Women in Fintech: The Gender Gap

By Aleksandra Kireeva | May 17th, 2016
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  • ‘Gender gap’ has long been a stigma of business, tech and startup worlds. It has turned into something notorious, which is always there but no one knows what to do with it. All-boys clubs of Silicon Valley are predominantly held responsible for the low diversity figures, that technology giants as Google or Facebook were forced to reveal to the public. The general label of men dominance attached to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) academic disciplines holds back the steady supply of trained female workforce into related areas. However, apart from occasional scandals, the topic is not systematically addressed, to say nothing about its actual roots – pipeline problem, subconscious bias or business culture?

    German-wide and in particular the Berlin startup community, fin-tech sector included, did not escape this fate. According to annual Startup Monitor, in 2015 only 13% of startups were founded by women, compared against 3% in 2012 and 10% in 2014. Regarding the top management figures, the situation looks just a little more promising, with 21% of female board members in Germany for 2015, but still lagging behind Nordic countries (up to 48%) and France (30%). According to Dell’s Global Scorecard, Germany holds the 7th place among 31 countries studied for the favorability of business environment for female entrepreneurs. And recent study demonstrates that female employees in Berlin startups are still paid 25% less than their male counterparts.

    It goes without saying that workplace diversity is vital for nourishing creative behavior and raising productivity in the team. Moreover, reinforcing the teams with more female members is a scientifically proven way of making groups, as single entities, smarter and quicker with decisions. As Boston Consulting Group 2014 report puts it ‘women are the most underutilised asset in the world’. Spread across the whole startup and fintech community, diversity can revitalise every single aspect of business from creating more customer-centred ventures to raising capital and forming multi-sided perspective on leadership. It is vital for the finance and business communities to provide women with a wider access to networking opportunities, which in turn would open many doors to funding, employment, and fair payment.

    The good news is – while the problem still stands, especially for fintech, there is already a number of ongoing initiatives addressing the issue more or less successfully. The scope varies from worldwide communities such as ‘Lean In’ or ‘Geekettes’ to countrywide as Gründerinnenzentrale, helping female entrepreneurs and business ladies with specific legislation and cultural problems. Considering the current tech-skills gap, ladies can catch up with the latest trends at courses, both gender-specific or not. In particular, Berlin-based independent magazine ‘the Hundert’, dedicated solely to coverage of the local startup scene, dedicated its latest issue to familiarizing the readers with top 100 most inspiring women in fintech. As the gender gap is not going to be bridged any time soon, it is extremely important to spread the word on the role-models, raise the awareness and set positive examples, so everyone in the startup and fin-tech community could contribute to creating diversity-friendly framework.

    Aleksandra Kireeva