How Fireblocks' Marketing Chief Addresses the Crypto Gender Employment Gap

As a preteen in Florida around the 1990s, Yelena Osin helped her software engineer parents by handing out flyers to sell computers they built at trade shows. At the same time, her parents persuaded their neighbor, a computer shop owner, to hire Osin’s 13-year-old brother for a job. The neighbor was hesitant, not wanting the teenager to mess anything up. As a remedy, her parents paid the neighbor to let her brother work there every day. It wasn’t a big deal for Osin at the time, but as she reflects on this, as svp of global marketing at digital asset management company Fireblocks, it's a stark reminder of the young age at which gender roles are predecided. As a woman, “you're not given the same opportunities,” said Osin. Finding Gender Parity at the Intersection of Venture and Crypto Diversity makes organizations more resilient That there's an employment gender gap—and so a pay gap—is no secret. A 2020 report by the World Economic Forum said that it would take women 257 years to close the employment gender gap across all industries. Osin is trying to narrow that gap at Fireblocks. Currently, about 23% of people who work at the firm, which has over 400 employees, are women. Twelve of the 87 women hired by the company last year were onboarded by Osin. Prior to this, there were only 11 women at Fireblocks. In 2022, Deloitte Global predicts that large global technology firms, on average, will reach nearly 33% overall female representation in their workforces. “[Osin] pushes with HR that she would like to see more female candidates,” said Jessie Blocker, vp of sales, strategic accounts at Fireblocks, and noted Osin’s marketing team is one of the only departments “somewhat impressive on the women front.” The company wouldn't share comparison numbers. “Her ability to learn quickly and ensure that information is trickled down to others sets her apart,” said Blocker. Apart from hiring, the crypto start-up invests in its female employees by educating new hires on digital currency, encouraging their participation at panels and workshops, while promoting them into leadership roles. While Deloitte's research shows that women hold less than a quarter of the industry's senior leadership roles, 30% of the women employed at Fireblocks are in leadership roles, according to Osin, who had no prior knowledge of digital currency before joining the company. “Diversity makes an organization more resilient,” Osin told Adweek, “and is critical to product development and go-to-market strategies.” She noted that a diverse team avoids tunnel vision when it comes to product design. From her hiring experience, Osin noted that while both genders appear equally intimidated by the complexity of crypto, only women remove themselves from progressing further in the hiring process, "because they feel like it would be too hard to work.” “But there are so many tools and support systems orchestrated for them," she added. "The question is, are they finding and engaging with those?” The realities of gender bias Being in a gender minority is not new for Osin. As an entertainment business graduate student at Full Sail University, she was one of two women in a class of 100 students. “It was intimidating,” she said, but her competitiveness drove her to stay focused. Regardless, Osin was no exception to the realities of gender bias. Back in 2014, Osin was hired as the head of marketing at a tech company whose name she chose to keep anonymous. In one conversation with the CEO, Osin was asked to stay in her current role until her male coworker—below her in terms of experience and knowledge—could rise to her position in order for her to report to him. Finding herself a misfit in the culture, she soon moved on from the company. “It’s a blatant example of how people thought about women in the workplace,” she said. “You don’t need [anybody’s] permission to enter crypto,” she said. “If the only people that were in this space were people that knew everything, the space wouldn't exist.” Women’s History Month Is Almost Over. How Will You Continue to #BreakTheBias?