How to increase gender diversity in deep tech start-ups: what five years in the quantum computing industry has taught me

I’ve been COO of Riverlane – a quantum computing company – for five years now. As one of the few female executives working in this space, I want to reflect on my experience of trying to increase gender diversity in the deep tech world.

There is now very well-established evidence that diverse teams do better. Companies with more women in executive roles are 25% more likely to be profitable, and on the investor side, each 10% increase in diversity is associated with a 1.3%? increase in internal rate of return. This translates into an improved bottom line. Having a diverse team equips you to make better decisions, solve problems faster, and generate more innovative solutions. It’s a no brainer that improving diversity is great for culture and business.

And yet it’s hard to recruit women in deep tech. We lose women from STEM subjects at every stage of the education system. This translates into an abysmal recruitment pipeline in quantum computing. Despite knowing that we need candidates from every STEM discipline to build these machines- only 1 in 54 applicants are female.

It’s also difficult to keep women in tech. Over the past few years, there’s has been an outflux of women from European tech businesses. Tech layoffs have disproportionately affected women and many female VCs are also leaving the industry, largely due to dissatisfaction with their environment and lack of funding. Any solutions to increasing gender diversity in the deep tech space need to focus on both recruitment and retention.

So, what can you do as a senior leader to increase gender diversity in your deep tech start-up? Having scaled from a small seed stage company to a 100 person+ global Series C company, here’s my breakdown of the steps you can take at each stage of your funding journey.

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Seed stage: Starting Early

At Riverlane, I made increasing diversity a priority from day one (increasing gender diversity is just one aspect of our broader DEIB strategy that is not limited to gender, ethnicity, disability, or socioeconomic status). While DEIB initiatives can be led from any level of the company, I believe that having a champion on the executive team is a prerequisite to ensure that DEIB is baked into the DNA of your company. If your executive team does not believe in the importance and benefits of diversity, it is unlikely that you will be able to foster a positive culture about DEIB among the wider team.

Here are ten no-cost things you can do to promote gender diversity at the beginning of your start-up journey:

1.????? Run your job adverts through a gender decoder to ensure the language is welcoming and inclusive.

2.????? Include a ‘positive action’ statement in your job template encouraging women to apply.

3.????? Share salary information on job adverts.

4.????? Ensure you have mixed interview panels.

5.????? Offer hybrid and flexible hours, including part-time work.

6.????? Hold yourself accountable and collect and report simple DEIB metrics – we do this quarterly and share the data on our internal wiki.

7.????? Have at least one DEIB-related KPI at the board level.

8.????? Implement a zero-tolerance culture for bullying and sexual harassment.

9.????? Develop mentorship programs for women to help equalise leadership in the workplace.

10. Develop a DEIB policy, share it with the company and board, and focus on high-impact initiatives. You can borrow from other start-ups and online resources to avoid reinventing the wheel but stay realistic about what you can implement early on in your start-up journey.

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Series A and B: When the Scaling Really Begins

At this stage in your company’s growth, you’re probably hiring lots more people and finally have some money to play with. This is the time to up your game in terms of recruitment and retention.

Here are some low(ish)-cost things you might do:

1.????? Develop an early careers scheme to build a diverse pipeline for future recruits.

2.????? Offer enhanced maternity, paternity and parental leave.

3.????? Conduct an annual DEIB and equal opportunities survey among your team to raise awareness and get feedback on your activities.

4.????? Add more sophisticated DEIB metrics to board-level KPIs.

5.????? Raise awareness of DEIB issues through an annual calendar of DEIB and cultural events.

6.????? Provide unconscious bias training for the entire company.

7.????? Set an ambitious DEIB target and make this public so you hold accountability – for example, we’re hoping to achieve 35% female representation at Riverlane by 2025.

Developing an early careers scheme to increase gender diversity is perhaps the most impactful initiative we’ve implemented at Riverlane. We introduced internships back in 2018, offering three- to six-month placements to Master’s and PhD students with an interest (though not necessarily a background) in quantum computing. This highly successful and over-subscribed scheme has attracted many female candidates, and we’ve hired at least one intern a year to join the company on a permanent basis.

