For years, “breaking the glass ceiling” in finance meant earning a seat at an existing table. In Australia’s digital asset sector, women are increasingly building the table themselves.
From securing Australia’s first AFSL authorising stablecoin issuance to shaping policy engagement and institutional adoption strategies, female leaders across exchanges, stablecoin issuers and digital asset firms are influencing governance, risk frameworks and the long-term architecture of the market.
Breaking the glass ceiling is no longer about visibility – it is about decision-making power.
Ahead of International Women’s Day, InvestorDaily spoke to the women helping lead Australia’s digital asset sector about their roles, the challenges they face and why female leadership matters.
Mandy Jiang, CloudTech Group
Mandy Jiang, CFO and executive director at CloudTech Group, is a career banker turned blockchain advocate with more than 25 years’ experience in global and Australian banking.
A co-founder and former managing director of Judo Bank, she helped lead one of Australia’s most successful banking start-ups, raising more than $1 billion across five capital rounds – the largest in Australian business history. Jiang has also held senior roles at NAB, Deutsche Bank, ICBC and China Merchants Bank, spanning commercial, investment and international banking across Asia and Australia.
At CloudTech Group, she is applying that experience to build Australia’s first crypto-native financial institution, aiming to combine blockchain’s transparency and efficiency with the governance and rigour expected by institutional investors.
“I frame digital assets not as trends, but as infrastructure. I prioritise governance, regulatory alignment and sustainable growth over speed. And I encourage diversity of thought in strategic discussions, because robust debate produces stronger outcomes,” she told InvestorDaily.
For Jiang, leading in the sector brings both responsibility and opportunity.
“For me, it’s about building credibility, resilience and long-term value, not just chasing momentum… Today, breaking the glass ceiling is less about access and more about influence. We are not simply participating in outcomes; we are shaping them,” Jiang told Investor Daily.
Financial systems affect everyone – from families and small businesses to retirees and investors – and Jiang says women at the table bring broader perspectives and stronger risk awareness.
“That ultimately leads to more resilient outcomes.”
The impact became real when younger women began approaching her, saying they could see a pathway into digital finance.
“That’s when the impact really became tangible,” she said.
Effie Dimitropoulos, AUDC
Effie Dimitropoulos, CEO and co-founder of AUDC, is a fintech professional with decades of experience spanning alternative payments and blockchain innovation.
She has played a key role in building payments technology businesses and founded AUDC’s stablecoin unit, launching AUDD – an Australian dollar-pegged stablecoin designed to facilitate secure and transparent transactions backed 1:1 by the currency.
“I operate across both detail and direction. While I make long-term plans, I keep an eye on changes in the law, partnerships between institutions, and how products work. I aim for alignment in direction and execute decisively. Leadership, in my experience, is about clarity, accountability and resilience. Gender is secondary to performance, but inclusive leadership strengthens and sustains performance.”
Dimitropoulos grew up in a migrant family where everyone was expected to contribute and “your merit determined your place”.
“Hard work wasn’t something to look up to; it was the starting point,” she told InvestorDaily.
She views her leadership less as breaking barriers and more as fulfilling that early conditioning.
“The digital asset sector was once dominated by rooms full of young men in hoodies, they were energetic and disruptive but not particularly diverse,” Dimitropoulos said.
“Today, those rooms look different. We are seeing more women as coders, builders, founders, CEOs, regulators and even central bankers. When female leaders are shaping banks, associations and reserve banks, you know the shift is structural. Being part of that evolution and helping move the sector from speculation to serious financial infrastructure is both grounding and quietly powerful.”
She told InvestorDaily breaking the glass ceiling is about influence over money, rules and risk frameworks.
“Inclusion is not about lowering standards, it is about broadening perspectives. Diverse leadership strengthens risk management, governance and culture. As digital finance becomes foundational to our economy, it matters that women are present as engineers, founders, CEOs, regulators and board members.
The ecosystem has changed since the early days when it was mostly made up of “crypto bros.” This wider range of people is a sign that the sector is maturing.”
Delia Burrage, Macropod Global
Delia Burrage, co-founder and chief operating officer and chief compliance officer at Macropod Global, is a multi-disciplinary lawyer with extensive experience across the Asia-Pacific financial sector.
She has held senior roles across top-tier firms, banks and financial institutions, specialising in funds management, mergers and acquisitions, corporate law, risk and compliance, and business operations.
“I spent decades in banking and financial markets watching the infrastructure of global finance struggle to keep up with innovation. What is happening in digital assets right now is a genuine restructuring of the financial system’s plumbing. To be building in this space, in Australia, right now, is incredibly exciting,” she told InvestorDaily.
For Burrage, the appeal of the sector is the chance to solve real financial problems.
“Our stablecoin, AUDM, has the potential to enable micro-businesses and reduce the cost of cross-border payments for families in the Pacific who are currently losing a significant share of every transfer to fees and foreign exchange margins they can barely see and certainly cannot control. Being part of solving that, as a woman, as an Australian, is something I find genuinely energising,” she said.
She argues the people who design financial infrastructure ultimately determine who benefits from it.
“When financial products are designed without deliberate attention to the specific needs of women, they systematically underserve women because default assumptions get baked into technology from the earliest design decisions.”
“The women who are visibly leading in Australian digital assets right now are demonstrating to the next generation that this space is theirs to claim,” she said.
Breaking the ceiling today is not about taking a seat at someone else’s table. “It is about building your own table,” Burrage said.
She also highlighted the broader community of female leaders in the sector.
“The women I see thriving here are not newcomers – they are people like Caroline Bowler at BTC Markets, Kate Cooper at OKX, Joni Pirovich at Crystal Co-counsel and Lisa Wade at Fableration, all of them drawing on decades of expertise to solve real problems in a completely new way. And organisations like Karen Cohen’s Women in Emerging Tech and Amy-Rose Goodey at WoDECA, are making sure the next generation of women in the industry has community and support from day one.”
Rachel Lucas, BTC Markets
Rachel Lucas, head of marketing and communications at BTC Markets, leads the company’s strategic marketing and communications initiatives. She has more than 15 years’ experience across commercial and retail sectors.
Lucas says her role is to help people understand the opportunities in digital assets by cutting through the noise and making the sector accessible.
“Representation matters and being a visible woman in leadership in this space carries real responsibility, one I embrace. But honestly, what energises me just as much is the nature of the industry itself. I’m working in one of the most innovative corners of finance at one of the most pivotal moments in its development,” she told InvestorDaily.
She believes the real shift in fintech leadership lies in influence.
“Fintech and digital assets were built on the internet, so they’ve always had the language of inclusion. But language and reality are two different things. Breaking the ceiling, to me, means having genuine decision-making power, being in the room where strategy is set, budgets are approved, and the culture of an organisation is shaped. That’s where the real work happens.”
Lucas says decisions being made today around access, product design and participation in wealth creation will shape the sector for decades.
“Women control a significant and growing share of household financial decision-making in Australia. If they’re not represented in the rooms where digital finance is being designed, we’ll build products that don’t serve them well, and we’ll lose the opportunity to make this genuinely transformative.”