The tech industry has grappled with a diversity problem for years, with little progress to show for it. For one tech CEO, the only way forward for the industry is clear.
“Accountability needs to happen,” Suneera Madhani, the co-founder and chief executive of billion-dollar fintech start-up Stax, tells CNBC Make It. She says government incentives or even mandates for tech companies and investment firms might be necessary to force the issue — because despite several years of tech leaders trying, and failing, to address the industry’s diversity issues, women and people of color remain woefully underrepresented.
Women account for about 32% of the tech industry’s workers — three percentage points less than in 1984, says a joint study by Girls Who Code and Accenture. Black and Hispanic workers hold about 9% of U.S. science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) jobs, despite representing 11% of the country’s workforce, according to the Pew Research Center.
Madhani herself is a rarity in the tech world: a 34-year-old minority woman leader of a start-up that’s raised more than $263 million in total funding. Women founders and people of color attract less than 1% of total venture capital funds, according to the nonprofit DigitalUndivided.
“Dialogue was great, but it’s not enough. We have to take action,” Madhani says. “The statistics are still the statistics ... That is still absurd to me.”
Continue reading: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/01/fintech-ceo-dialogue-is-not-enough-to-get-more-women-into-tech.html
“Accountability needs to happen,” Suneera Madhani, the co-founder and chief executive of billion-dollar fintech start-up Stax, tells CNBC Make It. She says government incentives or even mandates for tech companies and investment firms might be necessary to force the issue — because despite several years of tech leaders trying, and failing, to address the industry’s diversity issues, women and people of color remain woefully underrepresented.
Women account for about 32% of the tech industry’s workers — three percentage points less than in 1984, says a joint study by Girls Who Code and Accenture. Black and Hispanic workers hold about 9% of U.S. science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) jobs, despite representing 11% of the country’s workforce, according to the Pew Research Center.
Madhani herself is a rarity in the tech world: a 34-year-old minority woman leader of a start-up that’s raised more than $263 million in total funding. Women founders and people of color attract less than 1% of total venture capital funds, according to the nonprofit DigitalUndivided.
“Dialogue was great, but it’s not enough. We have to take action,” Madhani says. “The statistics are still the statistics ... That is still absurd to me.”
Continue reading: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/01/fintech-ceo-dialogue-is-not-enough-to-get-more-women-into-tech.html
