The New Infrastructure of Power: Finance and Security in an AI-Guided World
Written by Jack Rollins for The Fourth Effect
How Fintech and Cybersecurity are Rewriting the Rules of Who Gets to Build the Future
We're living through the collapse of institutional consensus and the dawn of new organizing forces. Networks, AI, platforms, and capital flows move faster than regulation or tradition. In this post-industrial, post-institutional era, we're not just iterating on old systems, we're designing new ones.
The operating frameworks of the future won't be defined by legacy logic. They'll be adaptive, human-aligned, AI-guided, and built for a world in motion.
At our 2025 Summit, we're exploring two critical dimensions of this transformation through dedicated breakout sessions: Capital, Code & Control: The Future of Financial Power and Trust, Threats & Transformation: Building Resilient Systems. Because here's what we've learned from years of watching startups scale and fail: the founders who understand both shifts, and position themselves at their intersection, don't just survive. They architect what comes next.
When Money Becomes Code and Code Becomes Infrastructure
The financial world is dissolving and reforming simultaneously. Traditional gatekeepers, legacy systems, and institutional consensus around who deserves capital are being rewritten by code, data, and networks that outpace regulation.
But while everyone talks about fintech disruption, few grasp the deeper transformation: capital access is becoming embedded everywhere, all the time, integrated into the fabric of how we work and live. Every company can become a financial services provider. A rideshare app offers payments, lending, and insurance. An e-commerce platform provides working capital to merchants. Software companies embed banking services so seamlessly that users barely notice they're engaging with financial products.
The result? Traditional boundaries between financial institutions and other businesses have collapsed. Capital is becoming ambient.
The Security Paradox: More Connected, More Vulnerable
Here's the paradox: as financial infrastructure becomes more embedded and AI-driven, it becomes exponentially more vulnerable. Every new connection creates new attack vectors. Every AI system introduces new risks. Every embedded finance integration multiplies potential breach points.
The same forces that are democratizing access to capital—networks, platforms, AI systems—are also creating unprecedented digital risks. We're building an interconnected financial ecosystem where a single vulnerability can cascade across industries.
Consider the stakeholders navigating this reality: CIOs trying to secure AI-powered platforms, PE operators evaluating cybersecurity risks in portfolio companies, cyber founders building resilience systems, and CISOs protecting infrastructure that's evolving faster than they can secure it.
The challenge isn't just technical. It's about building trust in systems that are becoming more powerful and more complex every day.
The Invisible Bias in Both Systems
Here's what most people miss about both transformations: we're not just changing how money moves or how systems are secured. We're changing who gets to control these new infrastructures. And right now, the data tells a stark story.
Only 2-3% of venture capital goes to women-led businesses, with even less going to women of color. Less than 2% of assets are managed by diverse-owned firms. Even in FemTech, male founders have received more funding for each of the past five years.
These numbers represent systematically under-funding diverse entrepreneurs, which means we're missing out on investing in innovative solutions informed by someone closest to the problem. When investors and underrepresented entrepreneurs aren't speaking the same language, bias leads to underestimating market potential.
The same patterns play out in cybersecurity and infrastructure governance. The people building the systems that protect our digital future often don't reflect the diversity of the communities those systems serve.
Both the new financial infrastructure and the security systems protecting it have the power to either reinforce existing patterns of exclusion or completely disrupt them.
The New Power Players Across Both Domains
Control determines everything as both capital access and digital infrastructure become embedded everywhere. The question becomes: who controls the frameworks?
Fintech founders and cyber founders are building the rails and guardrails that will carry tomorrow's economy. The winners aren't just serving customers—they're becoming the platforms that enable other businesses to serve customers securely.
PE firms and investors are realizing their due diligence process must account for both technological infrastructure and security resilience, not just business fundamentals. They need diverse leadership teams to identify opportunities and risks that homogeneous groups miss. The companies they back need to understand embedded finance, AI-driven underwriting, platform economics, and cybersecurity governance simultaneously.
Regulators are scrambling to keep pace with innovations that don't fit existing categories. How do you regulate a social media platform offering banking services? What happens when an AI system makes lending decisions? How do you secure infrastructure that's constantly evolving?
CIOs, CISOs, and startup founders across every sector recognize that financial services and cybersecurity are no longer someone else's problem. Whether you're building in healthcare, logistics, or education, you need to think like both a fintech company and a cybersecurity company if you want to scale.
