Ambitious plans to double the number of female-led unicorns

News from the United Nations, New York

I’m speaking today at the Commission for the Status of Women (CSW68) in New York on the hugely important theme of boosting women’s entrepreneurship. In many ways, it’s the final leg of the launch of the UK government’s Women-Led High Growth Enterprise Taskforce report, but I am hopeful that this just the beginning of a period of meaningful change for female entrepreneurs. We’ve got a huge opportunity ahead of all of us in terms of artificial intelligence and deep learning, and I believe women are uniquely placed to make some real inroads by creating the businesses that will shape all our tomorrows. The next AI-led Industrial revolution, or Industry 5.0, will see a shift beyond starting businesses for economic value and towards those focused on societal value. In other words; people-focused industries that will solve some of the pressing problems of the day, from social care to environmental change. As the Taskforce report found, these are areas in which women have traditionally excelled.

We can’t be complacent. It won’t be easy. But then, that’s no surprise. The focus of the Taskforce report was moving the dial on the fact that female entrepreneurs building high growth businesses still receive just 2% of VC funding. When it comes to Industry 5.0, the early signs are not good either. A report by the Secretary General of the Economic and Social Council, which will be discussed at CSW68 in a session on Thursday, says that at present just 22% of artificial intelligence workers globally are women. Despite girls doing just as well in science as boys in most countries, somehow, access to fast-growing and well paid careers in the latest technology is still being denied to them when they grow up. This needs to change and it is to all of our advantages that it does. AI has the potential to bring major disruption to industries and the labour force and, given the right environment, bring positive and lasting change. It makes no sense not to field our best team for this endeavour.

My own personal goal is to see at least double the number of female unicorns worldwide – that is women running businesses valued at over $1 billion – within the next five years. That might not sound like an ambitious target, given we are starting at such a low base. However, given the rate of growth we’ve seen over even just the past decade, this is still quite determined. If it can be even more than that, so much the better.

If we want to achieve this though, we need to get the framework in place to support female entrepreneurs right now. This means ensuring the funding environment is fair, so they have access to financial backing. Lack of money is the most serious impediment to the growth in female entrepreneurship. Speaking of fair, we also need to make sure that female founders are given a fair proportion of founder and equity share when part of mixed teams. I also feel passionately that we need to talk more about female entrepreneurship and the women who have already changed the world. Let’s show the next generation that not all the entrepreneurial role models are men. If you haven’t done so already, check out the ‘Founders of the Future’ project at Swansea University, which is host to some truly inspiring video and written case studies of female entrepreneurs that have made it.

I’m really pleased to be part of the discussion, looking into how we can harness AI and help all stakeholders narrow the gender equality gaps so we can properly harness the power of technology and support the next generation of female high growth entrepreneurs.