July 2026 — Women Leading the Way Digest: Appointments, Meetings and Female VC Funds

July did not present a single surprising headline on women in finance and fintech, and yet the month turned out to be significant for its news. While the market was actively waiting for the Federal Reserve's signals, the real work continued behind the scenes at the level of specific decisions.

Here's what happened, and why it matters in our June Women Leading the Way digest.

Technological leadership in banks is shifting to women

In July, two major banks announced the appointment of women to technology leadership positions. The first was Standard Chartered, which appointed Kavita Kulkarni to the position of Chief Technology and Operations Officer for India and South Asia. She joined the bank with 25 years of experience in the financial sector, including a recent role as CIO of Private Banking and wealth management at Barclays.

Almost on the same day, Associated Banc-Corp announced the appointment of Brianna Elsass to the post of EVP and Chief Digital Officer. She previously headed digital strategy at BMO, and before that worked at Wells Fargo, Capital One and Discover.

Both appointments are very good news for the industry, as we see how banks are increasingly entrusting women with the technological and operational contours of the business. Research shows that many of them occupy mostly marketing roles, as technological leadership in banks was almost exclusively a male zone.

Web3 continues to build its own infrastructure for women

On July 21-22, the Blockchain Futurist Conference was held in Toronto, one of the largest Web3 events in North America, and, as part of Canada Crypto Week, the fifth ETHWomen was held, an event entirely dedicated to women in blockchain, crypto and AI.

Among the speakers this year were Stacy Worden (CEO of the Algorand Foundation), Jamie Leverton (CEO of ReserveOne) and Lisa Laud (executive director of the Secret Network). That said, it was not a niche networking event, but about a platform where the current heads of large crypto and blockchain organisations speak. The event brought together the networks CryptoChicks, SheFi, the Association for Women in Cryptocurrency and several other communities working with women in Web3.

Month after month, similar initiatives (Blockchain4Her in June, for instance) show that the crypto industry recognises that access to networks and capital does not build on its own simply because the technology is decentralised. So, this needs to be done purposefully, and thanks to these events, female voices can become louder.

Indian venture creates a separate fund for female founders

3one4 Capital, together with British International Investment, launched the $15 million IIDEA fund, aimed at female founders, entrepreneurs from small towns in India, and startups in underfunded sectors such as energy, healthcare, agriculture, and deep tech.

The initiators of the fund explain that female startups in India receive about ₹4 out of every ₹100 of venture capital, and among venture fund partners, women make up only about 16%. The fund has already been fully assembled (BII is the only LP) and managed to close the first few transactions with a check of about $500 thousand each.

This fits into the broader picture that we have already seen in our previous materials. Female recognition is coming faster than real access to capital, and targeted funds are still perhaps the only working tool to change this.

The financial wage gap remains a stubborn figure

In Ireland, the annual Women in Finance Charter (RTÉ) report was released in July. And the numbers were not as good as expected. The average wage gap between men and women in charter signatory companies was 16%.

At the same time, the share of women in positions on the boards of directors of participating companies increased only by 2.1 percentage points over the year to 38.4%. So, the gap in pay and bonuses, according to the report, has rather stalled in the last year, and even slightly increased in some indicators. And that means representation is growing faster than the gap in remuneration is closing.

The picture is similar in the USA. A Financial Planning survey showed that female financial advisers receive about 56 cents for every dollar earned by male colleagues in the same profession. And almost half of the male respondents earn from $300,000 a year compared to less than a third of women. This is despite the fact that the proportion of women among young consultants is growing from year to year.

The reports only confirm that representation on paper no longer guarantees proportional access to money and power within the industry. And that should make us all think about how to balance female visibility with equal pay.

Conclusion

As we already mentioned, July did not bring any sensations. However, it set a steady pattern of women increasingly occupying technological and operational top positions in banks.

At the same time, the crypto community continued to build its own support infrastructure instead of relying on the inclusivity of decentralised technologies, and venture capital is point-wise but still turning to female founders in emerging markets.

At Drofa Comms, we think real progress happens when industries stop treating women's success stories as exceptions and start building systems in which they're the norm. July gave us both the exceptions and the reminder of how much system-building is still left to do.

We'll keep tracking what's happening and keep you in the loop.

