Pandas, Pitching & Promoting Women in Tech
When I woke up yesterday morning, my Twitter feed was going crazy — it felt like the whole world had come together to celebrate International Women’s Day and we were finally getting some time in the spotlight.
First up on the feed was the UN making a much-needed statement about basic women’s rights:
Then there was tireless FinTech leader Ghela Boskovich giving a massive shout-out to women in tech:
Eternally supportive Georgia Hanias, from Innovate Finance, was also making plenty of noise:
And my fantastic social media team at Azimo had retweeted a blog piece by Global Invest Her CEO Anne Ravanona in which we discussed opportunities for women:
It felt so inspiring — a stream of talented friends and colleagues celebrating the fact that women in tech are actually a thing worth, well, celebrating.
I drank my morning coffee with a smile on my face and ready to face the day head on. We’ve done our fair share, I thought, patting myself on the back for achieving so much. But then I realised that no, there’s still so much more to do. The mere fact that ‘Women in Tech’ has to be an issue, unlike ‘Men in Tech’, is proof that more has to be done to encourage, promote and nurture women in this industry.
Women in tech are rather like pandas (stay with me on this one). Everybody loves them, there aren’t enough of them in the world and we need to help them so there are more. To stretch the point even further, social media feeds are full of panda pics every day, but that doesn’t alter the fact that there are only 1,600 left in the wild.
A week ago, I went to the Pitch10 event at 10 Downing Street to talk about Azimo and share the tremendous success we’ve had in the last three years, from European expansion to trailblazing financial inclusion around the globe. Out of the 11 entrepreneurs pitching, though, I was the only woman on the stage.
Yesterday, for International Women’s Day, I went to Innovate Finance’s Celebrating Women in Finance, where many of us London-based FinTech ladies came together to share our success stories and pitch our businesses. The format of the elevator pitch needed to include ‘an ask’, such as seeking funding or partnerships.
Well, my ask is this, and it applies to successful women and men alike. Starting from today, can we all please pay it forward by mentoring and sponsoring more women? It doesn’t have to be a formal mentorship (although that’s fine too). It can be anything from a quick coffee and chat to speaking at an event or including a promising female employee in that really exciting project you’re just starting.
If we can all work together on this, then hopefully soon we might just be able to talk about ‘People in Tech’. And there’s a lot to fight for, data speaks for itself. First Round Capital released a report last year highlighting that businesses with at least one female founder performed 63 per cent better than their all-male counterparts. The gender funding gap is estimated at $285bn, so if we close it we will increase GDP in the world by 12%…
What needs to be done here is black-and-white, just like those pandas.
