From Numbers to Networks: A Trailblazer’s Path in Finance and Crypto

She started learning accounting before her teens, a skill that would guide her through roles in retail banking, Citigroup and LendingClub. Today she leads the finance side of a major crypto staking firm that powers banks, exchanges and wallets across more than forty blockchains. The company supplies the hidden tech—servers, validators and security—that lets these institutions earn rewards from coins like Ethereum and Solana without building their own infrastructure. She says numbers always tell a true story, and she loves turning data into impact for people’s finances. Long before it was common in boardrooms, she pushed the use of data and AI in finance. At LendingClub her team applied machine learning to predict credit losses more than a decade ago, proving that new tech could add real value.Her journey began after moving from Mexico to the U. S. , earning an MBA in finance, and facing doubts about her accent and appearance. She trained herself to ignore those barriers, convincing herself she belonged in the industry. Recruiters once told her that despite her qualifications she was passed over because she was a Latina woman with tech expertise—a reminder of the hidden biases that still exist. In 2025, women held just under 18 % of CFO roles in Fortune and S&P 500 companies, a modest rise from 2015 but still far below parity. She finds most of her professional support from men, yet she values the advice of fellow women and believes that opening doors together can create more opportunities. She uses her platform at a major women‑in‑finance summit to shift the narrative from “how do we survive in a male‑dominated field? ” to “how can we support one another? ”