June 2026 — Women Leading the Way Digest: Appointments, Regulation, and the Fragile Progress of Representation

June was a month of contradictions. Women landed some of the most powerful roles in finance. At the same time, the data showed that progress on gender equality, especially in the boardroom, is slipping. And in the middle of all this, a major summit in London asked a question that's becoming harder to dodge: what do we do when DEI becomes politically inconvenient?

Here's what happened, and why it matters in our June Women Leading the Way digest.

Recognition reaches finance leadership

The headline of the month came from CME Group — the world's largest derivatives exchange. The company announced that its CFO, Lynne Fitzpatrick, will take over as CEO in 2027, when current chief Terry Duffy steps down after more than two decades at the helm.

This is a big deal. CME Group moves trillions of dollars in transactions every day. And its next leader will be a woman who came up through the CFO role, which is exactly the kind of appointment that tends to open doors for others. 

But actually, all such appointments are important. Women who occupy C-position are already proving their effectiveness in finance, for example.

June also marked Catherine Bessant joining the Truist board, Annamaria Vitelli becoming Chief Wealth Officer at Provident Bank, and Weina Wang being named Co-CFO at BGIN Blockchain. Crypto infrastructure has historically had an even wider leadership gap than traditional finance, so the BGIN appointment is worth noting too.

Corporate governance pressure is increasing in Europe

On June 16, the Financial Times held its Women in Business Summit in London. The theme — "Leading through the equality crisis," said a lot about where the conversation is right now.

According to WIBF, which attended the event, the big takeaway was that representation alone isn't the goal anymore. The real question is about power — who actually makes decisions, controls budgets, and sets direction. Getting women into the room matters, but it's not the finish line; it's the beginning.

One of the most thought-provoking moments came during a discussion which explored the progress women have made in reaching senior leadership positions. Women now occupy a growing proportion of board seats, yet only around eight per cent of CEOs are women. It prompted an important question: Have the industry spent the past decade measuring representation when perhaps we should also have been measuring power?

The summit was also a direct response to the wider political climate. With the US rolling back federal DEI initiatives, companies around the world are quietly reconsidering how visible they want to be about inclusion commitments. The FT bringing senior leaders together to talk about this publicly was, in itself, a statement.

Representation is under renewed scrutiny

Despite progress, women's increasing representation is not smooth sailing at all. So, here's where it gets harder.

Research from Equilar and 50/50 Women on Boards, published in June, confirmed something governance experts had been flagging for a while. Women's share of Russell 3000 board seats dropped to 29.9% in Q1 2026 — falling below 30% for the first time since that threshold was crossed back in 2024. The peak was 30.4% in Q1 2025, right when the anti-DEI backlash started picking up speed.

What makes this more than just a rounding error is how the decline is happening. Most of the seats women gained came from boards getting bigger overall. Only 13.8% of newly appointed women were filling spots previously held by men. When there's real competition for a seat, women are winning those contests less often than before.

Goldman Sachs was among the companies that made headlines by dropping a criterion that had previously factored in candidate gender, race, and ethnicity when filling board seats. It's one example of a broader pattern.

At the current pace, Equilar projects gender parity on Russell 3000 boards won't happen until 2044. That's five years later than they projected just a year ago.

STEM and long-term earnings potential remain underleveraged

Also this month, coinciding with International Women in Engineering Day on June 23, EngineeringUK released research that puts a price tag on the gender gap in technical careers.

Engineering and technology roles in the UK pay around £9,000 more per year than the average across all occupations. EngineeringUK estimates that 240,000 people are needed to join the sector annually. 

If women made up half of those new joiners, they'd collectively earn around £1 billion more per year than if they went into other fields. Currently, women make up just 17% of the UK's engineering and technology workforce, and that number isn't moving fast enough.

EngineeringUK has formed the Gender Pathways Collective, a partnership with industry and education aimed at getting more girls into engineering and tech pathways before they turn 18. They're calling on the UK government to get involved directly. 

The shift in how this argument is being made is worth noticing. It used to be framed mainly around fairness, but now it's increasingly framed around economic growth and national competitiveness. 

However, increasing participation is also about ensuring women feel confident enough to walk through them and stay. Research consistently shows that self-doubt and imposter syndrome disproportionately affect women and men in technical fields. So, this is another field to battle.

Conclusion

Women are reaching the top of major financial institutions, which is real and matters. But the broader data on board representation is moving in the wrong direction, at least in the US. The political climate has made it easier for companies to quietly step back from diversity commitments, and many are doing exactly that.

Europe is taking a different approach. There, legislation is being implemented instead of voluntary goals. Whether that model holds up over time is still an open question.

