Addressing gender equality early on

What I’ve learned from being a tech founder and investor

Growing up, I remember thinking my mother was a superhero (I still do.) She would, seemingly, never rest, lose energy, or be tired. If my siblings or I needed something in the middle of the night, she would leap out of her bed and come to us even before we called her. Only later in life did I understand that this sort of behavior characterizes not just my mother, but many women.

My mother belongs to a generation of women raised under the premise that they had to be good mothers and spouses, and that meant they had to do everything and do it well. Even women who had a job were expected to take care of all domestic chores, as it simply wasn’t considered something a man had to do. There was, and still is, a lot of pressure on women to succeed in all parts of their lives because if they fail, it’s because they were “too ambitious” and “wanted to have it all.”

In my generation, we have grown up in a different context than our mothers’ and grandmothers’. And yet, here we are in 2021, and the patriarchal values that dominated the societies all these older women were brought up in are still very much present today.

Gender equality, in all its forms, seems more tangible, but there is a lot of work ahead of us.

I consider myself very fortunate and privileged to be part of a minority of female tech investors and entrepreneurs and from my experience, the fundamental piece in regards to gender equality is to address it sooner rather than later.

It starts with education

My professional path might seem unlikely to some people, but looking back several factors contributed to who I am today.

My siblings and I were treated very differently at home than my parents when they were growing up. We weren’t made to think of certain interests or tasks as being a boy’s thing or a girl’s thing. All three of us — myself, my sister, and my brother — were taught to replace a flat tire, fix things around the house, and help with daily household tasks. No one ever questioned the fact that I wanted to be an engineer when I grew up, even though engineering and technology are still one of many fields of education seen as being a “boy’s club”.

There’s a lot to be done at home to support girls in their choices, and parents should be the first to endorse their children’s decisions no matter what. But schools and teachers play an important role as well as they have the power to contribute and educate for gender equality, making all future education choices seem like a possibility to everyone. There really is no evidence that girls don’t like STEM or are not good at coding; in fact, the first developers were women. However, even today, only 12% of college students in ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) are women and only 14.4% of IT professionals are women.

When it comes to choosing a degree, a lot of young women often refrain from going into engineering or sciences, not because they’re not good at them, but because of the predominantly male environment in these colleges or universities that can make women feel uncomfortable or unwelcome.

Diversity in the workplace

We don’t need additional evidence for the fact that having a diverse workforce drives a better company culture, better financial performance, and an overall stronger business. So we might think, why aren’t all companies striving to close the gender inequality gap?

As a technology entrepreneur and investor I’ve looked at this problem from both angles and all I can say is that it is a hard one to solve.

At Indico, and in the technology world in general, we refer to the challenges of finding and funding female-founded companies as a funnel problem, as there are simply not enough of them. But my experience has taught me that the key to solving it, as in education, is to address gender equality early on.

If we work harder to solve the problem at an early stage and more women are written the first check, there will be more and better businesses to fund down the road. If we hire women earlier to join tech companies, that will have a very positive effect in attracting other women.

Looking back at Talkdesk, I have a very vivid memory of hiring the first woman employee other than myself, who was a bit shocked weeks later to be “left alone with the guys” as I was traveling. Only then did I realize that if she had encountered an all-male workplace from the start, she wouldn’t have accepted the job. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, such an environment can still make women feel uncomfortable. This is why businesses need to hire women early on so that they can create a welcoming workplace which in turn will attract more female talent.

At Cleverly, I am very fortunate to have a balanced team in regards to promoting gender equality, and as an investor, it makes me even more aware of female-founded businesses, seeking them out as potential investees.

Representation matters

We’ve recently witnessed Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd become the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire and the youngest woman ever to take her company public. In the tech world, there are other examples of women founding and owning successful companies with billion-dollar evaluations — take Stitchfix or 23andMe. And while their stories represent great accomplishments that should be celebrated, they are still a rare sight in the business landscape.

Gender disparities exist in a lot of areas of society, but, in the workplace, they’re glaring. The World Economic Forum recently projected that gender parity won’t be achieved on a global scale until the year 2277. This means that for roughly another 250 years women will still be living in a world where they won’t be paid as much as men for the same work; that is when they are given the same opportunities as men are, to begin with.

There simply aren’t enough role models in the tech world to inspire and incentivize girls and women to pursue careers in tech. The fact is that our choices and decisions can get all the support in the world from our parents and teachers, but role models can play just an important part.

Overall, we need more role models to live by, both in real life as well as in fiction, in the shape of strong female characters and pieces of work that pass the Bechdel test. But we also need a better understanding of what these tech jobs mean. Most initiatives that work on this topic come very late in the pipeline, targeting college students or female workers. And they are great to have in place, but it’s been proven that job decisions can happen as early as in the 8th grade, sometimes even sooner.

Closing the gap

My experience has taught me that education and surrounding yourself with people who nurture and support you from a young age is essential to achieving gender equality, both in the workplace and outside of it. So the earlier we have initiatives in action that support girls and women in pursuing whatever career path they choose, the better.

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, I am very happy to be surrounded by women that inspire me every day and to be truly supported. I am also very aware of the work that still needs to be done. Let’s get to work to hopefully close this gap in our lifetime.