Could women bring the high-tech industry to a whole other level? - Building Gender Balanced Business

A male dominated industry

• 237,843 firms were created in 2004 and only 19% of them had women as primary owners.

• That statistic plummeted to 3% for tech firms and 1% for high-tech firms.

• Apple, for example, does not have one woman on its management team.

• Women are occasionally CFOs and HR heads but women venture capitalists are far from common.

• Only one woman made TheFunded list of top VCs that held 84 names.

Why it doesn’t make sense

• Vivek Wadhwa, in association with the National Center for Women & Information Technology, tried to figure out whether motivation was the determining factor between the success of men and women.

• After studying 549 startups, they found no difference in motivation between the sexes.

• Women were equally motivated and created their own companies for the same reasons as men.

• Women entrepreneurs were also as educated as the male entrepreneurs.

• Cindy Padnos, managing director of Illuminate Ventures presents the following evidence:
1. women are more capital efficient than men
2. venture-backed companies run by a woman had annual revenues that were 12% higher than those of men
3. women led high-tech startups have a lower failure percentage than male led ones
4. organizations that count the most women in top management boast returns on equity that are 35% higher than that of their peers as well as a better total return to shareholders that is higher by 34%

techcrunch.com