When Kat Cloud started her career at the Financial Conduct Authority, she was helping write the rules financial companies were expected to follow. Eventually, she moved to the other side.

After leaving the regulator, Kat joined fintech and found herself implementing some of the same rules she had previously helped create. This changed the way she thought about regulation: a requirement that makes sense on paper can look very different when a company actually has to build around it.

We’re glad to welcome Kat, now Head of Government Relations at Sumsub, as the guest of Episode 8 of the Women Leading the Way podcast!

In the new episode, Kat joins host Maria Tunikova to discuss her path from financial regulation to fintech, and why communication between policymakers and technology companies matters when rules meet real products and real users.

Today, much of Kat’s work centres on digital identity and fraud prevention. And this is one of the areas changing particularly fast.

Sumsub has reported a 180% year-on-year rise in sophisticated identity fraud. As fraud becomes harder to detect, verification systems also need to get stricter. So, one of the questions Kat wonders about is how much friction should legitimate users have to go through just to prove who they are?

In addition, Kat discusses why trusted digital identity infrastructure may play a much larger role in the coming years and why governments, regulators and private companies all need to participate in shaping it.

But, of course, the episode also comes back to the topic at the heart of Women Leading the Way: women in fintech.

Looking back over her career, Kat has noticed an important shift in the role women play in fintech and policy. More women, she says, are entering the room as genuine subject-matter experts — people who have done the research, understand the details and are ready to shape the discussion themselves.

Her own confidence developed in much the same way. It came from experience, mistakes, continuous learning and forcing herself into situations that once felt uncomfortable.

That is also behind her advice to women who want to enter fintech, regulation or policy: do not wait until you feel like an expert. The industry will keep changing anyway. Instead, Kat recommends staying curious, doing the research, building relationships and continuing to learn as the market develops.

Listen to Episode 8 of the Women Leading the Way podcast with Kat Cloud on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube Music!