Leadership and women in trade finance: Redesigning the system

In many cultures, tradition is often cited as a reason to preserve the status quo. Yet history tells a different story. Across societies, women have always played a central role in continuity, resilience, and transformation. Long before leadership was formalised through titles and organisational charts, women carried knowledge forward, sustained communities, and navigated change.

As Sufi poet Mevlânâ Rumi reminds us: “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” True leadership transformation begins with a shift in perspective. 

For women to reach leadership positions in trade finance, it’s not institutions, quotas, or women that need to change: we must shake our very understanding of leadership.

When representation fails, the system is speaking

In a world where women represent half of the population and half of available talent, their continued underrepresentation in senior management and boardrooms cannot be explained by a lack of qualifications. 

According to a study by the  Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, female enrollments in finance master’s degrees jumped 41% in the 2020-2021 academic year, and across 278 accredited institutions, women made up 41.6% of intakes. 

In the US, women comprise a significant share of entry-level roles in finance, accounting for 52% of associated finance jobs in 2021.

Therefore, the reality points to an issue with career progression rather than with entry into the sector. This reflects a systemic problem. Dominant understandings of leadership, particularly in finance, is counteractive to enhancing performance and is burdened by structural barriers. Women, already placed in the margins of the industry, are disproportionately impacted.

Leaders are often removed from the on-the-ground operations of an organisation. At the junior level, individuals sit on the front lines of the work. At senior positions, however, information becomes filtered, and access is provided through intermediaries. Hence, paradoxically, leaders are less exposed to the realities of their work. 

Authority also becomes centralised in leadership positions. Decision rights concentrate, and leaders find themselves in decision bottlenecks. Influence becomes informal in its nature. While lower-level positions operate through a role-based, task-driven approach, higher-ups are often occupied with future-oriented, ambiguous responsibilities. 

Accountability gets disconnected from authority as well. Leaders are held responsible for outcomes that they do not fully control, and are at times not found responsible for consequences that emerge from their managerial choices. 

This reflects a design problem, and systems that create such outcomes cannot expect those affected by them to resolve the imbalance alone. The responsibility lies with the system itself, and the system continues to penalise women.

Moving beyond ‘empowerment’

Women in trade finance do not lack competence or ambition. They are already managing teams and delivering results. The question isn’t whether women are ready to lead: it is whether leadership systems are designed to absorb and reward their contribution.

Framing the issue as ‘empowering women’ subtly misplaces responsibility. It suggests that something is missing at the individual level.

In reality, what is missing is:

• Transparent decision ownership
• Inclusive governance structures
• Leadership models that value contribution over seniority

Agile leadership, as articulated through frameworks such as ICP-PAL, offers a fundamentally different way of understanding leadership. It challenges the assumption that authority must sit at the top, decisions must flow upward, and leadership must be exercised through control.

It emphasises impact over hierarchy, trust over command, distributed decision-making, and accountability aligned with expertise. 

Decisions in trade finance are often complex, time-sensitive, and consequential. In such an environment, leadership models that concentrate authority, silence expertise, or delay decisions through hierarchical structures create unnecessary friction and risk. 

Agile leadership, therefore, offers an alternative where decision-making is closer to knowledge, diverse perspectives are incorporated into risk assessment, and there is accurate ownership of outcomes.

From being ‘at the table’ to shaping the outcome

Many women in trade finance describe the same experience: they are present, they are consulted, yet, somehow, they aren’t the decision-makers. Once again, this is not an issue to do with confidence – it is a structural disconnect. 

Agile leadership reframes the logic of inclusion. If you are to be held accountable, you must have influence. If you contribute expertise, you must shape the decision. And if you are at the table, then your voice must matter. 

When these principles are applied consistently, leadership becomes situational. Situational leadership refers to when a leadership style isn’t absolute, but is rather adaptive, shaped by the characteristics and competencies of both a team and its leader. 

Situational leadership is inclusive by design. It doesn’t demand a set list of aptitudes or talents from a team. Instead, it understands what the leader is working with, what the strengths and weaknesses of both the leader and the team are, and how this could best be harnessed to produce optimal results. It doesn’t exclude or punish shortcomings – it understands and navigates them. 

Leadership as a practice

The most effective leadership transformations are described as journeys rather than implementations. They involve unlearning habits, letting go of control, creating space for new voices, and accepting that leadership is shared, not owned. 

As Rumi tells us, the path is never identical for any two organisations, but the willingness to walk it together is what defines meaningful change.

The intersection of agile leadership and women in trade finance presents a governance and performance choice which asks institutions to reflect on how decisions are made, who is authorised to make them, and whether leadership structures accurately reflect the talent they rely on. 

Systems that work well do so because capability translates into influence and responsibility is matched with authority. 

A manifesto for change

For women in trade finance to reach leadership roles, the definition of leadership must change. It should be defined by impact, not by title. Inclusion has to be embedded into systems and not considered as an afterthought. And institutions must evolve by redesigning how leadership works – they shouldn’t be reshaped by the guidance of existing leadership.

Across financial institutions, traditional hierarchical leadership models are increasingly challenged. They lead to slower decision-making, siloed accountability, and limited adaptability to market volatility, which is incompatible with the current ecosystem global markets operate in. 

Agile leadership responds to this by enabling decisions to be made at the appropriate level. It creates clarity around accountability and allows expertise to drive outcomes. 

Women in trade finance are already highly skilled and trusted professionals. The problem lies in who owns decision-making, how authority is perceived, and how structural habits determine whose voice shapes outcomes. 

Therefore, instead of ‘empowering women’, the focus should be on making influence visible and linking accountability to contribution rather than hierarchy. The question needs to be reframed from “Who is senior?” to “Who adds value to this decision?”

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For leadership roles in trade finance to become more accessible for women, what leadership means needs to be reshaped entirely, making women active agents of transformation rather than mere beneficiaries of it.

The convergence of agile leadership with women in trade finance is not a diversity initiative: it is a governance and performance proposition. It’s not about creating space; it’s about redesigning the room.