Jo Wensley is VP of Technology at Smarsh, a role she has held since April 2023. She is an experienced technical leader with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. Prior to joining Smarsh in February 2022, she held previous positions at Micro Focus, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Autonomy. Jo is skilled in building and managing teams, SaaS, Product Design, Enterprise Software, DevOps, and Cloud Computing and has a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) focused in Quantum Matter from University of Cambridge.
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Fintech Leadership Is Evolving — and So Are the Paths That Lead There
In fintech, agility isn’t just a competitive advantage. It’s often the foundation of progress. While products and platforms attract headlines, the real transformations happen quietly — inside engineering teams led by professionals who understand that complexity is something to be navigated, not avoided.
Over the past decade, the idea of a fixed career ladder in technology has started to lose traction. The linear path — from junior developer to CTO, or from one sector to the next without deviation — is no longer the default. The most influential leaders in fintech today often bring a mix of technical depth, cross-functional experience, and resilience shaped outside traditional career molds.
This shift reflects how the industry itself has changed. As financial technology matures, engineering roles are expanding in both scale and scope. Leading a team of 10 is different from leading 150. Building a product is different from building the systems that help multiple teams build. And maintaining alignment across teams, time zones, and functions now requires more than just technical fluency — it demands operational clarity, trust, and communication that works across organizational layers.
These are not surface-level challenges. They affect delivery, culture, and outcomes. For companies working with highly regulated data, especially in communication intelligence and compliance — like those served by Smarsh — the stakes are even higher. Technical decisions intersect with business risks. And engineering leaders need to keep the system running while supporting distributed teams, shipping reliable code, and scaling the architecture behind it all.
In this environment, academic habits like rigor and precision are not distant memories. They are active tools — useful in planning, troubleshooting, and setting technical direction. At the same time, soft skills are no longer optional. They are critical infrastructure in themselves: a team without psychological safety won’t move fast, even with perfect tools.
That’s why hearing from professionals who’ve navigated non-linear journeys matters. It challenges the idea that technical excellence and leadership presence come from one path. It also reinforces something that’s easy to forget when hiring, managing, or mentoring: diversity in experience often leads to resilience in execution.
The fintech sector doesn’t just need technologists who can build. It needs leaders who can connect. Leaders who understand that engineering doesn’t happen in isolation. Leaders who take ideas from physics labs and startups and pre-sales calls — and apply them to managing global systems under real-world constraints.
That’s why we spoke with Jo Wensley, Vice President of Engineering at Smarsh.
In this conversation, she shares how her academic background continues to influence her leadership style, why communication is a force multiplier at scale, and what she’s learned about resilience during moments of professional pressure. More importantly, she brings forward a message that applies well beyond engineering: that the most impactful careers — and the most thoughtful leadership — are often shaped not by certainty, but by adaptation.
Enjoy.
1. You began your career with a strong focus on physics and academia. What drew you into software engineering, and what made you decide to stay in the field?
Coming from a physics background, I’ve always been drawn to complex problem-solving and systems thinking. During my academic work, I often built custom tools for simulations and data analysis - and over time, I realised I enjoyed the process of building those tools just as much, if not more, than the research itself.
What really drew me into software engineering was the speed at which you can create and iterate. In physics, you might spend months validating a model, whereas in tech, you can ship a solution, get real-world feedback, and improve it in days. That fast feedback loop was incredibly satisfying.
What made me stay was the impact and collaboration. I love working with cross-functional teams to turn abstract ideas into something tangible that users rely on every day. Software engineering gives me the same intellectual challenge as physics - but with broader impact, more creative flexibility, and a faster pace. It’s the perfect blend of rigor and real-world relevance.
2. Looking back on your early roles - from a startup to pre-sales engineering - what experiences were most valuable in shaping your approach to leadership today?
Since deciding on a career in software engineering, I have been fortunate enough to work in numerous roles across several sectors. In my early startup experience, wearing multiple hats taught me how to be scrappy, prioritise ruthlessly, and stay close to the product and the customer. There’s no room to hide in a small team - so you learn to make decisions with incomplete information, communicate clearly, and support others without waiting to be asked. That gave me a strong bias toward action and accountability, which still shapes how I lead today.
