How can we accelerate the transition to a culture of mixity? (Part 1)

We have seen lately many inspiring and powerful initiatives, driving a very strong dynamic in the ecosystem regarding mixity. As far as diversity and inclusion is concerned, Europe has been quite late compared to the US but things start moving. For example, great movements such as SISTA or Leia Capital are really changing the approach the investment funds now have towards mixity and female entrepreneurship.

SISTA and Leia Capital

Yet, when you work as an investor, you receive dealflow opportunities, you meet with entrepreneurs and C-level teams, you get to face reality. And when you face reality regarding mixity you realise that things move but clearly not fast enough.

Ok. Let’s be fact-based:

• At Ring we receive around 5,000 investment opportunities per year, and when we take a look at this dealflow, we realise that only 11% of these companies are founded or co-founded by women.
• When we take a look at our portfolio, we can’t really say that the situation is FAR better: 26% of our portfolio companies are founded or co-founded by women, 23% of the C-levels and 20% of the board members of these companies are women.

Also, why not look at our own industry, the investment industry. And face reality again. It doesn’t look good either. In France Invest last barometer towards mixity (by the way France Invest is also doing a very good job regarding mixity), two figures are really frightening:

• The proportion of women among the investment team is 27% in 2021 and it has not increased at all in 2021 compared to 2020!
• When you ask women before 35 years old if they project themselves in the capital investment industry, only 50% answer YES, versus 82% for men…

If our target is to foster mixity everywhere, then the shift needs to be AT EVERY LEVEL because having a woman investor or a woman among founders or co-founders is unfortunately not a guarantee for a strong mixity culture.

So, what can we do to accelerate this shift? What can we do to promote mixity at every level of the companies (and of the society) and to massively change centuries-old behaviours and mental systems?

Let’s be clear, SPOILER ALERT !!! I don’t have the answer to this question… but I can talk to you about an initiative that we have launched at Ring level which tries to contribute at its very little scale to this thorny problem and which gave me some food for thought I would like to share with you.

Ring Women Leader Program

2 months ago, we decided to invest some time and resources to create a collective coaching program dedicated to the female leaders of our portfolio companies and of the non-profit organisations we support. The idea is to create a “promotion” of 25 women leaders (funders, C-levels and top managers) and to help them express their leadership and become ambassadors of the culture of mixity to spread the word in their companies. And we launched the opening session of the program last thursday!!!

More about the program itself

• 4 meetings a year, each time half-a-day all together, to work on developing leadership and building the foundations for a culture of mixity
• Sub-group sessions to focus on specific topics
• Exercises conducted by 2 executive coaches with strong experiences in tech companies and women leadership topics
• Inspirational talks from inspiring women (ping Marie Eloy and Elizabeth Pavageau, thanks again for your energy and powerful input)
• Joining a community of women leaders, willing to build sorority spirit for support, fun as well as business and personal opportunities

What did we learn from this first session?

• There is a HUGE positive energy when you talk about such projects. And this huge energy not only comes from the women who participate in this program. It comes from all the management team of our portfolio (mostly masculine if you read me before). And this is a great foundation for building a culture of mixity!
• The first synergy comes from the community itself. Having 25 female leaders together, able to share their success, difficulties, business and management matters is per se the first achievement. And this is what the 25 participants valued most. And they all wanted to have more time together.
• We all look for role models and inspiration: we want to hear positive stories, we want to spread the word on great women leaders, we want to hear about diversity in terms of leadership style.
• We don’t want one unique definition of women leadership. To build strong leadership and to foster the culture of mixity we need to embrace a larger definition of leadership. We need to accept different styles and create a culture where the expectations towards feminine leadership (as well as masculine leadership by the way) are not defined a priori.

Food for thought

• How do we include men in this action? They are (at least) halfly accountable for the development of a culture of mixity, they cannot be left aside in this big project.
• How do we make this initiative have its own halo effect? The objective is not (only) to have nice, fun and energising meetings with 25 women leaders. The real outcome is the trickle down effect at company level, at portfolio level and — with the mobility of talents — at a much greater level.

• How do we make sure that talking about “women leadership” does not bring to feeding/reinforcing existing biases and mental schemes? How do we free the expression of each leader’s style to be natural and aligned with her personality?

Once again, we are fully aware that this Ring Women Leader Program will not be a revolution in our ecosystem but it is our way to act concretely in favour of mixity, with high hopes in terms of network effect. If you find that this can be a tiny piece of inspiration, don’t hesitate to spread the word.

And if you have ideas or thoughts to share, please reach out to me: mcl@ringcp.com. Otherwise, more to come with the next phases of our program! Stay tuned!