Our mission at Levin is to Connect Tech Talent within global changemaker sectors such as FinTech, HealthTech and GreenTech.
Gender balance is key to the success of these sectors; yet still faces a mountain of challenges.
2016 figures from the Centre for Financial Services Innovation showed that the average number of females on executive boards of VC backed tech start-ups was less than 20%, and less than a third of all employees. Yet, a report by McKinsey in 2018 showed that companies with gender diverse executive teams were 21% more likely to be profitable and 35% more successful if ethnic and cultural diversity was included.
To help drive gender balance in HealthTech, we surely need to value it in our own business. This isn’t some noble mission to be “seen” to practise what we preach – it’s proven that companies with a balanced workforce are more innovative, and successful, than those that do not. Likewise, to help solve a problem you can’t actively and knowingly play a role in perpetuating it. There are many angles to think about when it comes gender and business, but these are my top three.
- Think about creating an awesome business, first and foremost. We are fortunate to have a balanced leadership team, but the point was to hire the best people who inspired me and were people I truly believed in; not to hire women or men specifically. By demonstrating how we wanted to grow the business, and discussing our culture, it attracted a large pool of incredible talent to our door – from there, we picked the best people on merit.
- Think about the link between role models and scalability. If you want to scale a company fast, you need as many people as possible to have identifiable role models to emulate and be inspired by. There is a common bottleneck in recruitment – it’s possible that female candidates will display character traits such as ambition more cautiously, or suffer a sense of imposter syndrome when considering going for promotions. These are things that require constant discussion but fostering talented role models, and openly encouraging upward mobility, is a core pillar.
- Think about innovation. A room full of men will look at problems from a man’s view, a room full of women will do so from a female point of view. So, without gender balance you miss out on a truly rounded set of opinions on how to scale a successful business and overcome challenges. The more diverse the room (indeed, in every sense of the word diverse) the quicker you will solve your problems and reach goals.
I make no promises around our business being perfect, or to prioritise pleasing the outside world. I do however promise that we will choose to challenge ourselves to build a company with strong values around diversity, open conversation, and a progressive attitude.
JB