What I learnt at Powershift
Well, it’s about the economics, baby!
During 2 days, 300 scholars, entrepreneurs and corporate stakeholders from allaround the world gathered in rainy Oxford @ Power Shift conference to envision how to give women more access to finance.
Did you know that, until 1974, women in the US were not allowed to have a credit card?
Nowadays, globally, women’s money is worth an extraordinary £13 trillion and economists predict that in coming years the female economy will have an impact greater than Brazil, Russia, India and China!
That is what we call the third billion of emerging participants in the global marketplace.
And yet the access of women consumers and entrepreneurs to funds remains limited! Hopefully this event was the occasion to learn about solutions:
- The powerhouse Jeanne Sullivan welcomed us, explaining us her passion on funding and fueling women entrepreneurs, especially through the coming 60M USD fund built by Astia.
- Scholars like Julie Nelson explained how both finance and gender are socially constructed systems and that men and women are actually equally risk adverse inspite of the stereotypes.
- Professor Linda Scott, curator of the conference and leader of the XX economy was advocating against the fact that “the best ideas die in banks parking lots”.
- Suzanne Biegel, Founder of Catalyst at Large gave tips for future women angels in order to diversify the investment scene.
- Anna Falth from UN Women presented their new platform providing useful tools and ressources for women allaround the world.
- And corporates as Mastercard, Goldman Sachs with 10,000 women program or Coca-Cola were displaying their initiatives to bridge the $285 billion global credit gap for women entrepreneurs.
Especially since worldwide, approximately 2.5 billion people do not have a formal account at a financial institution. And yet, access to affordable financial services is linked to overcoming poverty, reducing income disparities, and increasing economic growth.
Powershift was the opportunity to learn about the transformative power of womenomics, this huge shift in financial power, with the prediction that by 2020 women’s pay will overtake men’s and the correlation done by the World Economic Forum between gender equity and economic results.
Actually, it is now proven that:
- Women-led venture-backed high tech companies generate 12% higher annual revenues than male only tech companies.
- Companies with more gender diversity delivered 30% better results from IPOs.
- The average venture-backed company run by a woman uses one third less committed capital.
- Women-led high tech startups achieve 35% higher return on investment than male led companies.
- Companies with the most gender diverse management teams achieve 48% higher earnings than the industry average.
Some organizations put these assumptions at the core of their business model as Portfolia, or Rivet Ventures which are geared toward investing in companies targeting consumers (and since women make 80% of consumer decisions…). Or Plum Alley, a crowdfunding website which focuses on the sectors that matter to women.
Hopefully, there is an ever-growing awareness among angel investors that women-led startups are good investments. And the awareness among women that entrepreneurship gives them control of their own destinies.
But, like it or not, the reality is that people are more likely to invest in people who are like them.
What this means is that for more women to get funded, more women need to become angels!
“There is a lot of money out there to be invested in great ideas and innovations. The only thing that holds us back is not having the key to open up the coffers,” said Amy Millman, president of Springboard Enterprises, an accelerator for women-led businesses seeking equity financing.
But I don’t know why, after attending Powershift, I have the feeling that 2014 will be a break out year for women entrepreneurs!
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