I like this video from OnlineMBA.com. And here’s the intro for it, quoted from that site:
There’s no question that women are making large strides in U.S. business and technology fields. Today’s generation of women professionals are more likely than any other to found, lead or advise a major U.S. firm. But while women continue to secure increasingly high-level leadership positions, there are still some glaring imbalances. For one, only twelve Fortune 500 companies are now headed by women. And numbers on the proportion of female tech startup founders are not any more encouraging; many high-profile incubators report that women founders receive less than 5% of their annual grant awards.
There’s so much drivel around the web trying to explain away the disproportionately smaller numbers of women in startups and management with some kind of gender differences. I admit I don’t trust data these days — you can find data to prove anything — but I like the collection of data in this video. And I like the contrarian viewpoint too.
If you don’t see the video here, you can click here to see the original on YouTube.
And I’ll finish this with another quote from OnlineMBA:
But recent research from the Harvard Business Review and others suggests something that most of us already know–firms without women in high-level leadership positions are missing out on some meaningful growth opportunities. According to the research, women that excel in business often prove to have more highly developed communication skills than their male colleagues. Women are also often more likely to take initiative and make changes to the status quo. In fact, the study showed that firms with women on their boards saw 42% higher sales returns, a 66% higher return on invested capital and a 53% higher return on equity over firms that did not.
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry.