At Drofa Comms, we think real progress happens when industries stop treating women's success stories as exceptions and start building systems in which they're the norm. June gave us both the exceptions and the reminder of how much system-building is still left to do.

We'll keep tracking what's happening and keep you in the loop.

May 2026 — Women Leading the Way Digest: Recognition, Representation, and the Fight for Change in Web3

May brought an unusual concentration of stories about women in finance, fintech, venture capital, and Web3. But it’s unsurprising, as the gaps become more evident, and when the women pushing through them become impossible to overlook.

This month’s headlines ranged from Fortune’s annual ranking of the most powerful women in business to grassroots Web3 initiatives aimed at supporting female founders. There were also uncomfortable conversations about persistent barriers in fintech leadership, and renewed efforts to create funding pipelines for women in technology.

All in all, the conversations revolved around the same underlying issue: visibility is improving faster than the access. So let’s take a deeper look at May’s data.

Recognition reaches crypto, but only barely

Fortune’s “Most Powerful Women in Business 2026” list made headlines this month. 11 CFOs were included, and more interestingly, Yi He, Binance’s co-founder and co-CEO, became the first female crypto-native executive ever to make the ranking.

That matters more than it may seem at first glance. Crypto has spent years presenting itself as a disruptive alternative to traditional finance, yet leadership recognition inside the industry has remained overwhelmingly male, just like in TradFi. 

Yi He’s inclusion signals that Web3 companies are no longer operating completely outside the traditional business establishment. The old gatekeepers are beginning, cautiously, to acknowledge crypto leadership as economically and politically influential.

As for the list including 11 CFOs, it shows how important financial leadership roles have become during a difficult economic period. Companies increasingly rely on executives who can manage growth carefully and keep businesses stable, and more women are taking those positions.

Still, the fact that this is the first crypto-native woman on Fortune’s list says a lot. Women have been building in Web3 for years, but recognition is still arriving slowly.

Web3 is trying to fix its own pipeline problem

That lag is precisely what initiatives like Blockchain4Her are trying to address.

This month, Bitget and WIW3CH announced the expansion of their Blockchain4Her initiative, designed to support women entering Web3 through mentorship, education, networking, and funding opportunities. The program reflects a growing realisation inside crypto that diversity problems cannot be solved passively.

For years, Web3 defended its gender imbalance by arguing that decentralisation naturally creates equal opportunity. But from what we see, the reality has shown otherwise. Access to capital and investor networks still functions through highly centralised social structures, most of which remain male-dominated.

At the same time, such initiatives also reveal the scale of the problem. The thing is, if dedicated accelerators are still urgently needed in 2026, it suggests the industry’s “organic inclusivity” thesis never truly worked.

Web3 may be technologically decentralised, but socially, it still behaves very much like traditional tech and finance.

Fintech still struggles with leadership inequality

Gender inequality was also discussed during FinovateSpring in San Diego, where one session focused specifically on the challenges women still face in fintech.

At this point, the industry knows the problem exists. Women remain underrepresented in executive roles, raise less funding as founders, and are still more likely to hold operational roles instead of top decision-making positions.

The issue is that awareness alone hasn’t changed much and hasn’t been translated into meaningful actions.

Many fintech companies still reward visibility, previous leadership experience, and internal connections when promoting people into senior roles. Since men historically have had more access to those advantages, the cycle continues.

Women are heavily involved in building fintech products and businesses, yet they are still less likely to hold CEO or founder roles.

Venture capital is changing. Selectively…

Business Insider’s “Seed 40” list, highlighting the best women early-stage investors of 2026, offered another perspective on where influence is growing.

The significance of this ranking is that early-stage capital shapes which industries, products, and founders survive long enough to matter. Seed investors influence the future direction of technology long before companies become public success stories.

Historically, venture capital has been one of the most male-dominated sectors in finance. Female-led funds and women investors have often faced the same fundraising barriers as founders themselves. So increased recognition at the seed-investor level could have compounding effects over time.

But even here, progress remains uneven. Women are gaining prominence in early-stage investing faster than in large institutional VC leadership. In other words, access is improving most visibly at the edges of venture capital, while the largest pools of capital remain relatively unchanged.

So the ecosystem is opening, but selectively.

The UAE bets on women in tech

Another notable development came from the UAE, where the Standard Chartered Foundation and Village Capital launched the 2026 Women in Tech Accelerator.

