This week’s developments in women’s leadership across the finance circle back to one central point: meritocracy remains a contested space. New behavioural evidence from the London School of Economics shows how gender still colours performance assessments, while global institutions highlight women already steering the industry’s most strategically significant transformations. 

At the same time, Hong Kong’s regulatory advances and new leadership programmes from major banks signal how structural reforms can accelerate progress when designed intentionally. Let’s take a closer look at what is defining the agenda in early November.

When competence is misread

The LSE’s final report from the four-year Accelerating Change Together (ACT) programme delivered one of the sharpest demonstrations of gender bias in financial services to date. In a controlled experiment, finance professionals rated a fictitious “Stephanie” as less competent than an identically performing “Stephen,” with bias particularly pronounced among male evaluators. This underscores an industry-wide problem, where women’s performance is still being judged through assumptions rather than evidence.

ACT’s conclusion unveils that firms need to rebuild the mechanisms that allocate opportunity, visibility, and voice if they want a functioning meritocracy. The report outlines practical steps — structured feedback systems, bias-resistant leadership training, stronger sponsorship networks, and better protection against “groupthink” dynamics. Without these fixes, talent continues to be mispriced.

Women redefining financial leadership

Against this backdrop, 2025’s American Banker’s ranking of the Most Powerful Women in Finance shows how women are already leading at the frontier of market transformation. Highlights include:

• Mary Callahan Erdoes, JPMorgan Chase, is embedding AI across a 30,000-person business and steering one of the world’s most influential wealth platforms.

• Abigail Johnson, Fidelity Investments, is pushing digital assets into the institutional mainstream through Fidelity Digital Assets.

• Adena Friedman, Nasdaq, is expanding the exchange into a global technology and compliance powerhouse.

• Thasunda Brown Duckett, TIAA, is widening access to lifetime income solutions during volatile market conditions.

• Emily Portney, BNY, is positioning the custodian at the centre of the emerging on-chain finance ecosystem.

These leaders are not ancillary to change; they are shaping the critical levers of the industry’s next cycle — AI, tokenisation, retirement security, market infrastructure, and digital asset custody.

Where policy accelerates progress

Hong Kong’s financial sector continues its rapid advance towards parity, with women now holding 45% of senior roles and 37% of board seats. Summarised as the “VOICES” framework, the latest KPMG report attributes this progress to a set of societal enablers. It also highlights regulatory measures such as the ban on single-gender boards and mandatory gender reporting. Yet the “mid-career dip” persists, signalling the need for better flexibility, stronger allyship, and targeted retention strategies.

This week also saw Banco Santander launch the 16th edition of its SW50 leadership programme, delivered with the London School of Economics. The initiative seeks the top 50 international women executives. In doing so, it reinforces a tendency: global banks are now investing directly in senior-female leadership pipelines rather than treating diversity as a compliance exercise. This shift, from symbolic programmes to structural talent acceleration, will be one of the metrics to watch over the coming year.

Conclusion

What all these findings collectively signify is a shift from rhetoric to redesign. The financial sector is finally recognising that diversity is not an HR accessory but a competitiveness issue, as when bias distorts performance, capital allocation, and leadership pipelines suffer. Given this, we believe the industry’s next phase of growth will be driven by organisations willing to treat gender equity as core infrastructure, instead of a side initiative.