The UK government has launched a taskforce, backed and chaired by Starling Bank CEO and founder Anne Boden, to support women entrepreneurs and women-led startups.
Only one in three entrepreneurs in the UK is a woman. According to the UK government, this represents a gender gap equivalent to 1.1 million missing businesses. What’s more, is male-led SMEs are five times more likely to scale up to £1m turnover than female-led SMEs
Launched by Liz Truss, foreign secretary and minister for women and equalities, the ‘Taskforce on Women-Led High-Growth Enterprises’ will use its convening power to influence high growth investors, the wider business community, and to raise the aspirations of the next generation of female entrepreneurs, especially looking to encourage women based outside of the capital.
The chair, Anne Boden, and its members, will use their combined expertise and connections to work collaboratively with organisations across the UK to support the government’s overall target of increasing the number of female entrepreneurs by half by 2030 (equivalent to nearly 600,000 female entrepreneurs) with a particular focus on driving change in the area of growth capital.
The taskforce comprises of many influential and successful figures in the financial services, FinTech, RegTech, and other industries. Including Poppy Gustafsson, CEO and co-founder of RegTech firm Darktrace, June Angelides MBE, investment manager, Samos & CEO and founder of Mums in Tech, Alexandra Depledge MBE, CEO and founder of Resi.
Speaking of the launch, Boden said, “More women than ever are starting new businesses and many of them are scaling-up their companies. The Taskforce aims to give women entrepreneurs the tools to take their businesses to the next level: access to finance and growth capital, technology adoption and leadership skills.
“The Taskforce’s work will provide a blueprint for all entrepreneurs to follow.”
Earlier this year, FinTech Global spoke to a number of successful women in senior positionsin the industry about their careers, challenges they’ve encountered, and what can be done to achieve great gender equality in the FinTech industry.
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