Programs like this reflect a broader global trend: governments, banks, and development-focused institutions primarily view women’s participation in tech entrepreneurship not simply as a social issue, but as an economic growth strategy.

What’s interesting is that more governments, banks, and large organisations are starting to look at women in tech differently. A few years ago, these initiatives were mostly presented as “the right thing to do.” Now they’re seen as a way to support innovation.

And that changes a lot. Projects built mainly for image or PR are usually the first to disappear when the market gets tough. But programs connected to business growth and long-term economic goals tend to last much longer.

Conclusion

May 2026 showed that women in finance and Web3 are becoming more visible across nearly every layer of the ecosystem. Unfortunately, visibility alone does not equal balance.

The encouraging part is that the conversation has clearly evolved beyond symbolic inclusion. The focus is switching toward infrastructure, and that may be the more substantial shift for women.

At Drofa Comms, we believe that the representation becomes sustainable only when industries stop treating women’s success stories as exceptions and start building systems where they become ordinary.

So, we’ll keep tracking what’s happening in the field and keep you in the loop. Only in this way can the conversation stay grounded in facts and translate into real change for women in finance.

April 2026 — Women Leading the Way Digest: Gender Balance Gains, the Promotion Gap, and Fintech's Blind Spot

In April, there were neither loud headlines about women in finance, nor major scandals, nor stories that dominated the media. Still, the month brought fresh data on women’s position in finance, fintech, and Web3.

The picture looks indefinite. OMFIF’s Gender Balance Index 2026 shows that women’s representation at the top of major financial institutions is improving. At the same time, the data shows that senior-level barriers remain, while access to Web3 founding teams, equal pay, and finance-related tech roles is still uneven.

So, progress is visible, but mostly on the surface, while under the hood, things aren’t encouraging at all. Let’s take a deeper dive into April’s data.

The 19% is the progress, but still not enough

According to the OMFIF Gender Balance Index 2026, women now hold 19% of top leadership positions in major financial institutions, up from 16% the previous year. These institutions typically include central banks, commercial banks, pension funds, and sovereign funds. Just for context: 6 of the US Federal Reserve's regional banks are now headed by women, which is the highest number in a single year.

We think that's real progress, especially given the political backdrop. The DEI rollback in 2025 was widely expected to drag the number of female leaders down. But it hasn't. This means that at least some institutions have embedded diversity deeply enough. That’s why a change in rhetoric hasn't immediately translated into a change in hiring principles.

That said, 19% is still not a big number. The OMFIF report introduces the glass ceiling ratio, which measures how women's representation at the very top compares to their presence in senior roles overall. Index-wide, it sits at 0.56. Read it this way: women are being promoted to the very top at roughly half the rate their share of senior roles would suggest. They are well represented one level below the top, but the jump to CEO or equivalent is a rare case.

Contributing at the top, counted in the middle

Women in fintech are undoubtedly shaping how this industry works. Yet, they don't always have the titles that reflect their contribution. A recent piece published by Tribe Payments stressed that women often define strategy, but execution roles are still unattainable. They ask the hard questions, connect the dots, and maintain the working pace even during tough times. And this is genuinely hard work. Still, the problem is that these efforts rarely convert into the seniority level that actually matches what they’re doing.

The Heard's article adds to the same conversation. It argues that many organisations still default to formal markers, say, title, seniority level, when assessing who deserves more responsibility. When men already have those markers, they get the preference. Women, doing comparable work without the title, get passed over. Until firms change how they measure contribution, women will keep being overlooked for the roles that actually lead somewhere.

Is everything new just well-forgotten old?

As we know, traditional finance, despite having some progress in terms of women’s promotions and getting them into top roles, is historically a gated space. Women represent around 52% of entry-level finance roles, yet fewer than 25% of institutions have women in senior management at all.

Web3, when it appeared, was supposed to be different. Meritocracy, at the very least, was implied as a base — an open world, decentralised, accessible to everyone. But as Metana's Women in Tech Statistics 2026 shows, only 13% of Web3 founding teams include a woman. Moreover, male-led startups raise roughly 4x more capital than female-led ones, and the pay gap in Web3 finance roles sits at around 46%. This is one of the steepest changes in all tech sectors.

So, the blank canvas is ending up looking extremely familiar. A new industry can claim a lot about its inclusivity, but in reality, it either repeats the patterns seen in traditional finance or makes things worse.

