Written by Jorida Zeneli, Partner at Pretian Squared
Fintech has long positioned itself as a disruptive force reshaping how we bank, invest and interact with money. In 2025 alone, it attracted approximately US$116 billion in global investment1. Built on innovation, agility and future-focused thinking it promises to challenge legacy systems. Yet when it comes to who builds and leads it, the sector looks remarkably traditional, reflecting the same structural inequities it claims to disrupt.
Women remain significantly under-represented across fintech leadership. They account for approximately 7 % of (co-)founders, under one fifth of executive committee members and only 4% of CEOs2.
These figures point to a broader pattern: even in high growth industries, innovation alone does not guarantee inclusion.
The triple glass ceiling in fintech leadership
The concept of the “triple glass ceiling” coined by academic researchers and co-authors Fox-Robertson and Wójcik explains why meaningful progress remains elusive. In fintech, the barriers do not exist in isolation, they compound across the systems where fintech sits: finance, technology and entrepreneurship – industries that have historically limited women’s access to leadership, capital and influence.
Across my career spanning consulting, venture-backed start-ups, government and board roles, I have seen this pattern play out repeatedly. The issue is not capability. It is access, when and where it matters the most: at critical career moments, at funding rounds, at executive appointments or board-level decisions.
Individual progression meets institutional stagnation
Women are more educated than ever before3. More are building careers across finance and technology and the number of women stepping into senior roles increases each year. Yet despite all this, parity remains distant across fintech.
In my own journey, high-stakes environments often meant operating where decision-making power appeared distributed, but in practice it is not. You can be in the room, contributing at a senior level, and still find that influence is out of reach, shaped by relationships, history and proximity, rather than merit.
This is exactly where careers stall – not from lack of readiness or capability, but from limited visibility to the next layer of opportunity.
Access to capital and networks
Access to capital remains one of fintech’s most persistent barriers. Funding decisions hinge not only on idea or metrics but on pattern recognition: what feels familiar, what resembles past success and who gets a seat within established networks. For women founders, this creates an uneven starting point.
The same applies to networks more broadly. Many pivotal conversations occur informally through investor circles, industry connections and long-standing relationships – spaces that are often exclusive and male dominated. Without deliberate effort to open them up, they continue to reinforce existing dynamics.
Redefining leadership in fintech
Fintech has inherited leadership norms from both finance and technology, industries that have traditionally rewarded a particular communications style, risk-taking behaviour and authority traits.
But effective leadership, especially in complex and evolving sectors, is broader than that.
My work across industries from digital health to climate tech has reinforced the importance of adaptability and long-term value creation. These capabilities are critical to building sustainable businesses, yet they are not always the ones most visibly rewarded.
Expanding how leadership is recognised is not about changing standards. It is about aligning them with what the industry needs to succeed.
Gender diversity driving positive disruption and improved outcomes
Fintech products shape how we interact with money, how we save, invest, borrow, the risks we take and how we build financial security. When teams designing these systems do not reflect the diversity of their users, blind spots are inevitable.
In advising organisations on pricing, monetisation and growth, I’ve seen how small assumptions can scale into significant limitations. Entire customer segments can be overlooked, not through intent, but through structural bias – from how problems are framed to how solutions are designed. The questions we ask and who they are designed for shape the entire process, from value creation to value capture. The data we rely on also carries historical biases. When translated into machine learning models trained on past patterns, these biases risk being encoded and amplified, reinforcing existing inequalities, further limiting the value that can be unlocked.
Diversity is not just a social consideration. It’s linked to better decision-making, stronger innovation and superior commercial outcomes.
If fintech is serious about disruption, it needs to apply that same thinking internally – designing leadership pathways that don’t rely on informal access, making sponsorship intentional, strengthening role modelling and mentoring and broadening how potential and success are identified, measured and recognised. When organisations take this seriously, progress accelerates across multiple fronts: in representation, performance and culture.
From awareness to action – where the glass begins to crack
There is reason to be optimistic. In Australia and globally, the conversation has shifted beyond acknowledging inequality to examining the structures that sustain it. Awareness is only a starting point. Progress depends on how access is designed, who is funded, who is promoted and who is included in the decisions that shape the industry.
The barriers facing women in fintech have never been about capability. They are structural. And structures, unlike talent, can be redesigned.
Breaking the triple glass ceiling will require deliberate, consistent choices that expand access and opportunity, open pathways to leadership and redistribute influence in meaningful ways.
About the Research & Citations
- Pulse of Fintech H2’25, Global Analysis of Investment in Fintech, KPMG International (data provided by PitchBook), *as of 31 December 2025
- https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/finance-and-society/article/triple-glass-ceiling-fintech-gender-inequalities/9E992CDA498B409C902A1440B29AE70D
- Key findings from the 2024 Higher Education Student Statistics
- Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) data – Finance Industry sub-division 2024-2025
About the author:
Jorida Zeneli is Partner at Pretian Squared, a Sydney‑based consultancy specialising in pricing, monetisation and commercial growth. Jori is a strategist and change‑maker with more than 15 years’ experience driving transformation across start‑ups, government, non‑profits and consulting. She brings deep expertise in digital health, pharma, VC‑backed start‑ups, and tech consulting to Pretian Squared.
As founder also of a platform focused on burnout prevention, Jorida combines commercial discipline with measurable social impact. Jorida serves on not-for-profit boards and actively supports women-focused organisations in advancing women leadership, economic participation and wellbeing.
A graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, she studied economics, public policy, and business in Germany, Italy, and the US. She brings a global perspective, a commitment for implementation that sticks and a proven record of guiding organisations toward sustainable growth and positive change.
