Women and GBx

We’ve been listening to women (and men) from the GBx community about the challenges for women in tech and the opportunities for us to do more in our individual organizations and across the GBx community.

Now, we’re keen to gather your thoughts and ideas to leverage this incredible community to do more to support women. At GBx we want to to support women on two fronts:

Firstly, more involvement from women at board level.

More women on boards drives more women in leadership positions and at every level of the company and delivers cultural and ecumenic benefits.

Ideas include:

– Advocate filling open board role(s) with qualified women, we will recognize members whose Boards are diverse
– Make it easy to identify women for Board roles, resources recommended include The Board List , Nurole
– Share opportunities with women in your network (men and women
– Shape roles to be gender neutral, share examples of Board role descriptions, more to follow on best practices thanks to Dan Hyde and the team at Erevena
– Programmatic support; sponsorship and certifications – what works and how we help members get connected eg 30% Club, Catalyst, NVCA, business school certifications

Secondly, support for female founders at all stages of their journey.

Ideas include:

– Build community and cohorts between women, and men supporting women – create opportunities to for connection, advice and inspiration
– Showcase success stories and expertise: set the norm for women’s involvement in member events and panels
– Collaborate with investors to address unconscious bias and understanding fundraising process, capability development and how to make the most of networking opportunities
– Facilitate sponsor / mentor relationship – what makes a good one and how to use them
– Promote a culture of asking for help
– Build relationships with investors specifically working with female founders, Merian Ventures, SheEO, Athena Foundation

Now it’s your turn: identify the women in your network who can benefit from GBx and let’s get them involved!