What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received in your career?

Some of the greatest growth and opportunity can come from your existing role – find the gap and fill it. Don’t wait to be asked to solve a problem or to be given the remit for a stretch assignment – identify it and seize it before someone else does.

What advice would you give to women building a career in finance?

Be confident, be curious and just say yes.

Many of us, particularly women or people who are early in our careers, can underestimate ourselves and focus on what we still need to learn, rather than what we’re already capable of contributing.

Some of the most valuable opportunities I’ve had came from taking on roles or responsibilities that felt slightly outside my comfort zone at the time – I would never have applied for them, but I was asked (without much optionality!) to take them on. And I smashed them and they grew me.

Growth rarely happens when you’re completely comfortable, and confidence often comes after you’ve taken the step, not before. So just say yes.

What more can women do to make their voices heard within organisations?

Be human in a tech-driven world.

Don’t wait until you have the perfect answer to contribute. Share an opinion, ask the question, start the conversation. Pick up the phone instead of sending the email. Make the meeting face-to-face. Build real relationships and engage with people personally.

I’ve found that influence often comes less from formal authority, and more from the quality of your interactions. Speak up, be curious and help bring others into the conversation. That’s how voices get heard and how cultures become more inclusive.

What’s your personal motto or biggest inspiration?

People are my biggest inspiration.

The most enjoyable and strongest careers are built through relationships, trust and shared success. I’ve always gravitated towards people who combine excellence with integrity, and I’ve tried to follow the same principle myself: do the right thing, for the right reason.

Focus on growing the people and businesses around you, rather than protecting your own position. In my experience, that approach is not only more rewarding – it ultimately leads to greater success.

Rounded perspective

Today, Hannah Winter leads BlackRock’s Digital Cash business globally. As she observes, “It’s a role that brings together many of the areas I’ve worked in throughout my career, and allows me to apply my commercial skillset.”

Nevertheless, Hannah describes her career path as “anything but linear”, adding that this is one of the things she has most enjoyed about it. “I’ve had the opportunity to span asset classes and hold client, investments and technology roles, which have given me a very rounded perspective and skillset,” she says.

Hannah started her career at J.P. Morgan, where she spent time in both structured products and treasury services. This gave her a solid grounding in financial markets and client solutions.

Then, in 2012, she joined BlackRock as a Client Relationship Manager within the International Cash Management team. “In this role, I worked closely with corporate treasury clients across EMEA,” she says, adding that this was a pivotal moment in her career: “It opened the door to a range of opportunities I hadn’t imagined might come my way and gave me a business, product and team I found real passion for.”

Hannah’s subsequent roles included focusing on developing short-term investment solutions for clients, and then working on the firm’s Cachematrix business. “Here, I had the opportunity to lead the integration of the NEX Treasury acquisition and drive the product strategy for the global platform,” she says.

Continuous change

Looking back at her career so far, Hannah says she has often been pushed into new areas, leading her to develop skills she didn’t know she had. “Standout examples include leading advocacy and structuring for European Money Market Reform, leading an acquisition integration and technology platform, and driving digital assets innovation. These tested and built my leadership, influence and innovation skills.”

She adds that her three experiences of maternity leave acted as pivotal moments in her career. “I used them as opportunities to empower and elevate my team, while remaining open-minded about where I could add the most value when I returned – and that’s how many of my role shifts came about.”

Reflecting on her experiences as a new mother, Hannah says, “Blending the professional and new ‘mum’ me was a challenge! And I found returning from each of my three maternities had its own challenges, but I found the balance that works for me.”

More broadly, navigating continuous change is a particular challenge in Hannah’s role. “The financial industry is constantly evolving, whether that’s through regulatory change, technological innovation or shifts in market conditions,” she says. “During periods of transformation, there are often more questions than answers, and leaders have to make decisions without having complete certainty about the outcome.”

As a result, she believes that resilience, adaptability and clear communication are critical skills for a finance professional. “Often the challenge isn’t simply solving a problem – it’s helping people feel confident and aligned while working through it,” she reflects.

Currently, Hannah is particularly focused on topics such as the evolution of digital cash and tokenisation. As she explains, this topic is attracting interest from institutions seeking to improve their operational efficiency, while maintaining the risk management, governance and regulatory standards provided by traditional financial products.

“For me, the focus is on helping bridge the gap between innovation and practical adoption,” she says. “That means working closely with clients, market participants and technology partners to understand where digital solutions can create genuine value and where the industry still needs to develop further.

“It’s an exciting time, because we are moving from theoretical discussions toward real-world implementation and use cases.”