Conclusion

Women’s representation at the top of financial institutions is at a historic high, and still nowhere near parity. The OMFIF data shows the pipeline is filling up, but the jump to the very top remains disproportionately rare. Fintech talks about openness, but still defaults to formal markers when deciding who leads. Web3 was built from scratch and landed in roughly the same place as the industries it was supposed to disrupt.

At Drofa Comms, we closely follow these developments. And April’s data raises a question worth asking out loud: if the metrics organisations use to measure leadership still favour title over contribution, what exactly are diversity numbers measuring?

March 2026 — Women Leading the Way Digest: Financial Literacy, Pay Gap Dynamics, and New Leadership Platforms

March brought a different kind of conversation around women in finance. This month, there were many fewer flashy headlines, but more on how the system actually works underneath. Financial literacy, career trajectories, and who gets access to leadership roles all came into focus.

Each on its own, these updates might seem unrelated, but together they point to the same. These materials show that gender inequality in finance is increasingly shaped long before the roles and long after hiring decisions.

Here are the developments this month that show where the industry is heading.

International Women’s Day: financial literacy becomes a systemic priority

This year, International Women’s Day on the 8th of March felt slightly different. The conversation mostly moved away from general phrases such as “let’s support women,” and toward something more practical: financial knowledge.

For example, at its March event, the European Central Bank made a clear point — financial literacy is still uneven across Europe, and women are more likely to be on the weaker side of that gap.

What’s important here is how the ECB is approaching this issue. This year’s programme included an inspiring speech from President Lagarde and high-level guests, who addressed the challenge of addressing the gender gap in financial literacy.

At first sight, this might seem as if nothing has changed, but this marks a significant progress for the industry. Financial literacy that used to be just nice to have is becoming a foundation, especially for females. 

In that sense, closing the gender gap in finance increasingly starts before careers even begin. As more women increase their financial knowledge before entering the workforce, the more they can catch up with their male counterparts.

Why women earn less over time: the compounding effect

New research by the University of Delaware in March adds another layer to a well-known issue: the gender pay gap narrows, but slowly.

However, the problem is not the gap itself, but the compounding effect that it entails.
​​While a $5,000 difference in salary or a few years out of the workforce might not seem like much, the long-term outcome is significant. 

Even a modest pay gap or taking a few years off to care for children could translate into hundreds of thousands of dollars in retirement savings difference.

That has a broader impact on the financial system itself. If women accumulate less capital, they are also less present in investing, entrepreneurship, and wealth-building activities.

So this issue becomes about participation, and who actually has the means to engage with the financial system at scale. 

To reduce the gap, the article suggests that women engage more in negotiations and learn to negotiate effectively. Women are recommended to address the pay gap with their companies when appropriate.

The best place for women in finance may not be banks

One of the more interesting takeaways this month comes from UK industry analysis: banking may not be where women’s careers grow fastest anymore.

Progress inside large institutions continues, but slowly, especially at senior levels. At the same time, other parts of the ecosystem, from fintech to bigger firms, are offering clearer progression and often more accountability around promotion.

According to the study, the best place for women has proved to be insurance companies, as they became the most female-representative of the four company types tracked by the treasury back in 2023. 

Last year, they met an even more important milestone — being the first companies to reach 40% of female representation among their senior management.

Investment banks are the worst place for women in senior roles, noted in the paper. For example, BNP Paribas' London investment banking has low turnover amongst senior management roles and a limited female candidate pool, particularly in front office, STEM and specialist roles. 

As a result, career growth is becoming less about how you work and more about how the organisation is built. Structures are starting to determine outcomes.

Bain & Cambridge: building a new leadership pipeline

Another notable development is the launch of a new women’s finance forum by Bain & Company and Cambridge Judge Business School. Their idea is to bring together senior leaders, including CEOs, and focus directly on the women’s transition into top executive roles. 

Despite progress in senior management pipelines, relatively few women hold the highest executive roles across global banking, insurance and investment firms. And this initiative aims to fix that, bringing more diversity to the board when it needs it.

This is interesting because most diversity initiatives don’t go this far and tend to focus on early or mid-career stages. But the biggest drop-off often happens right before the very top.

Conclusion

Taken together, March’s developments point to a more grounded view of gender diversity in finance. It’s shaped early, through financial literacy, and it grows over time, through income and career dynamics.

What stands out in this period is that the conversation is becoming more practical. Less about simply talking, but more about mechanisms.

