A Woman's View from The Street 6/6/18

Happy Wednesday!
Investor Jean Case is leading the charge for impact investing in the US. Impact investing has seen phenomenal growth is up more than ten-fold since 2014 when the asset class only amounted to $10.6 billion. Impact investors want to earn a return by doing good, and the effort is being led by some prominent women. Their idea is to get money into hands of entrepreneurs whose ideas would not otherwise get financed. It is still early days to determine the success or failure of the thesis, but when was doing good ever a bad thing? The full article can be found here.
Melinda Gates has also taken steps to address the lack of diversity in the VC industry by investing in funds run by female venture capitalists. She is also using her clout as a large LP to force change at some of the more established firms that have a dearth of women in their ranks. The full article can be found here.
Speaking of impressive women who could not attract venture funding, Katrina Lake, founder of Stitch Fix, was one who could not get funding for her firm, and today her company is a public one with a $2 billion valuation. The full article can be found here.
Another woman breaking barriers is Rebecca Slaughter. Ms. Slaughter was appointed as a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission and her appointment happened to coincide with the birth of her third child. Ms. Slaughter is balancing her two roles by bringing her infant to work and is an example of how government agencies are having to bring new flexibility to the workplace to accommodate working moms. The full article can be found here.
On the subject of parenting, the next article explores the question of how to raise boys to be good guys. One of the more interesting pieces of advice was to abandon the idea of chivalry because it socializes boys to see women as needing protection which is different than courtesy. Courtesy can be defined as opening doors or giving up a seat, but chivalry is the idea that women should be cherished and put on a pedestal which subtly demeans women as fragile and less competent. The full article can be found here.
We have some terrific events lined up for you in 2018 including our ten-year anniversary celebrations in August! We look forward to seeing you all at an event in 2018! To learn more about our 2018 events, please visit www.txwsw.com
To help us celebrate our ten-year anniversary, I would ask each of you to consider corporate sponsorship of TXWSW. Benefits include attendance at our flagship events and recognition for your firm. To learn more, you may find our sponsor informationhere. Additionally, we would be happy to create a custom sponsorship for you. Please contact Bianca King at developmentdirector@txwsw.com.
Kind regards
Christine

Attend an Upcoming TXWSW Event