 2022, she was the director of digital strategy at Santander Consumer USA.

Lead Authentically

Today, she sees more women working in fintech and at credit unions, especially in leadership, product, fraud, and technology strategy roles, than when she entered the space.

“There’s still progress to be made, but I’ve seen a real shift toward women having a stronger voice in executive decision-making and innovation initiatives,” she shared. “One of the biggest changes is the visibility of female leaders mentoring and sponsoring other women coming into the industry, which creates a much stronger pipeline for future leadership.”

Several of the credit unions Informed.IQ works with, she added, are led by majority-women executive teams. “There’s a unique energy and openness in those environments that stands out immediately,” Gonzalez said. She also stressed the importance of authentic leadership, strong collaboration, and cultures where people feel comfortable bringing their full personalities into the workplace, while still driving incredibly smart, strategic conversations.

Throughout her career, several leaders were champions, encouraging her to trust her voice and to step into leadership opportunities, even before she felt ready to do so. “That support helped shape my confidence and leadership style,” she reflected, noting that if she could mentor her younger self, she would have earned that engineering degree. “I try to pay that forward through mentorship, leadership organizations, and by creating environments where people feel empowered to lead authentically and bring new ideas to the table.”

Creating a Convincing Fake

Among tech trends on her radar are solutions that address deepfakes and AI-generated documents. Too many C-level leaders, she explained, don’t think deepfakes apply to their organization.

“The tools driving this threat are no longer expensive or technical. The same generative AI that helps someone write a cover letter can now produce a paystub, bank statement, or employment letter that is virtually indistinguishable from a genuine document,” she noted. “The barrier to creating a convincing fake has essentially disappeared.”

Referencing Informed.IQ’s 2026 Auto Finance Fraud Intelligence Survey, she explained that 75% of lenders reported fraud increasing over the past twelve months, and 80% said they have only “slight or no confidence” that their current verification systems can detect a GenAI-created counterfeit pay stub. “Only 5% described themselves as highly confident. That should give every credit union leader pause.”

Since the credit union industry has a relationship-driven, member-first culture based on trust, she said these institutions become “attractive targets” for bad actors.

“They count on goodwill and the institutional desire to say yes to move fraudulent applications through before inconsistencies surface. And many credit unions operate with lean underwriting teams that simply cannot manually scrutinize every document in every deal jacket,” she continued. “The losses from AI-generated document fraud often don't surface until three to six months later through early-stage delinquencies, well after the window for intervention has closed. That delayed signal is what makes this threat so operationally dangerous.”

A Resilient Verification Posture

The reason credit unions benefit from working with fintechs like Informed.IQ, Gonzalez noted, is because fraud detection needs to be viewed as a “continuously evolving discipline,” rather than “a compliance checkbox.” Pointing back to the Survey, she added that 72% of lenders said they would reallocate more than a quarter of their underwriting staff to higher-value tasks if they could achieve 99% confidence in automated verification.

“The credit unions best positioned going forward are the ones that connect fraud prevention to member growth. When you can screen 100% of income documents in real time rather than sampling a fraction manually, you approve more qualified members faster while catching fraud your current process misses,” she said. “Those two outcomes are not intension. Building toward both at the same time is what a resilient verification posture actually looks like.”