By Valentina Drofa, Founder and CEO at Drofa Comms. She is a financial market consultant, international entrepreneur, and business leader with over 15 years of experience.
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The story of women pushing into male-oriented industries like finance is not new at this point, and, if we look at the numbers, the narrative even appears to be improving. In the U.S. banking sector, for example, women account for over 50% of the overall workforce. In the UK, they’ve been slowly building up presence in senior positions, reaching 36% in 2024.
So progress is clearly happening. But that is still a very slow measure of it, and in practice, it can feel even smaller. Even today, there are far too many industry gatherings where women are in the minority. Too many executive rooms where they can be counted on one hand.
It’s a familiar feeling, and one that raises an important question: if more women are entering finance, why do so few of them reach the top levels?
Where the Pipeline Breaks
As a founder of my own business myself, I admittedly never run into this issue directly, but listening to conversations with my peers showed that many women end up running into more invisible barriers the closer they get to senior positions.
Financial markets have a long-standing history of being primarily focused on men, and that legacy lingers on even today. There are many pre-established networks and informal conversations happening behind closed doors that women often simply don’t have access to. This results in unequal opportunities and fewer chances for female employees to prove themselves, even when they have competence and ambition both.
The way I see it, this is also why diversity commitments tend to halt along the way without always translating into real change. Many companies today genuinely want to improve gender representation, but too often they focus on entry-level positions or general workplace culture without going all the way to the logical end.
Why? Because simply bringing more women into the industry is simpler than rethinking how leadership itself is defined. Especially when we consider that the original models were shaped decades ago and have yet to truly catch up with the realities of the modern workforce.
If women are to break through this barrier, early sponsorship is needed. Access to environments where their leadership potential can be recognized early on and supported consistently as they go up the career ladder.
In other words, we need to dig more deeply. Now let’s look at how that can be done.
What Needs to Change In Practice
From my own observations, there are at least three key areas where real change can take place.
First of all, organizations need to change how they operate in practice. Women need leaders who actively advocate for and support their advancement. Who can recommend them, back them, and open those closed doors — not just guide them from the sidelines. Advice and mentorship are valuable in their own right, but it’s through concrete action that careers can change.
Secondly, more attention needs to be given to visibility. As I already mentioned, women still remain underrepresented at many industry events where a lot of key discussions and crucial networking take place. Visibility is the same as influence: if you’re not in the room, you’re not part of the conversation.
That’s why more women need to be actively invited to speak at such venues and contribute to real discussions. It means companies recommending their female workers for conferences and media commentaries; giving them opportunities to be seen speaking on behalf of organizations.
Over time, this will help shape perceptions: female representatives will increasingly become the norm, leading to greater trust and reputation building. And that, in turn, will lead to women being taken seriously when candidates for leadership are considered.
Finally, more companies also need to start looking more closely at how decisions are actually made at the top. Who is present in the room? Who is listened to the most and why? What are the actual criteria that determine if someone is deserving of senior roles? Are their promotions the result of subconscious familiarity or that person’s actual competence?
These are uncomfortable questions to ask, but they are also necessary ones. Even stepping outside of the female agenda, companies need to be very deliberate about who they bring into leadership. Because the perspective of these people can — and does — shape the course of entire organizations, affecting hundreds (maybe even thousands) of people who work there.
In the past, there have been quite a few cases where market research showed clearly how women can bring greater flexibility and cohesion to top management teams. This is a competitive advantage no smart business should pass up.
Why This Became Personal
To be honest, it took me a while to start paying real attention, but a few years ago, I realized that many conversations around women in finance and fintech were still either too formal or too distant from real experiences. Organizations had gender quotas, regulators had their policies and reports, but one thing I didn’t see enough of were direct, honest human stories.
This realization led me to create an initiative of my own that focused on giving female professionals in this space a voice. The idea was simple — to build a space where women could come together and talk, share experiences, and support each other: with advice, professional networking, or even just the simple knowledge that they are seen and heard.
What surprised me most was the sheer strength of the response. Women certainly reached out: with success stories, with doubts, with challenges and questions they didn’t feel comfortable voicing in other settings. But, just as notably, a lot of men stepped in too. They would recommend colleagues for our discussions and share their own perspectives — showing clearly that this is not, in fact, a “women-only” issue. It’s an industry-wide issue.
Because the plain truth is: finance does not have enough women at the top not because they lack ability. It’s because the whole system was not designed with enough flexibility or support at that level.
And this is something we can change. If we come together and move beyond surface-level solutions.