Later, in pre-sales engineering, I learned how to translate technical solutions into business value for non-technical stakeholders. That experience sharpened my ability to listen deeply, ask the right questions, and align teams around customer outcomes- not just features. It also taught me the value of cross-functional empathy, especially between engineering, sales, and product.
Together, those roles taught me that good leadership is about clarity, adaptability, and trust and that you cannot overstate the importance of communication. I would never have described myself as a good communicator when I was younger, but as I have navigated my career, I’ve seen firsthand how much damage can be done by poor communication and how much can be achieved with good communication.
3. What have been some of the biggest challenges in leading an engineering organisation of over 150 people, and how do you approach those challenges?
One of the biggest challenges at that scale is maintaining alignment and clarity without slowing down decision-making. As the organisation grows, communication overhead increases exponentially, and it becomes easier for teams to drift- either technically or strategically. To address this, I focus on creating strong operating rhythms: clear planning cadences, transparent goal setting, and regular check-ins that reinforce priorities without micromanaging.
Another key challenge is scaling culture and leadership. As you lead larger teams you can no longer directly influence every engineer or decision, so I invest heavily in building and supporting a strong layer of engineering managers and tech leads. That includes leadership development, clear delegation, and creating space for managers to lead in their own authentic ways while staying aligned with the key values.
Ultimately, I think it’s important to have trust in the team while keeping a finger on the pulse of all projects so you can check in and support your team as and when they need it.
4. You mentioned building resilience during a particularly difficult period in your career. How has that experience influenced the way you lead and make decisions now?
That period really reshaped how I lead both in terms of mindset and behavior. Going through a high-pressure situation, where things didn’t go as planned despite my best efforts, taught me that clarity, humility, and consistency are critical under stress.
I learned to separate signal from noise, stay calm when things were overwhelming, and make decisions with imperfect information. Now, I try to model that calm for my team, especially in high-stakes moments, because how you show up as a leader directly affects how others respond.
It also taught me that resilience isn’t about powering through alone, it’s about creating systems and culture that support each other when things get hard. I bring that lens into everything from org design to retrospectives to how we handle failure.
5. What skills or habits from your academic training do you still rely on in your current role?
My initial focus on academia really instilled in me the importance of precision and attention to detail. Resilience is another big takeaway from my academic days. Academic research can be a grind with plenty of setbacks and null results, but pushing through those problems has given me the tenacity that's essential in the tech world. When a project hits a snag, you have to find a way forward.
I also learnt how to communicate some pretty dense, dry topics in succinct and clear language. That's a daily part of my job now, whether I'm explaining a technical solution to my team or breaking down a specific implementation for clients. It's all about making the complex simple, and that's a skill that's been invaluable to me in leading my team.
6. How do you encourage effective communication within large and diverse engineering teams?
With large and diverse engineering teams, communication has to be intentional, it doesn’t scale naturally. I focus on creating multiple, purpose-driven channels that support clarity, inclusion, and feedback across levels and functions.
I push for written communication through design docs, RFCs, and decision logs so people across time zones and roles have access to context and can contribute asynchronously.
I also empower engineering managers and leads to act as communication multipliers so that they cascade information clearly, surface issues early, and make space for team feedback.
In my experience, the key to effective communication is to create an environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing their ideas. I always make a point of being approachable and open to different perspectives. Regular team meetings are a staple, but I also encourage informal catch-ups where people can chat more freely and make sure there are plenty of opportunities for everyone to speak up, whether that's in group settings or one-to-one.
Equally, I can't stress enough the importance of active listening; when team members feel heard, they're more likely to contribute meaningfully. It's all about fostering a culture of openness and respect, where every voice is valued.
7. What advice would you give to professionals who are navigating non-linear career paths or considering shifts into new areas of tech?
If anyone is thinking about taking a leap into a new area of tech or if they feel like their career path is not following a straight line, my advice is to embrace it. The tech world is all about innovation and adapting to change, so varied experiences can actually be a huge asset. Stay curious and keep learning; tech is constantly evolving, and so it’s vital that the people working in the field do too. Don't be afraid to network and ask for advice.
Lots of people have been in the same boat and are usually happy to share insights, and it’s important to remember that every bout of experience builds a unique skill set and perspective that will make invaluable contributions to the industry.
