Roxana Nasoi, Head of Investor Fundraising and Engagement at the Institute of Free Technology and the Logos Network, has spent enough time in the Web3 ecosystem to be wary of easy slogans. The industry likes to describe itself as meritocratic, decentralised, and designed to remove identity from the equation. Yet leadership roles across the sector remain dominated by men, and the pathways into influence can look as opaque as they are informal.
Week 22 – Roxana Nasoi, Head of Investor Fundraising and Engagement, Institute of Free Technology
Nasoi’s view is not that the problem is imaginary, nor that the solution is tokenistic representation. It is that many debates about inclusion in Web3 begin in the wrong place. She starts, instead, with the basics of what leadership is meant to do, particularly inside technical organisations that move quickly and are shaped by uncertainty.
She describes leadership as the craft of building an environment where different strengths can coexist without friction and without people being pushed into narrow definitions of competence. “Leadership is about creating a space for different talents to cohesively exist and align on a mutual vision,” she says.
That emphasis on space and alignment is not accidental. Fundraising and engagement sit at the intersection of narrative, incentives, and trust. If a leader cannot hold those elements together, the rest of the organisation usually follows the same drift.
Putting the team before the principal
Much of corporate management language speaks in abstractions about empowerment, autonomy, and culture. Nasoi grounds the same idea in a more explicit framework, the principal agent problem. It is the kind of reference that shows how she thinks about organisations not as families, but as systems with incentives and obligations that can be designed well, or poorly.
“It also means building the agency needed and prioritising that the needs of the agent are met before those of the principal,” she says. “You want to stand behind your people and ensure they have all the resources, tooling, and drive needed to strike.”
This is a quietly subversive point in an industry that often celebrates founders as singular visionaries. Her focus is less on charisma and more on conditions. When people are resourced properly and treated as agents with autonomy, you reduce internal politics and increase execution.
Web3’s promise of a level playing field is one of its most repeated arguments. Nasoi takes that claim seriously, but she also insists on a stricter definition of decentralisation than many projects would welcome.
“There’s no identity in decentralised systems,” she says. “By design, a network should be sufficiently able to function on its own even if the operational body has failed, in this case, the team building it.”
The distinction matters. If a network cannot endure beyond the team, it is not decentralised in any meaningful sense. She points to examples of public goods that continue without a central operational group. Her conclusion follows from that premise. In truly decentralised systems, personal identity should not carry weight because the only thing that matters is what you contribute.
“To answer your question, truthfully at the end of the day, the PII of those who contribute to the network doesn’t matter,” she says. “The only thing that matters is their contributions.”
That is the theory. The practice, as anyone who has watched governance fights or fundraising dynamics knows, can drift back towards traditional power structures. Nasoi’s argument is that the corrective is not simply better rhetoric about inclusion, but a renewed commitment to decentralisation as a design standard. If a project cannot be forked, rebuilt, and integrated by anyone, then it will always have gatekeepers, regardless of its marketing.
Authority, noise, and not feeding the machine
Asked whether she has faced moments where her authority was challenged because she is a woman, Nasoi’s answer is straightforward. She says she has been fortunate. She has worked in environments where gender was not treated as a proxy for competence.
But what is more revealing is how she describes the response she would choose if she did encounter that kind of undermining. “If it did happen, I tend to move on from the noise and just focus on what matters,” she says. “I don’t have time to clutter on people’s opinions, nor fit in their boxes.”
It is a practical stance. In fast moving technical environments, attention is the scarcest resource. Spending it on proving you belong can become a trap, particularly for women, who are often expected to carry both performance and representation. Her approach is not about denial. It is about refusing to grant status to the distraction.
Web3 systems are often described as trustless, yet the people who build them are human. Fundraising, partnerships, and community engagement require relationships, and relationships require tone.
Nasoi is clear that warmth is not a weakness, but it needs boundaries. “I’ve always tried my best to show kindness and warmth without having these taken for granted,” she says.
She also notes a pattern she sees in women’s leadership, though she avoids making it a rigid rule. “I think women have a nurturing side, if not paired with a narcissistic personality, which can be put to good use in leading a team,” she says. “You always look after your people.”
In business terms, this is a view of leadership as risk management. Looking after people is not sentimental. It is how you prevent burn out, reduce churn, and retain institutional knowledge. It also creates conditions for honesty, which matters in technical work where mistakes compound quietly.
Learning the technical layer without being ashamed
One of the more persistent barriers to entry into Web3 is the perception that it is an insiders’ club of developers. Nasoi does not dismiss the technical reality of the space. She reframes what competence looks like for those who are not engineers.
“Just be open to learn, and don’t be ashamed to ask questions and clarifications,” she says.
She also makes a pragmatic point about how the learning curve has shifted. With retrieval augmented generation tools and large language models, it is easier to interrogate documentation, explore technical concepts, and build working understanding faster than in earlier cycles. Her message is not that AI replaces expertise, but that it lowers the friction of curiosity.
“Nobody was born a specialist, we all go through a learning curve,” she says. “Just be open and willing to learn new things, and discard of things that aren’t serving you.”
This line is particularly relevant for founders building in a space where narratives change faster than fundamentals. The ability to learn, then unlearn, can be a competitive advantage.
Translating between worlds
Web3 teams often live in two realities at once. There is the internal technical culture, shaped by speed, experimentation, and a bias towards building. Then there is the external institutional world, shaped by compliance, cautious capital, and reputational risk. Being able to move between those realities is increasingly valuable.
“It’s a different dialogue that you need to have, with different audiences,” Nasoi says.
She argues that women can be particularly strong in these translation roles, because the work is dynamic, relational, and requires switching between frames. She notes that a woman who can speak to a developer audience and to an institutional partner is not just useful, but rare enough to stand out.
Her broader point is that leadership in Web3 is becoming less about expertise in one domain and more about fluency across domains. The market is moving towards firms that can build and also explain, ship and also reassure, innovate and also comply.
As AI and blockchain converge, ethical language has become fashionable. Nasoi is sceptical. She questions whether ethical AI is even possible under the current incentive structure, given the dependence on internet scale data and the push towards private datasets for improvement.
“I’ve yet to see any ethical AI developed,” she says. “Let’s remember all the AI systems today are based on a knowledge base derived from the Internet, a global archive, and improving them requires access to private data.”
Her concern is that the governance conversation could become tribal, with rights assigned based on categories rather than contribution. She links that risk to patterns already visible in blockchain, from mining concentration to validator wars and governance failures.
“I think we need more scientists not driven by ego, but by the curiosity of advancing humanity,” she says. “Brilliant minds together can achieve more than divided minds would ever achieve.”
It is a call for seriousness in a sector that sometimes rewards confidence over care.
Finding your tribe
Nasoi’s personal story includes a detail that explains her approach to experimentation. She grew up in a family that supported freedom and curiosity after living under a former communist environment. She credits that support with giving her the confidence to explore technology without fear, to make mistakes, and to learn by doing.
“I would also add that finding your tribe is the key,” she says. “In the past, we were born into a community, today we spend our whole lives trying to find our community.”
For women entering Web3, this is more than lifestyle advice. It is a strategy for resilience. Community is how you find mentors, collaborators, and opportunities that are not visible in formal job descriptions.
Three tips for aspiring Web3 leaders
- Be flexible. The space shifts fast, and rigidness becomes a liability.
- Be kind, but committed to your path. Warmth works when it is paired with boundaries and purpose.
- Be patient and keep learning. Expertise is built over time, and character is shaped by real world setbacks as much as study.
