Ms Catherine Fitzpatrick

Catherine is Founder & Director of Flequity Ventures, a social enterprise which aims to empower
business to disrupt financial abuse and gender bias through more flexible, safe and equitable product and service design.

A former bank executive, Catherine was recognised nationally in 2018 as an AFR | Qantas 100 Women of Influence for her leadership of Commonwealth Bank’s domestic and family violence strategy. A career highlight was instigating analysis that found patterns of abuse in payment descriptions in 2019, and successfully advocating for the Australian banking industry to take collective action to respond.

She is the author of Designed to Disrupt, first published by the Centre for Women’s Economic Safety in 2022, which has led 13 Australian banks to ban the misuse of products for financial abuse.

Catherine advises the Commonwealth Government as the only business representative appointed to the National Plan Advisory Group and is Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales School of Social Sciences.