In the past two years, we’ve also introduced a graduate scheme, designed to enable those with degrees in computer science, electronic engineering, maths or physics to develop their skills and expertise and become future leaders in the quantum computing industry. While the scheme has been a success in terms of building our overall pipeline, we have received very few applications from women and have not yet appointed a female graduate. This is disappointing, but it has provided us with an area of focus to reach women in the computer science and engineering fields and educate them about the fantastic career opportunities available in quantum computing.

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Series C: Going Even Further

Being really transparent, I sometimes feel like we’ve hit a brick wall in terms of increasing gender diversity at Riverlane. We’ve been hovering at the 30% female representation mark for three years now, and while this figure is higher than the 26% national average across the deep tech industry, we still have a challenging journey ahead of us to reach our 35% goal by 2025. Female representation in our company is also highest in non-technical roles, such as marketing and operations, and while this is not a bad thing per se, but we want to see our 35% female representation goal across all roles at Riverlane.

That’s why, rather than run out of steam, we are continuing to boost our strategy with three concrete steps, leveraging our Series C funding.

Firstly, we’ve started partnering with other organisations that can help us broaden the pipeline of women that might consider applying for a job at Riverlane to reiterate our important message: you don’t need a background in quantum to work in quantum computing. We’ve joined forces with GirlCode, who provide insights and knowledge to help close the gender tech gap. We’ve also hosted an ‘Inspiring Women in Technology Event’ at our Cambridge office with SoCode and Women in STEM to unpack some of the challenges faced by women in the deep tech industry. This event was well attended and generated lots of inbound interest from talented women. We also highlighted the collaborative and multidisciplinary nature of the problems we are trying to solve.

Secondly, we tried something new in September this year and hosted our first-ever ‘Bertha Swirles Quantum Computing’ workshop for women. This week-long, all-expenses paid workshop targets women earlier in their career, who may be fascinated by quantum computing but are unsure of how or where to start. We welcomed 12 female undergraduate students and recent graduates with various STEM backgrounds to attend sessions on technical topics and career opportunities in quantum. The week finished with a hackathon to build a decoder. We were blown away by the enthusiasm and curiosity of the participants and will track the cohort to see if any of them end up moving into the quantum computing industry. ?

And finally, we’ve allocated an annual budget to offer coaching to all senior women at Riverlane. We want to ensure that we retain our female talent at every stage of their career. This is an important step not only for the women we want to nurture at Riverlane but also to address the lack of female role models in the wider tech industry. As one of the mentors and a mentee, such mentorships are vital to help build confidence, overcome imposter syndrome and create a sense of belonging, while helping companies address their systematic biases from within.

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What’s my take-away?

Increasing gender diversity in the deep tech world is difficult. There is no silver bullet. At Riverlane, it has taken many years and required a multifaceted approach and yet we still have much further to go.

I’ve learned that the culture you create around celebrating and embracing difference and diversity is key to making progress. While DEIB policy must be owned at the executive level, it is heartening to see that the more recent initiatives we have introduced at Riverlane have been instigated by the Engineering, People and Quantum Science teams.

Going forward, I’m cautiously optimistic that the quantum industry will be able to increase gender diversity. We’re solving fiendishly difficult challenges that require collaboration and co-operation among people from a range of different technical backgrounds. As such, there is currently very little hierarchy and we have a ‘muck in’ attitude, contributing to an open, welcoming and inclusive culture. As I say when talking to potential new recruits, please come on in! The door is wide open in quantum, and we’d love you to join us. Ultimately, DEIB is much more than just a ‘nice to have’ in a transformational industry like quantum technology.

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Tech entrepreneur whurley put it very clearly: “Quantum will change computing more in the next ten years than it has changed in the last century. Providing equal access and equal opportunities will make the difference between humanity’s future being diverse or dystopian.”