At Drofa Comms, we continue to watch these shifts closely. Because in 2026, gender diversity is also about how the system enables (or limits) long-term participation and leadership.

February 2026 — Women Leading the Way Digest: AI Threat, Limited Access to Legal Rights, and New Women We Admire Edition

In February 2026, the situation with women in finance and fintech reflected the same industry's efforts to overcome inequality and underrepresentation. However, to the long-standing barriers, new issues are being added this month. These are the replacement of workers with AI and poor access to legal rights.

Despite the problems, some progress is still underway. Let's look more precisely at what February’s research opens up about women in finance.

City of London reveals a threat from AI

One of the central studies of the month is the City of London Corporation report on the impact of AI and automation on women's employment in the tech and finance sectors. 

According to the report, women, especially in the middle stage of their career (with more than 5 years of experience), are at greater risk of losing jobs due to automation than their male counterparts. The thing is, rigid, automated recruitment systems are more likely to exclude candidates with career breaks, such as due to childcare.

In the next decade, more than 119,000 administrative roles in the UK's technology and finance sectors will be automated. And the problem is that most of these jobs are now filled by women, meaning they are at more risk of being replaced than any male worker. 

The solution proposed in the report is about retraining and upskilling women to move to more sustainable positions. Such a step can also improve the economic performance of employers, saving companies £757m from making redundancy payments.

Building on this report, the Drofa Comms team invited women professionals in finance to share their vision on AI displacement and published an in-depth article as part of our Women Leading the Way initiative. It puts a spotlight on how AI reshapes career paths at every stage and what organisations can do now.

Women We Admire launches its new edition

The Women We Admire presents its 2026 list of the Top 50 women leaders in the finance sector. It celebrates female leaders who hold significant influence over how financial strategies are shaped and business decisions are translated into action. 

While women remain underrepresented in senior finance roles overall, the honorees in this edition are individuals who have successfully risen to positions where their work is how to turn numbers into directions. Among them are women with deep experience across corporate, nonprofit, and technology-enabled finance. 

For example, Jacqueline O’Flanagan, who leads financial services strategy for Microsoft in the Americas, is recognised for her ability to guide high-performance teams in complex markets.

Barbra Perlstein is highlighted for balancing revenue growth and operational efficiency across global finance functions, and Ilana Esterrich is noted for her leadership across nonprofits and Fortune 500 organisations.

A gap between gender equality laws and enforcement

A recent report from the World Bank shows a serious disconnect between gender-equality laws and their implementation in practice. Although it is not exactly a finance-sector issue, being detached from legal rights negatively affects all spheres of women's lives and careers.

The study highlights that fewer than 5% of women globally live in economies that come close to offering full legal equality, and no country currently provides all the legal rights required for women to participate fully in the economy. Unfortunately, women enjoy only two-thirds of the legal rights of men worldwide. 

The World Bank also finds that the global index tracking women's economic equality returned an average score of 67 out of 100 for legal rights. However, it has dropped to 53 for law enforcement and 47 for the adequacy of supportive legal systems. These numbers are quite low, showing that legal progress has not become a meaningful change for most women.

Although the situation is upsetting, it is still mirroring some progress reached in recent years. Between 2023 and 2025, at least 68 economies enacted 113 legal reforms strengthening women’s economic opportunities. 

BNP Paribas shows its progress in gender diversity

In February, BNP Paribas’s UK branch shared its development since opening the Women in Finance Charter in 2018. Back then, the company had 23% female representation in senior management positions, a figure which has progressed to 28.3% this year. 

BNP Paribas' situation is a good example of where the industry is moving, as many companies find themselves in a similar position. They strive for better equality but can be hindered by structural issues. 

For example, one of these challenges is the difficulty of finding and retaining women in leadership positions. There is a low turnover of senior management jobs not only in the company but in the industry overall, meaning that there are fewer available roles at the top for women to step into.

Despite the continuing difficulties at this level, the company has made significant progress in the initial career positions. In 2025, 52% of the graduate program participants were women, as well as 50% of the Executive Committee members of the London division.

In addition, BNP Paribas announced a global goal to reach 40% of women on the Group Executive Committee and among the top 100 senior executives (G100) by 2025. At the moment, this figure has already been exceeded, as women make up 42% of the Group Executive Committee and 41% of the G100 list.

