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Women entrepreneurs own less equity in Silicon Valley
Last updated on Nov 09, 2019, 03:24 pm
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If you have been questioning how much wealth in Silicon Valley is held by women, the short answer is not a lot.
To no one's surprise, a recent report highlights the gender gap among paper millionaires in Silicon Valley, revealing that women own just a quarter of the equity of their male colleagues.
Here are more details.
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Details
Women own 49 cents equity for every dollar men own
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The new study, called Table Stakes, was conducted by the equity management platform Carta.
It compiled data from over 3 lakh employees, nearly 10,000 companies, and over 25,000 founders.
Carta found that women hold 49 cents for every dollar in stock options men do. However, the gender gap is a 2% improvement from last year, when Carta published its first gender equity gap report.
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Executive roles
Only 1 in 8 CEOs are women, finds study
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Among C-suite positions, the chief marketing officer (CMO) and chief operating officer (COO) roles- predominantly occupied by women- are awarded less equity.
While the most highly-compensated executive roles remained dominated by men, only 1 in 8 CEOs are women.
Notably, CEOs get more than double the equity of the next-highest compensated executive.
Contrarily, CMOs, the role where women are best-represented (32%), were the worst-compensated.
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Information
Women representation in finance drops 70% as seniority increases
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According to the study, finance roles witnessed a 26 times increase in equity, the highest, from lower-level to C-suite roles. However, as seniority on finance teams increases, we see fewer and fewer women, as female representation drops by 70%.
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Other findings
Women accounted for 30% study participants; held 11% equity
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The study also found that among engineers, at every level, there were less than 20% women. Comparing junior and mid-level employees, engineers receive an average of over double the equity grants as compared to other departments.
And even though women accounted for a third of the participants in the study, they only held 11% of the total equity wealth.
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Quote
'Women aren't in right roles at right time'
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Carta Vice-President (Marketing), Emily Kramer, told CNBC, "Women aren't in the right roles at the right time in a company's lifecycle," adding that roles like founders, investors and early engineers- which have "outsized equity"- have fewer women representation.
She added, "We need to take a look at how the start-up and VC ecosystem values the work and talents of women. We can do better."