Women and several minority groups are underrepresented in the business and tech world. For example, just 6.5% of fintech founders in Europe are women and there are currently only two African American female CEOs of Fortune 500 Companies.
In 2022, female-led businesses only received around six percent of venture capital funding. If women in the UK could match men in starting and scaling businesses, £250bn could be added to the economy.
It was also reported that half of the women applying for loans and investments have had their requests rejected – a barrier preventing women from being successful before they’ve even started.
The lack of gender diversity in the UK technology industry has not gone unnoticed. Businesswoman and peer, Martha Lane Fox, publicly recently said there has been little progression in twenty five years.
Change has been happening in this industry, albeit slowly, and women are doing their best to be heard in a mainly male dominated industry.
A record 150,000 new firms were founded by women last year and women’s share of senior and leadership roles has seen a steady global increase over the past five years. In 2022, the global parity for this category reached 42.7% – the highest gender parity score to date.
The industry body for UK Fintech, Innovative Finance is led by three women and doing a great job shining a light on women in fintech. Innovate Finance today revealed its Women in FinTech Powerlist which celebrates some of the amazing women making an impact across the FinTech and Financial Services space.
Many of our clients at Chatsworth have women in senior positions who are smashing it! Ledgy is led by co-founder and CEO, Yoko Spirig, Duality’s Chairwomen and co-Founder is Rina Shainski and R3 the leading provider of enterprise technology, has Dr. Katelyn Baker as its Principal Software Engineer and Alisa DiCaprio as its Chief Economist.
On the 111th anniversary of International Women’s Day, there is plenty to celebrate, but also lots more to achieve in the pursuit of complete gender equality in both the workforce and in senior positions for women.
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