Samantha Ghiotti

As Co-Founder and CEO of Habitto, Samatha Ghiotti is building a hybrid financial platform for Japan. It combines savings, investments and insurance with access to human financial advice. Under her leadership, Habitto became the first foreign-owned firm registered under Japan’s new Financial Services Intermediary framework. The company also raised US$11.7 million in a Series A round led by QED Investors and DG Daiwa Ventures.

Ghiotti built Habitto around her belief that finance is not simply a technology problem. It is also about behaviour and trust. The company aims to reduce financial anxiety and help more people engage with their money. This matters particularly in Japan, where many consumers have historically remained cautious about investing.

Rather than import a successful fintech model from elsewhere, Samatha Ghiotti and her team built for the Japanese market. Japan’s financial system is different. So are its regulations and people’s relationship with money. Habitto has had to understand those differences and respond to them.

Ghiotti knows how financial businesses work from several sides. At fintech investor Anthemis, she helped build the firm’s advisory business and worked across investment, strategy and business transformation. She then returned to operations as Deputy CEO of Singapore’s Singlife, where she helped lead the company through its 2021 transaction. Earlier roles at American Express, First Data and Royal Bank of Scotland gave her experience inside the large institutions that fintech companies now seek to disrupt.

For Samatha Ghiotti, Japan is not a market waiting for Silicon Valley to arrive. It is a market that demands its own answers. Her work offers a wider lesson for founders and business leaders: technology may travel quickly, but trust, behaviour and culture do not.