Women in Web3 Changemakers: Bridget Greenwood

“Web3 is a marathon and a sprint at the same time,” says Bridget Greenwood, Founder of The Bigger Pie, a project helping to support women in blockchain and emerging tech.

Greenwood is one of the 10 finalists of the 2023 Women in Web3 Changemakers List, an annual competition designed to champion women pushing boundaries in the space. Greenwood, along with nine other outstanding candidates, is showing the industry the change women are bringing about during the advent of the Open Web. 

When Greenwood isn’t helping women get funding, connecting them with event organisers and experts in the field at The Bigger Pie, she is also the founder of the 200Bn Club. The 200Bn club is an investment fund and accelerator program for under-represented founders, giving them pitch coaching, mock pitches, and access to over 200 VC Partners to help them successfully gain term sheets.

“There’s a lot of research that shows that women imagine solutions for a real-world problem that is much more sustainable in terms of its impact,” says Greenwood. 

“I think we’ve not seen enough of that in this space, and it’s what led me to start up The Bigger Pie.” But Greenwood’s journey into carving out space for more women in Web3 was anything but straightforward. 

Watch an extended NEAR Foundation video interview with Bridget Greenwood below.

A chance encounter 

Before crypto, Greenwood worked as an independent financial advisor in Norfolk, a rural part of England. But found the lack of opportunity and low wages at odds with her desire to be present for her son. 

“I lived in a place where there wasn’t a lot of opportunity on the doorstep. So how can I earn money whilst also being present for my child?”

So Greenwood turned down offers from local businesses, and joined a financial software company specialising in helping leaders navigate the online world of social media. Shortly afterwards, she “fell down the Bitcoin rabbit hole”. 

It was a conversation with a friend that introduced her to the idea of decentralized ledger technology. “I loved the idea of having a blockchain that is decentralised, with the ability to change, and choose where we wanted to transfer value and who was included,” says Greenwood.

After that, she joined the BCB Group, which provided cryptocurrency brokerage services for institutional clients. While working at the company she saw firsthand how many brilliant, talented women were already working in the space. 

“I thought to myself, they don’t need any help. Right? But I thought I better ask. And I said as women in this industry, do you feel as though it’d be good to have support as a woman? Actually, the answer was yes.”

Six years later, and that impromptu question has grown into a community of hundreds of women in Web3 space supporting each other. But, says Greenwood there’s still a long way to go for true equality. 

“When you leave out half of the population, you’re leaving out half of those experiences, and the problems they face.” For Greenwood, she is on a mission to help more women find their footing in Web3. 

“This is a great space to come in, because everyone’s making shit up as they go along,” she says. “Don’t worry about the fact that you’re coming in and you don’t know everything because nobody does, it moves too quickly.”

Instead, says Greenwood, reach out to female founders and entrepreneurs you admire and explain why you’d like to be here. “Feel free to reach out to me and I will invite you into the Bigger Pie and share with you all of the other communities that you have. Don’t be overwhelmed, do speak up. And without you, we are not going to build a future that we want to see.”