Yevheniia Broshevan’s route to Web3 leadership was anything but accidental. From cybersecurity engineering to smart contract auditing, she has always followed her curiosity and trusted her gut. Now co-founder and CEO at Hacken, she leads a global cybersecurity company of 140 people from Lisbon, having started in Kyiv with a much smaller team. Her experience spans grassroots crypto meetups to high-level regulatory forums, and her advice for the next generation of women in tech is simple but profound: create your own community, find a mentor, and follow your passion.
Week 2 – Yevheniia Broshevan, Co-Founder & CEO, Hacken
“I believe all my career stages were shaped by curiosity and people,” she says. “Every time, I showed up with questions and genuine interest. That’s how I got my first crypto job, my second, my third. I was simply in the right circles, asking the right questions.” Broshevan doesn’t just advocate for initiative, she embodies it.
She speaks with calm authority about the importance of building trust in what is often called a “trustless ecosystem.” While Web3 is theoretically meritocratic, Broshevan acknowledges that old patterns still persist.
“It’s not just about decentralisation, it’s about diversification,” she says. “There are more women now building companies and leading in different sectors of crypto, from art and real estate to healthcare. But especially in security, we’re still not where we should be.”
One thing that sets Broshevan apart is her comfort in both technical and people-oriented spaces. While her early academic background was steeped in nuclear engineering, her professional path took her toward cybersecurity and blockchain. She credits emotional intelligence and empathy with shaping her leadership style.
“I think women are more emotionally invested in their relationships,” she reflects. “We tend to connect not only on a professional level, but personally too. That makes a difference when it comes to trust. Clients are not just dealing with a company name, they’re dealing with me, and that comes with a sense of personal responsibility.”
This emotional investment translates into her approach to team building. Hacken’s globally distributed workforce includes more than 20 nationalities, and she believes that managing across cultures requires both intuition and empathy.
“It’s about understanding what motivates people, what they like, what they don’t, whether they’re in the right role. Sometimes you just feel it. I rely a lot on intuition.”
When it comes to making sense of evolving AI ethics, Broshevan is critical of how standards are often built around a narrow model.
“Take health and longevity,” she says. “The protocols, the research, it’s all based on what they call the ‘reference man.’ But what works for a man doesn’t necessarily work for a woman. We need frameworks that recognise different perspectives, and right now, that’s missing.”
Broshevan believes that women should be more involved in shaping AI governance, especially as these technologies begin to touch on deeply personal areas like privacy, identity, and autonomy. She’s not calling for tokenism, but rather for design that accounts for real-world diversity.
“It’s not just gender,” she says. “It’s geography, culture, context. AI systems need that kind of nuance.”
Much of Broshevan’s thinking is rooted in lived experience. As a Ukrainian founder, she has navigated uncertainty on multiple levels, from the rapid changes of the crypto space to the ongoing war in her home country. Her response has been adaptability, grounded in resilience and an unwavering belief in community.
“You have to be ready for change, because in Web3, it’s the only constant,” she says. “But you don’t have to face it alone.”
In fact, community has been central to her professional growth. Early in her career, she joined cybersecurity communities like OWASP and DEFCON in Ukraine and when she couldn’t find what she was looking for, she built her own.
“I started my own sandbox,” she says. “A space for ethical hackers and people interested in security. Later we did the same in Lisbon, creating new groups around health and longevity. When you find like-minded people, it changes everything.”
Her leadership style is a synthesis of emotional intelligence, ethical rigour, and technical depth. She can quote decentralised protocols and also laugh about early crypto forums where flip-flops were the norm.
“I remember organising one of the first crypto events in Odessa back in 2015,” she says. “It felt like an underground movement. Now, those same people are wearing suits and speaking to regulators. We’re adjusting and growing, but it’s important we don’t lose our story.”
Her role often requires straddling two very different worlds: the informal creativity of crypto-native meetups and the formalised expectations of regulatory stakeholders.
“You have to meet people where they are,” she says. “You can’t walk into a regulator’s office in a hoodie and expect to be taken seriously. But you can still bring your values with you.”
So what advice does she give to young women entering the space?
“First, find or create your community,” she says. “If it doesn’t exist, build it. Your vibe attracts your tribe.”
“Second, find a mentor. Someone who’s been there and done that. They can help you navigate, see shortcuts, avoid common mistakes.”
“And third, follow your passion. If you’re trying to force yourself down a path that doesn’t resonate, you won’t get far. But if you’re genuinely interested, people will notice and doors will open.”
Yevheniia Broshevan is not just a leader in cybersecurity and blockchain. She’s a builder of spaces – technical, social, and ethical. Her presence in Web3 is proof that you don’t need to follow old rules to lead. You can write your own.
