The statistics make clear that there is still more work to be done. Female founders still get less than 3% of all VC funding, there are still roughly 50% less women in tech, still 28% in senior management and still only about 30% of boards are made up of women*. But why should we care? Why should we continue to prioritize taking urgent action? While it’s true that these unconscious biases can lead tech companies and venture capitalists to leave a lot of money and (female) talent on the table, at Openspace we also care for a much more fundamental reason.
We believe everyone deserves the right to forge a career, where success results from people operating at their fullest, most productive and authentic selves. The truth is that women disproportionately encounter systematic challenges in achieving this. These challenges, however, are not insurmountable and we can play our part to help to address them. We can help push towards a fairer playing field that removes the barriers and hidden pitfalls women face as they seek to progress in venture capital and the tech ecosystem.
To close this gender gap and flatten the blockers, we are actively embracing 6 key principles:
a. We are developing clear structures for skills development and progression so there is transparency and gender neutrality in career building
b. We are ensuring our workplace is conducive for women and taking steps to ensure women feel valued, supported, safe and empowered to succeed. We have policies to address discrimination or misconduct, and we have private nursing room facilities for mothers returning to work.
c. We actively avoid assumptions tied to gender stereotypes. We do not assume that women make better party hosts (in fact, our in-house pizzaiolos are all male) or are better at administrative tasks. Our female colleagues are best-in-class in roles like financial modeling and coding (just ask our Senior Data Analyst, Yan San).
As a Southeast Asian venture capital firm seeking to bring world-class support to our portfolio companies, gender diversity is just one of the forms of diversity that we choose to embrace***. We see these diversities as being a key advantage in making more insightful investment decisions and providing more impactful portfolio advisory, which combine together to deliver outsized returns to our valued investors. As we celebrate IWD 2023, we encourage others to consider how they might take similar steps and to contemplate why it matters for the success of their business and stakeholders.
* Based on statistics from Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte and McKinsey.
** We consider women in VP roles and up.
*** For instance, we have 37 full-time employees representing 11 nationalities across 5 countries in SEA.
The statistics make clear that there is still more work to be done. Female founders still get less than 3% of all VC funding, there are still roughly 50% less women in tech, still 28% in senior management and still only about 30% of boards are made up of women*. But why should we care? Why should we continue to prioritize taking urgent action? While it’s true that these unconscious biases can lead tech companies and venture capitalists to leave a lot of money and (female) talent on the table, at Openspace we also care for a much more fundamental reason.
We believe everyone deserves the right to forge a career, where success results from people operating at their fullest, most productive and authentic selves. The truth is that women disproportionately encounter systematic challenges in achieving this. These challenges, however, are not insurmountable and we can play our part to help to address them. We can help push towards a fairer playing field that removes the barriers and hidden pitfalls women face as they seek to progress in venture capital and the tech ecosystem.
To close this gender gap and flatten the blockers, we are actively embracing 6 key principles:
a. We are developing clear structures for skills development and progression so there is transparency and gender neutrality in career building
b. We are ensuring our workplace is conducive for women and taking steps to ensure women feel valued, supported, safe and empowered to succeed. We have policies to address discrimination or misconduct, and we have private nursing room facilities for mothers returning to work.
c. We actively avoid assumptions tied to gender stereotypes. We do not assume that women make better party hosts (in fact, our in-house pizzaiolos are all male) or are better at administrative tasks. Our female colleagues are best-in-class in roles like financial modeling and coding (just ask our Senior Data Analyst, Yan San).
As a Southeast Asian venture capital firm seeking to bring world-class support to our portfolio companies, gender diversity is just one of the forms of diversity that we choose to embrace***. We see these diversities as being a key advantage in making more insightful investment decisions and providing more impactful portfolio advisory, which combine together to deliver outsized returns to our valued investors. As we celebrate IWD 2023, we encourage others to consider how they might take similar steps and to contemplate why it matters for the success of their business and stakeholders.
* Based on statistics from Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte and McKinsey.
** We consider women in VP roles and up.
*** For instance, we have 37 full-time employees representing 11 nationalities across 5 countries in SEA.
