You’ve likely seen her name in the headlines again recently. Charlie Javice, founder of the startup Frank – a student financial aid application assistance company – is set to be sentenced next month in July.
Earlier this year, she was found guilty of defrauding JPMorgan out of $175million. She claimed her company had over four million users whereas, in reality, it was closer to 300,000.
It’s a big story and it should be. Fraud is serious and Javice will have to face the consequences of her actions. But here’s what worries me. Whenever something like this happens, and especially when the founder is a woman, the conversation shifts.
Suddenly it’s not just her story, it’s ours. Can we trust female founders? Is this the next Elizabeth Holmes?
As a woman in fintech, I’ve seen how hard it is to get funding, to build trust, to be taken seriously, and how fast it all gets questioned when one woman messes up.
So today, I want to talk about the real danger here. Not just the fraud but the narrative we build around it. Because one founder’s crime shouldn’t become a stereotype. Let’s get into it.
The reality: what the data tells us
It might feel like there are a lot of stories about women founders committing fraud. But when you look at the numbers, that’s not the case.
In the UK, 85 per cent of white-collar crime is committed by men. This trend holds across multiple countries and sectors, yet stories of male-led fraud tend to be treated as isolated incidents. The individual is blamed, but the broader group (male entrepreneurs, male CEOs, male founders) remains largely untouched by reputational fallout.
In contrast, when a woman commits fraud, her gender often becomes part of the headline. The incident gets framed not only as an individual failure, but as evidence of some larger flaw in female leadership. This framing contributes to persistent doubts about women’s credibility and trustworthiness in positions of power.
The numbers reveal a consistent bias in how leadership and misconduct are judged. Research from Cass Business School at City University of London found that banks with more women on their boards face fewer and smaller misconduct fines, saving millions annually. In fact, the presence of women in leadership roles has been linked to more ethical corporate behaviour and better risk management.
Meanwhile, female founders face an uphill battle just to get in the room. In 2024, only 2.3 per cent of all venture capital funding went to startups with all-female founding teams. That number has barely moved in years. Women are underrepresented in leadership, in funding rounds, on cap tables, yet overexposed when they fail.
The double standard in accountability
Javice deserves scrutiny, not because she’s a woman, but because she committed fraud. And yet, we rarely see the same scrutiny applied equally.
Consider Adam Neumann of WeWork, who burned through billions of dollars before stepping down with a golden parachute. More recently, Sachin Dev Duggal, the founder of Builder.ai, promised investors an AI-powered, no-code software platform. The company, once valued at $1.5billion, was exposed for relying not on AI, but on 700 human developers in India. Builder.ai now potentially faces bankruptcy, regulatory investigations and widespread layoffs and yet this scandal has barely dented the broader narrative around male-led innovation.
There’s an implicit gender bias at play here. When women in leadership fail, it becomes ‘cautionary’. When men fail, it’s often framed as ‘a lesson’ or ‘a bump in the road’. This creates a hostile environment for women who are trying to lead, innovate, and take risks because the cost of failure is exponentially higher.
We can and should hold founders accountable, regardless of gender. But we must also be aware of how systemic narratives pile on selectively. Until we address this imbalance, we’re discouraging the next generation of women from ever stepping up.
What we can do about it
This is much more than a media problem, it’s a societal one. However, we aren’t powerless. Here are a few concrete ways to help shift the narrative and support women in leadership:
- Call out the bias: When you see headlines or conversations that lump one woman’s wrongdoing into a trend, speak up. Challenge the framing.
- Support female-founded startups: Women founders already face major funding gaps and extra scrutiny. You can help by showing up for them. Buy their products. Recommend their services. Share their stories on social media. If you’re an investor or advisor, take meetings with women-led startups. Don’t just cheer from the sidelines – offer real support that helps them grow.
- Diversify decision-making: Companies, boards, VC firms, and media outlets need more diverse voices shaping the narrative.
- Mentor and sponsor: If you’ve made it to any level of leadership, extend a hand. Introduce a woman founder to a potential funder. Share her pitch deck. Be the bridge.
- Stop making women the exception: When a man commits fraud, people see it as his own bad decision. When a woman does, people act like it confirms a fear about all women in power. That double standard is deeply unfair. Women should be allowed to take risks, make bold moves, and even make mistakes, just like men do. Let’s stop holding women to impossible standards.
Final thoughts
The story of Charlie Javice is a cautionary tale but not for the reasons some think. It’s not a warning about women in leadership. It’s a reminder of how quickly we reduce complex issues to convenient stereotypes.
If we truly want a more ethical, innovative, and inclusive startup world, then we need to build systems that allow for both accountability and fairness. That means holding wrongdoers responsible, regardless of gender and also giving women the space to lead, succeed, fail, and try again.
Because progress doesn’t happen when we define people by the worst example. It happens when we stop making one story into the whole story.
