Gender Diversity and Investing
Highlights
Recent
December 18, 2015 – Global Women’s Entrepreneurial Landscape
In early 2015, Dell in partnership with ACG Inc. published a comprehensive study reviewing the female entrepreneurial landscape of 31 countries. The original purpose of the study was to present the opportunities that each country has to level the entrepreneurial playing field for both genders. The authors ended up taking that one step further and developing the "Global Women Entrepreneur Leaders Scorecard," comprised of three rating areas and three watch-list criteria for each country.
December 8, 2015 – Impact Economy: Women In Business Driving a Greener Future
New startups are forming to address the needs of the LOHAS market, many of which are environmentally sustainable enterprises and B Corps founded by women. On the corporate side, more companies are aligning their mission statements to include corporate sustainability as a focus, and research shows that women are a strong force driving these changes. The future of business does indeed look greener.
November 4, 2015 – Impact Economy: Women Consumers Driving a Greener Future
There is increasing demand to improve the quality of ingredients and products across local and global supply chains for greener and healthier goods, homes, and cities. Women are especially interested in making a positive impact through environmental and human health, both in the role of the consumer and in the role of the business owner.
October 6, 2015 – Women As A Source of Untapped Capital
Women don’t just control the purse; they are filling it. Having women understand this is empowering in itself. For perhaps the first time ever, we are seeing the majority of both the market purchasing power and the nation’s investment dollars in the hands of women. And research tells us that, from an investment perspective, it makes a lot of sense to invest those dollars in companies with a larger percentage of women in leadership as it leads to higher returns and capital-efficiency.
September 8, 2015 – Why Do Women Outperform in Business?
Research from Carnegie Mellon and MIT business schools published in Science magazine found that “teams with more women outperformed teams with more men. It was not diversity that mattered for a team's intelligence, but simply having more women.” This had primarily to do with women having a higher social sensitivity, meaning they can “read the mind in the eyes,” as well as creating a more equal distribution of conversational turn-taking so everyone on the team shared their ideas.
August 1, 2015 – Women-Led Businesses Outperform
Women-led businesses achieve 35% higher return on investment, and, when venture-backed, bring in 12% higher revenue than male-owned tech companies. Other research shows similar results for venture-backed organizations that are the most inclusive of women in top management to the tune of 34% higher total return to shareholders, but also finds that these women-run companies achieved comparable early-year revenues, using an average of one-third less committed capital.
July 1, 2015 – Women in Venture Capital (…and an Opportunity)
So, the percentage of women in venture capital-backed companies should look great by now, right? Very sadly, no. 85% of VC backed companies still have no women on their management team and more than 97% have male CEOs. When we look at the total number of women partners in venture capital firms, they have declined from the low number of 10% in 1999 to only 4.2% today.