Conclusion

In February 2026, we are witnessing a dual trend. On the one hand, reports highlight threats to women in finance due to automation and legal constraints; but on the other, other reports show that a proper focus on leadership opportunities can significantly improve the position of women in the industry.

At Drofa Comms, we continue to closely monitor all the shifts in the sphere. For sure, we can say that the interest in this industry must hold so that greater progress becomes available despite any restrictions.

January 2026 — Women Leading the Way Digest: Pay Gaps, Pensions Reform, and What WEF Signals

As 2025 closed and 2026 started picking up pace, the women-in-finance agenda began to look less like a values statement and more of a scorecard. January showed a visible split between markets that embed inclusion into targets, reporting, and governance routines, and those that still treat it as a narrative for headlines.

In the UK, the latest Women in Finance Charter update emphasises that progress is expected to be comparable, with firms mainly judged on what they measure and disclose. In Davos, the framing switched to women’s networks as resilience infrastructure in uncertain markets.

In other words, 2026 opens with what the sector has long been waiting for: gaps are harder to hide, and progress has to be demonstrated with real numbers.

The Women in Finance Charter as the UK progress update

HM Treasury published its annual Women in Finance Charter progress update on 29 January 2026. It’s a departmental report card covering targets, gender pay gap context, and the internal programmes Treasury uses to build and retain senior female talent.

The Treasury says it has met its 50% target for female representation in the Senior Civil Service. It reports 51% female representation in senior management as of March 2025, up from 43% when it signed the Charter in March 2016. It also notes that 53.9% of Executive Management Board positions are held by women.

Practically, that means reporting now works as a credibility filter. If a firm can’t show the baseline, the target, and the mechanism that moves the number, the market will treat the commitment as branding.

Boardroom pay gap — diversity up, parity behind

EY’s January 2026 Boardroom Monitor says the UK’s board pay gap fell from 40% in 2020 to 29% over the last five years. In several other markets, the gap got wider.

In contrast, Bloomberg adds that Europe’s finance board pay gap is now the worst in six years. It says women on boards earned about 62% of what men earned in 2024, down from 65% in 2023.

So, the key takeaways are the following:

• Representation is not the finish line. A board can look more balanced, while pay still shows who holds the highest-value roles.

• Pay is a proxy for power. If women earn less at the same level, it often means they are less likely to hold chair roles or top committee roles.

• The “pipeline” explanation is weaker at a board level. When women are already in power, the question becomes how roles, influence, and rewards are allocated.

The pensions gap is a design problem

A new report from the Edinburgh Futures Institute, supported by Evelyn Partners, looks at why the gender pensions gap persists. It points to concrete constraints — time scarcity, career breaks, and the way pension systems and financial advice are designed — and argues that policy and guidance need to adjust.

That’s why the report frames “women and wealth” as a product and policy issue. If the system is built for uninterrupted careers and close attention, it will keep rewarding people who can give time to long-term planning. In turn, it will also penalise those who can’t — so the gap stays baked in.

We believe that a useful way to read this is through “friction.” So, each extra form, wrong choice, or poorly timed prompt increases drop-off. Over the years, small drop-offs compound into real wealth gaps.

Women’s finance networks framed as resilience infrastructure

A January World Economic Forum piece presents Women in Finance communities as strategic assets in volatile, fragmented markets. By doing so, it supports resilience, growth, and innovation through faster learning and stronger decision-making. Also, it treats trusted networks as a business mechanism, instead of just a visibility layer.

The implication is that these communities sit closer to operational resilience than to representation narratives. Their value is that they help leaders compare signals, pressure-test choices, and preserve organisational memory as cycles shorten and turnover rises.

Another layer worth looking at is that networks can reduce isolation at senior levels, where many decisions are made with limited feedback. A strong peer circle makes it easier to sanity-check assumptions, spot risks earlier, and avoid repeating failures other firms already lived through. Over time, that creates better judgment under stress and faster spread of workable playbooks.

Conclusion

Taken together, January’s threads let us assume that the women-in-finance agenda is entering a more demanding phase.

Progress is becoming harder to “storytell” without data behind it, while gaps are easier to spot once reporting gets consistent. At the same time, the focus is widening beyond representation toward mechanisms that shape outcomes. All of this means that credibility in 2026 will be earned only through real, provable evidence.

At Drofa Comms, we believe that lasting progress comes from consistent work. So, we’ll keep tracking what’s happening in the field and keep you in the loop. Only in this way can the conversation stay grounded in facts and translate into real change for women in finance.