Jenny Just, co-founder of Peak6 Investments and visionary behind Poker Power, has found a unique and shockingly effective way to empower women in male-dominated fields. With a career spanning over two decades in finance and technology, Just has made significant strides not only in business but also in the fight for true financial and cultural gender equality. Her distinctive approach involves teaching women and girls to play poker—a game traditionally played by men—to develop crucial skills such as risk assessment, strategic thinking, and confidence. What started as a small experiment soon evolved into an initiative that has reached over 280 companies in more than 40 countries.
Worth recently spoke with Just about her business philosophy and how she helps women and girls build their confidence. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
When did you know you wanted to teach women and girls to play poker? Why?
I started because of my daughter, who was losing a tennis match…Her dad was watching her play, and she was losing, even though she was probably the better athlete. He was frustrated that she was losing, but he didn’t want to tell her. So he came home and let his frustration out with me. [He] said she just hadn’t realized that she was playing against someone who’s thinking and strategizing based on not only what they brought to the game but also what’s happening in the game. He said she needed to learn to play poker.
I thought he was crazy. And by the way, he didn’t play poker either. Two weeks later, I taught my 14-year-old daughter to play. It [really] bothered me that I was asking the question of whether I should teach her because I wouldn’t have asked that question about my sons; I have three boys as well. So, we did an experiment with 10 Girls—my daughter and nine of her friends.
From lesson one to lesson four, literally the skies opened; it was that impactful. What those girls experienced and what I saw in [them] really was about their confidence. It grew [exponentially] from lesson one to lesson four—we’re talking about four one-hour lessons.
As to why, I’ve always known I was looking for something. My business of options trading and back-end technology is not super relatable, and I had not been a public person. I always knew that if I had something tangible that could really benefit women around money and taking risks…I would do it. When I started to learn, I realized: here it is. This silly little card game called poker was really the answer. For women to get comfortable taking risks, allocating capital, [and] strategizing, it could really change their whole approach to this idea of perfection and what it means to fail—and pick yourself back up again. Men and boys are practicing this for 10 years before they get to the workplace.
People say women are more risk-averse when it comes to investing. And I’ve noticed that this is often framed as a positive thing. What are your thoughts on that?
It’s a stat I would hope we would get away from…In poker, every hand is a risk. Which hands am I going to play? …If I never get a good hand, which is possible, I could be sitting for an hour [waiting]. Am I not going to play? If [I walk] into a meeting, and the perfect situation never happens, I never open my mouth, am I going to be asked to the next meeting? Maybe. But what about the next one? And the next one? I have to figure out how to play even when I don’t have a good hand. And those are risks that we have to start to take over and over and over again.
What do you feel are the outside forces shaping your business the most right now?
The outside forces are always technology and people. We are constantly forcing ourselves to compete with the person who’s in the garage, who’s thinking about new ways of trying to solve problems.
The difference between good and great is amazing people. [We want] to find those people, educate those people, and have them bring us their expertise from their experiences…Since the market changed in April of 2022, there have been unique opportunities to get fabulous people because of all the layoffs. We’re fortunate at Peak6 to have a lot of people stay for a really long time, but we also don’t want to be insular, and we know we can learn a lot from great people.
How do you keep tabs on what the people in their garages are working on?
I try to become my own worst competitor—or best competitor—however you want to say that. But if I wanted to beat me, I think, “what would I do?”
How do you measure success for yourself?
It always starts with financial because we’re a for-profit company. But we’ve had the good fortune of having financial success, which has led us to be able to do some of those other non-financial, [impactful] things—like Poker Power. Poker Power is about getting a million women and girls to play poker, and ultimately, that’s not a financial metric.
What keeps you awake at night? How do you prepare for those challenges that you’re anticipating?
Definitely complacency. We’ve been around for 27 years now, and our trading business has never had a losing year, which is quite extraordinary. But it’s easy to take things for granted when you are on a winning team. We want the next generation of people to come into Peak6 to have that entrepreneurial spirit that allows us to succeed for 27 more years.
Our mantra here at Worth is “Worth Beyond Wealth.” Does that resonate with you, and if so, in what capacity?
I think what’s most interesting to me about it, at least at this time and place, is that “worth,” or I’ll call it a sort of “non-monetary value creation,” comes in all different sizes, shapes, and packages. I think it can come from top-down ideas. I think it comes from bottom-up ideas. I think it can come in unexpected ways. But we have to look for them and then acknowledge them when they come. What we’re doing through poker is a perfect example. It was completely unexpected and non-traditional, and I’m hoping your readers open their eyes to how we are making young girls and women feel about themselves. That is true worth.
If you could give our readers one piece of advice to help make the world a better place, what would it be?
Play poker. I eat my own cooking and I know how valuable it has become to me. I say this all the time. If I had learned poker years ago, I would have saved 10 years of losses and failures in my career for sure. I would totally have thought about [everything] differently.
The other thing is, I will tell them to be selfish. But not in the traditional way of being selfish. You are a unique, independent, thinking human, and you have different ideas. The reason why Peak6 exists and has employed however many thousands of people over the years and accomplished what it’s accomplished is because I was there. Myself and my co-founder brought two totally different thought processes to the entity.
Do you have any advice for how people can trust that their opinions and ideas are valid and worth sharing?
If you think it’s valid, it’s valid. It actually doesn’t matter what other people think.