Why Every Founder Should Care About Both
Every startup today competes in a world where capital access, payment flows, financial infrastructure, and security resilience serve as strategic differentiators. The fintech and cybersecurity revolutions touch every industry.
The companies that win in the next decade will understand how to leverage embedded finance as a competitive moat while building trust through robust security practices. They'll use real-time data to make smarter capital allocation decisions while protecting that data from threats. They'll build platforms that don't just serve customers but enable entire ecosystems—securely.
Most importantly, they'll build boards that understand both transformations.
Because here's what The Fourth Effect has seen repeatedly: the founders who navigate both shifts successfully aren't going it alone. They're building advisory boards with fintech operators, cybersecurity experts, regulatory specialists, and growth strategists. They're surrounding themselves with people who understand technology, business models, compliance frameworks, and risk management that will define the next era of digital infrastructure.
Boards as Strategic Infrastructure for Dual Transformation
Advisory boards stop being overhead and start being leverage here—but only if they're built to handle the complexity of dual transformation.
The right advisor who's navigated embedded finance scaling challenges while building secure architectures can save you months of costly mistakes. An investor who understands both regulatory frameworks and cybersecurity requirements can help you build defensible moats instead of compliance headaches. A board member with networks spanning fintech and cybersecurity can open doors that would otherwise remain closed.
For fintech companies, this means advisory boards need Privacy & Security Advisors alongside Financial Advisors. Someone with expertise in cybersecurity strategy, knowledge of global data privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA, and experience in risk assessment and mitigation. These advisors provide strategic advice on building secure architectures, guide compliance efforts with regulatory frameworks, and help evaluate risks associated with scaling.
For every other startup, it means understanding that you're building financial and security infrastructure whether you realize it or not. Your advisory board needs people who can help you navigate both domains.
But here's the catch: you need these perspectives before you need them. By the time you're facing a regulatory challenge, a security breach, or trying to integrate payment flows, it's too late to start building those relationships.
Breaking the Patterns That Hold Us Back
At The Fourth Effect, we see these challenges converge. We've connected over 2,000 members to board and investment opportunities and matched more than 600 startups to advisors or investors. But what we've learned is that the companies scaling fastest don't just access capital or security expertise. They access the right combination at the right time from people who understand how both domains intersect.
Harvard Business Review found that diverse companies are 45% more likely to capture new markets and 70% more likely to enter new markets than their less diverse peers. When we help startups build fit-for-purpose boards spanning both financial and security expertise with diverse perspectives, we're not just strengthening individual companies. We're reshaping the future of digital infrastructure and economic power.
The financial and security infrastructure being built today will determine who gets access to capital and who gets protection from digital threats for the next generation. We can't afford to recreate the same exclusionary systems in new packaging.
What We're Building Toward
Our platform connects founders with advisors and investors who understand how finance and security intersect in the AI era. We're using AI to identify the right expertise combinations at the right moments, matching startups with board members who bring not just capital or security knowledge, but strategic insight into how both domains are being reconstructed.
The future belongs to companies that understand both shifts and build accordingly. But more than that, it belongs to companies that understand their responsibility to build infrastructure that's both powerful and trustworthy, accessible and secure.
Join the Conversations
Our Capital, Code & Control and Trust, Threats & Transformation breakout sessions will bring together the stakeholders driving both transformations: fintech investors and cybersecurity experts, PE firms adapting investment thesis for dual risks, regulators shaping frameworks for both domains, and startup founders building at the intersection.
We're focused on strategic community building for founders and investors who recognize that the future of both financial power and digital security is being written right now—and want to help write it better.
Because ultimately, both transformations go beyond who gets access to capital or who gets protection from threats. They're about who gets to shape the systems that determine access and protection for everyone else.
The old gatekeepers are being replaced. The question is: what kind of infrastructure will we build instead? And more importantly, who gets to help design it?
If we're not iterating on the past, what do we build instead—and how do we do it differently this time?
The shift is happening across finance and security simultaneously. The only question is whether you'll be positioned to leverage both transformations or left behind by them.
Ready to dive deeper? Register for our 2025 Summit and join both the Capital, Code & Control and Trust, Threats & Transformation breakout sessions on October 21st. Because the future of digital infrastructure won't wait for you to catch up.
