Tessa Wanders’ career has spanned roles as founder, angel investor and venture capital (VC) investor. Wanders has launched two successful start-ups, was part of the FJ Labs founding team and is currently an investment manager at VNV Global. Her career achievements are impressive by anyone’s standards, but particularly as she is, more often than not, the only woman in the room.
Wanders has always refused to acknowledge herself as a ‘token woman’, even if that has been the case on some occasions. If fact, she is optimistic about gender diversity in tech investing and has seen some positive changes over her decade-long career. “People have become much more aware of their biases and women have also become more supportive of one another too,” she says.
The single women
There is still much more to be done, however. Deloitte’s 2021 VC Human Capital report found that although female employees comprised 16% of investment partners in 2020 (up from 14% in 2018 and 11% in 2016), among the companies that did report having female investment partners, 75% reported that they only had a single female investment partner.
This comes despite the business case for diversity in technology investing being stronger than ever. Studies show that diverse companies perform better, hire better talent, have more engaged employees and retain workers better than companies that do not have a focus on diversity and inclusion.
Deloitte’s report found that companies that increased their proportion of female partner hires by 10% had, on average, an increase of 1.5% in overall fund returns each year. So why are women still under-represented in VC investing and as founders of their own companies?
Continue reading: https://www.investmentmonitor.ai/tech/women-tech-investment-startups-business
Wanders has always refused to acknowledge herself as a ‘token woman’, even if that has been the case on some occasions. If fact, she is optimistic about gender diversity in tech investing and has seen some positive changes over her decade-long career. “People have become much more aware of their biases and women have also become more supportive of one another too,” she says.
The single women
There is still much more to be done, however. Deloitte’s 2021 VC Human Capital report found that although female employees comprised 16% of investment partners in 2020 (up from 14% in 2018 and 11% in 2016), among the companies that did report having female investment partners, 75% reported that they only had a single female investment partner.
This comes despite the business case for diversity in technology investing being stronger than ever. Studies show that diverse companies perform better, hire better talent, have more engaged employees and retain workers better than companies that do not have a focus on diversity and inclusion.
Deloitte’s report found that companies that increased their proportion of female partner hires by 10% had, on average, an increase of 1.5% in overall fund returns each year. So why are women still under-represented in VC investing and as founders of their own companies?
Continue reading: https://www.investmentmonitor.ai/tech/women-tech-investment-startups-business
