Catherine Fitzpatrick, Founder & Director of Flequity Ventures, is nominated for the Shared Value Bravery Award for her commitment to dismantling financial abuse and gender bias. With her expertise as a former banking executive and architect of Commonwealth Bank’s domestic and family violence strategy, Catherine established Flequity Ventures, a social enterprise that empowers businesses to disrupt financial abuse.

Her “Designed to Disrupt” series, created in collaboration with the Centre for Women’s Economic Safety (CWES), exposes how financial products and services can be weaponised for abuse. It provides a blueprint for tailoring the eSafety Commissioner’s Safety by Design principles to other sectors. Within a year of its release, 14 major banks adopted the primary recommendation, implementing new terms and conditions explicitly outlining financial abuse as unacceptable.

Catherine’s unique approach combines insider expertise, a survivor-centric focus, and a commitment to systemic change. She reinvests 50% of Flequity Ventures’ profits into activities that further disrupt financial abuse, including free or low-cost services to not-for-profits. Her work aims to deliver change today and inspire the financial sector to prioritise the safety of financial abuse victims in product and service design, paving the way for a more equitable future.