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July 25, 2019

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Females held back from becoming digital leaders

By Tomoko Yokoi, Elizabeth A. Teracino, Jialu Shan and Michael R. Wade | 00:08 UTC+8 July 25, 2019 | Print Edition

As it stands, the current situation for women wanting to become digital leaders and tech entrepreneurs is grim.

Despite a healthy demand for digital talent, the lack of diversity in tech continues to be pervasive. A recent BCG article highlights that women constitute only 25 percent of the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) workforce, with just 9 percent occupying leadership positions.

And in a recent survey, entrepreneurs believe it will take more than 10 years for the tech industry to reflect the general population, in terms of gender.

For many, digital leadership is synonymous with technological expertise. However, research on leadership in the digital age by IMD’s Global Center for Digital Business Transformation reveals a much broader and richer set of characteristics, including humility, adaptability, vision, and constant engagement.

How then can we help young women develop the hard, soft, and entrepreneurial skills necessary to become future digital leaders?

The answer, we believe, lies in overcoming three barriers.

The first barrier is lack of interest in STEM-related subjects. Research suggests that girls are most interested in STEM careers in middle school, but that number drops sharply between middle school and high school.

A 2015 OECD study examined how girls’ lack of self-confidence in their own abilities in science and mathematics may explain why they are underrepresented in STEM fields in high school.

Other studies point to the fact that even though girls scored as well as boys in STEM subjects, they often scored even better in reading. Thus, when they move to drop subjects in the latter years of high school, they would often rate reading comprehension as their strength.

This suggests that early high school years are an important intervention point to maintain girls’ interest in STEM.

The second barrier is underdeveloped business and entrepreneurship skills. Becoming a digital leader is not only about providing coding and digital marketing skills, but also about using these skills to create and capture business opportunities.

The third challenge is how to get capital to female tech entrepreneurs. In 2018, for a second year in a row, only 2.2 per cent of investor funding went to women-led startups. Furthermore, evidence suggests that female-led start-ups financed by all-male venture capital firms may drastically reduce the probability of a successful exit.

The challenge is far from easy to solve. As Melinda Gates put it: “We like to think that venture capital is driven by the power of good ideas. But by the numbers, it’s men who have the keys.”

Organizations like the Girl Scouts USA, with their huge alumna network, can help, but they will need help from elsewhere, most notably from the VC community itself.

If this community can mobilize its network financial professionals, angel investors, and micro-fund lenders, there is a chance that female tech entrepreneurs can stay the course.

Fortunately, new research shows that there may be light at the end of the tunnel. Researchers at the University of British Columbia and Stanford University recently sent out more than 80,000 pitch emails about “promising but fictitious” start-ups to 28,000 VCs and angel investors. They found that pitches from entrepreneurs with obviously female names received a 8 per cent higher rate of interested replies than those with male names.

Providing girls with the skills to master technology is a social, moral and economic necessity.

Tomoko Yokoi, Elizabeth Teracino and Jialu Shan are researchers at the Global Center for Digital Business Transformation, an initiative by IMD business school and Cisco based at IMD. Professor Michael R. Wade is Professor of Innovation and Strategy and Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation at IMD. Copyright: IMD.

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