{"id":29186,"date":"2026-03-06T14:39:57","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T13:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smart-trade.net\/?p=29186"},"modified":"2026-03-06T14:59:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T13:59:56","slug":"beyond-the-code-one-womans-perspective-on-building-a-career-in-fintech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smart-trade.net\/ja\/2026\/03\/06\/beyond-the-code-one-womans-perspective-on-building-a-career-in-fintech\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the Code: One Woman\u2019s Perspective on Building a Career in Fintech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To mark International Women\u2019s Day, smartTrade\u2019s Chief Human Resources Officer, Elise Van Der Schans, sat down with John Stead to talk honestly about what draws women into tech, what holds them back, and what all of us \u2014 men included \u2014 can do differently.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tech wasn\u2019t the plan. But it turned out to be the perfect fit.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Elise Van Der Schans didn\u2019t set out to build a career in technology. Her first role in the industry \u2014 at software company Sage \u2014 was, in her own words, \u201cpure chance.\u201d But it didn\u2019t take long for her to realise she\u2019d found her people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really like both the analytical and the qualitative,\u201d she explains. \u201cIn tech, you meet smart people who can take one complex problem and break it into smaller, manageable pieces. I found that genuinely inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Add to that the relentless pace of an industry where what you learn today may already be outdated tomorrow, and it\u2019s easy to see why she stayed. \u201cYou always need to keep improving, keep up with the changes. I like that challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTech is so much more than coding.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If there\u2019s one message Elise wants young women \u2014 and girls still in school \u2014 to hear, it\u2019s this: the image of a programmer hunched over a screen is not what the industry actually looks like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTech is cyber security, it\u2019s product, it\u2019s strategy, it\u2019s operations. People should look beyond the code.\u201d At smartTrade alone, the teams building and delivering world-class trading technology include sales, pre-sales, marketing, HR, and more \u2014 all orbiting a fast-moving, intellectually demanding core.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And AI, she argues, is accelerating this shift in a way that should genuinely excite women who\u2019ve felt the industry wasn\u2019t for them. \u201cWith AI, coding is no longer the barrier it once was. Everyone can build now. What becomes more important is the ability to think<\/em> \u2014 to have ideas, to be curious, to be creative. And those qualities have no gender.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her advice to any young woman unsure whether tech is for her? \u201cCuriosity and creativity are the real entry ticket. And everyone has those.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are there any figures in business or finance who have inspired you?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For Elise, one name stands out: Christine Lagarde, currently President of the European Central Bank and formerly the first woman to lead the International Monetary Fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe has done a lot of things and dared to talk about difficulties,\u201d Elise says. \u201cThat\u2019s very inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not hard to see why. Lagarde has spent her career not just breaking barriers but naming them openly \u2014 acknowledging that women in leadership tend to over-prepare and over-anticipate precisely because, as the minority, they feel constant pressure to prove their worth. Her advice to women navigating male-dominated environments has been characteristically direct: grit your teeth and smile \u2014 in the face of adversity, go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Elise, it\u2019s that willingness to speak honestly about the challenges \u2014 rather than pretend they don\u2019t exist \u2014 that makes Lagarde a genuinely useful role model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The double standard no one talks about enough.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Elise is candid about one of the subtler barriers women face \u2014 not in capability, but in how confidence is perceived and communicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery hiring manager will tell you they hire on competencies. But a woman might say \u2018I\u2019m good at this\u2019 while a man says \u2018I\u2019m very<\/em> good at this.\u2019 The competency is the same. The way it\u2019s communicated isn\u2019t \u2014 and that gap is real.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her pragmatic advice to women navigating this? \u201cPrepare. Practise your pitch with a friend, a mentor, or your father. Don\u2019t be too modest. You don\u2019t need to pretend to be someone you\u2019re not \u2014 but understand the room, and make sure your confidence comes through clearly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A message for the men in the room.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Elise doesn\u2019t let male colleagues off the hook \u2014 but she\u2019s thoughtful rather than combative about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe first thing I\u2019d say is: accept that you are biased. We all are. It\u2019s human. But once you\u2019re aware of it, you can start to correct for it.\u201d She\u2019s seen this play out repeatedly in recruitment, where the same quality presented differently leads to very different outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also shared an approach she encountered at an executive programme that stayed with her: rather than hiring role by role, companies that want more diversity should consider reviewing all open positions together, with all hiring managers in the room at the same time. \u201cWhen you isolate hiring decisions, you isolate women from the process without even realising it. Broadening the exercise changes the outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for those who still need a simple compass? \u201cThink about your daughter. Think about how you\u2019d want her to be judged when she walks into an interview. Then apply that standard today \u2014 to every candidate, every time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

smartTrade Technologies is committed to building an inclusive and diverse workplace. To find out more about our culture and open roles, visit <\/em>https:\/\/career.smart-trade.net\/jobs<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To mark International Women\u2019s Day, smartTrade\u2019s Chief Human Resources Officer, Elise Van Der Schans, sat down <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[911],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nBeyond the Code: One Woman\u2019s Perspective on Building a Career in Fintech - smartTrade<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/smart-trade.net\/2026\/03\/06\/beyond-the-code-one-womans-perspective-on-building-a-career-in-fintech\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"ja_JP\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beyond the Code: One Woman\u2019s Perspective on Building a Career in Fintech - 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