TXWSW Newsletter / VC Funding / TXWSW Women in CIO 40 Under 40 / Helena Morrissey / New Yorker on TX

Happy Tuesday:
Following on last week’s news in VC land, the Wall Street Journal did a follow up on the issue of gender disparity when it comes to VC funding. Women start almost 40% of all private companies in the US and yet they garner just 3% of VC funding. A recent study examined how venture investors interacted with entrepreneurs at Tech Crunch’s New York start-up competition over a seven-year period. After reviewing 189 video recordings of interviews, the researchers noted that 2/3rds of the questions asked of male entrepreneurs focused on the company’s potential success, while 2/3rds of the questions posed to female entrepreneurs were about preventing failure, so the women were at a disadvantage from the get go. The full article can be found here.
Another thing holding women back is the quaint notion that it is inappropriate for men and women to be in one on one situations alone together. The problem is if women cannot be alone with a male boss without fear of innuendo or worse, they are losing valuable face time necessary for career advancement. The full article can be found here.
Huge congratulations to TXWSW’s very own Ashley Baum of Texas Teachers, Amanda Hopper of UTIMCO and Minoti Dhanaraj of Dallas ERS for their inclusion in CIO Magazine’s annual 40 under 40 list. This list reflects the best and brightest in the institutional investing world and well done to them for the recognition of the great work they do! The full article can be found here.
Legal & General’s Helena Morrissey was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her work on promoting diversity on corporate boards in the UK. To that end, she founded the 30% Club in 2010 and has been making real inroads in addressing the problem. Of course, it helps that the group now counts 23 institutional fund managers controlling over GBP 6 trillion in assets. It is amazing what can be done when institutional investors put their voting power behind an issue.  The full article can be found here.
Finally, for our members who are new to Texas, the New Yorker did a great feature on the landscape of Texas politics. It makes for a fascinating read and can be found here.
We have some terrific events lined up for you this year and look forward to seeing you all at an event in 2017! To learn more about our 2017 events, please visit www.txwsw.com Please also scroll to the end of this newsletter to check out some interesting jobs from our network.
Kind regards
Christine

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