Exclusive: ‘Valiant Visionary’ – Dr Leda Glyptis in “Swashbucklers 2020”

Our next esteemed Swashbuckler is none other than the valiant visionary, Leda Glyptis. Glyptis is known across the fintech world for her impassioned leadership style. And we mean IMPASSIONED, she’s a really strong speaker. Glyptis can get even the driest of rooms fired up about fintech and excited for the future. As one of our 25 Swashbucklers it’s hard not to imagine her at the helm of a pirate ship, navigating the stormy seas and inspiring the crew.

People before profit

Glyptis’ on-stage speaking will go down in the fintech history e-books. She’s charismatic, forward-looking and she even earned a fist-bump from Will.I.Am. Boom Boom Pow.

But what really stands her out is her people-first approach. Glyptis’ teams and customers mean everything to her. This Swashbuckler always positions people before profit, which we think is pretty awesome. “I really deeply care about the humans in my care”, Glyptis explains. “My team, my clients, the end users of what we build. The lives we touch and hope to improve in our own small ways”.

“Oh. And I don’t believe in ‘yes but’”, Glyptis adds, “Your principles and values need to apply always. As Josh Winterson told me: the way you do anything is the way you do everything”. Nicely said!

Hard work + Vision = Leda Glyptis

When she’s not busy saving the world, Glyptis is nothing if not hardworking, and throughout her career, she’s worked like a trooper to get to the position she’s in today. This Cambridge and LSE graduate earned a bachelors, masters, and PhD. She’s also climbed her way up the greasy financial career ladder with purpose and drive. She started at the bottom, worked, worked and worked some more before reaching CEO, Chairperson and board member levels. Go Glyptis! We’re so impressed at how insanely hard working she is. In her own words, “The hard yards are not optional and depth can’t be faked. So don’t rush. Learn. Do the work”.

Underpinning all this hard work is Glyptis’ strong sense of direction. She has a vision for our industry and strives to keep moving forwards. People are always at the centre of her ideas. Today, she’s driving fintech into the future as a strategic board member, leading innovative new tech solutions and being an all-round general legend.

Ever the inspirer, Glyptis exclaims, “We are part of a singularly transformative moment in human history and what we do matters. It’s a burden. But also, what an opportunity!”.

What’s next on the horizon?

We’d like to congratulate Glyptis on becoming a board member for SimplyPayMe recently. She’ll be helping the company achieve its next phase of growth and we wish her all the very best of luck!

At the same time, this busy bee will continue as Chairman of the Board for Findexable, a global fintech index. While, smashing out her weekly #LedaWrites blog – which has been highly acclaimed across the industry. From one fintech writer to another, we salute you Glyptis!

We’ve also seen this driven doctor pop up on a few virtual events, doing her thing and delivering first class talks on our industry. Vision, morals and bloody hard work makes Leda Glyptis one of our 25 fintech Swashbucklers. Never stop Glyptis! We love you!

This article was published in Swashbucklers 2020, Page 19