FinTech Female Fridays: Meet Meitar Landau, Head of GTM at Cymphony

Meitar Landau began her career as a flight simulator instructor in the Air Force, building discipline and confidence in high-stakes environments before transitioning into roles across the Ministries of Education and Finance. Drawn to fast-paced, entrepreneurial settings, she became the first employee at a startup, where she spent over three years building and leading go-to-market functions across customer success, sales, and operations. She later founded her own venture in customs brokerage, advancing proof-of-concepts with some of the world’s largest carriers. Today, she leads go-to-market at Cymphony, working with customers across industries, including major financial institutions, and focuses on scaling both the customer base and the team. Her journey reflects a willingness to take risks, pivot, and build from the ground up. It’s a powerful reminder that nonlinear paths often lead to the most meaningful impact.

Cymphony is redefining cybersecurity by focusing on one of the most overlooked risks: human behavior. As AI accelerates how organizations operate, the company unifies fragmented areas like identity, data security, insider risk, and AI security into a single Human Security Graph. This approach gives organizations a clearer, more actionable understanding of how people interact with systems and data. Their vision is to become the system of record for workforce security, turning scattered signals into meaningful insights. The culture is fast-moving and high-ownership, where curiosity and directness are valued. It’s a place where building alongside customers isn’t just encouraged, it’s essential.

Impact on FinTech

At the intersection of cybersecurity and financial services, Meitar works closely with institutions to better understand and manage workforce security. As financial systems grow more complex with AI and digital transformation, her work helps translate security challenges into practical, scalable solutions. She brings a customer-first lens to building and refining products that directly impact how organizations operate securely. Her role highlights how go-to-market leaders can shape innovation just as much as technical teams. By bridging business needs with security strategy, she contributes to a more resilient fintech ecosystem. Her impact is both strategic and deeply operational.

Challenging the Status Quo 

Meitar challenges herself by stepping into the unknown and not waiting until she feels fully “ready.” Rather than striving for perfection, she focuses on getting to the 80% that drives real impact. When she entered cybersecurity with no prior experience, she leaned into the discomfort and learned by doing. What sets her apart is a strong bias for action and a comfort with ambiguity. She embraces building in motion, trusting that clarity comes through execution. For other women in fintech, her journey shows that growth happens when you’re willing to step into the arena.

What’s Exciting in FinTech 

She’s especially excited about how AI is reshaping risk, security, and decision-making across financial services. As systems become more advanced, and AI agents join the organization, workforce security is becoming both more critical and more vulnerable. She sees a growing shift toward understanding behavior, not just infrastructure, as a defining trend. The future of fintech will rely on more adaptive, real-time security models. Companies that can unify data with context will stand out. It’s an exciting move toward more intelligent, human-centered systems.

Advice to Women in FinTech 

One piece of advice that has stayed with Meitar is to always stay close to the customer, no matter your role. Staying connected to real user experiences keeps your work grounded and impactful. She also believes that helping others doesn’t take away from your own success, it amplifies it. By being responsive and offering support before it’s asked, you build trust and influence across your organization. Strive to be the person people turn to for answers. Over time, that mindset becomes your greatest differentiator.

More about Meitar

Where you currently live: Tel Aviv -> moving to NYC in mid May (let me know if you have an apartment for me and my boyfriend)

Living arrangement: Family at home: my boyfriend, Itay Dror. He is the VP Product of a FinTech company, by the way. 

Hometown: Tel Aviv

Favorite hobby: I’m a certified yoga teacher, I love training and obsessed with cooking and baking 

Favorite show to binge: Bridgerton!

Do you have any productivity hacks? 

I try to eliminate small, annoying tasks quickly - if something takes five minutes, I just get it done so it doesn’t take up mental space. I’m also very intentional about protecting my most productive hours for focused, independent work. And while it’s not a popular opinion, I don’t think meetings are inherently unproductive - sometimes the fastest way to move forward is getting the right people in a room for 45 minutes and aligning.

What keeps me motivated is momentum - seeing things move, measuring results. No secrets here. 

As for work-life balance, I’ve made peace with the fact that in startups, work and life often blend. Instead of fighting it, I try to integrate the two - making space for life within work, like having lunch with a friend in the middle of a work day.

What's the best job decision you ever made? 

The best job decision I made was joining a startup as its first employee. It pushed me to operate outside of defined roles, take ownership, and learn across every aspect of the business. I’ve noticed many women hesitate to join very early-stage companies, but in my experience, it’s one of the most exciting and high-impact paths you can take - especially if you have entrepreneurial ambitions.

Daily Diary 

8:00 am: Pilates (or any workout) to start the day strong.

10:00 am: Arrive at the office and jump straight into meetings, emails and work.

12:00 pm: Lunch - usually homemade for me. Our entire team works mainly from the office, so lunch is a great time to catch up with everyone. 

Afternoon: Customer calls kick in (especially when on Tel Aviv timezone), plus the occasional high-impact internal meeting to move things forward.

8:00–9:00 pm: Wrap up, depending on time zones and late calls.

Evening: Either out with friends or winding down at home with my boyfriend and some Instagram reels (not TikTok—I’m a grown-up 😉). Oh and the occasional late night customer call.