Women's Growing Role In Tech

Zhou Qunfei has a net worth of $7.5 billion. She's the founder of Lens technology, one of the most successful companies in the world that produces touchscreens for mobile devices such as the iPhone. She is also the richest woman in the tech industry. Other prominent women include Denise Coates of gambling site bet365 (net worth of $2.9 billion), Judy Faulkner of medical software firm Epic ($2.6 billion), and Meg Whitman, CEO of HP ($2.2 billion).

Another trailblazer is Jenny Lee, Managing Partner at GGV Capital. As well as being the top female investor in the tech industry, she was named the overall top venture capitalist of 2015 by Forbes - the only woman to make it to number one in history.

Yet despite their undeniable successes these women are the exception to the rule. Women represent only 7% of the top 100 richest tech based billionaires according to a new infographic by Coupofy.

Women also only account for 20% of tech startup founders. 17% of Chief Information Officers of the Fortune 500 companies are women, and just 5% of investment in the tech industry is made be female investors or capital venture firms. In short, tech is a man's world. You only have to look at icons like the late Steve Jobs to work that one out.

Not only have women traditionally chosen not to enter tech based jobs, data suggests that 56% of those that do give it a shot end up leaving midway through their career.

Why? Some of the primary complaints from those surveyed are low pay, long hours, not being able to start or see their families, and the feeling that they can never be promoted to higher positions. Others simply lose interest in the work, while some find the environment hard to deal with.

While this data does not necessarily indicate a conscious bias towards men, when it's a male dominated industry the bias may still be there regardless. That's why a handful of venture capital firms such as Belle Capital, Built By Girls, and Illuminate Ventures, have decided to only fund tech startups founded by women.

Some of the leading tech based corporations are also beginning to tackle the imbalance and recognize that women are just as (if not more) valuable to their business than men. eBay, Apple, Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, and Microsoft, are now collectively opening up positions for women at a rate 238% faster than men. Similarly Youtube, IBM, HP and Yahoo! all have female CEOs, while Facebook has a female COO in Sheryl Sandberg.

In just a few years these leading examples could radically change the face of the industry, however changes will also have to be made to make tech jobs more appealing to women as well, even if there is no hiring or promotion ceiling. Facebook and Netflix recently announced that they have extended the amount of time off female workers could have for maternity leave. The adoption of flexible hours and remote work could also help solve the issue of long hours and being unable to spend time with the family, which would benefit men just as much as women. Data from the infographic also suggests female mentoring programs and better networking opportunities are a sought after option.

Although all key metrics show that women are underrepresented in tech, the hidden fact is that all key metrics are growing. This coupled with a new willingness from leading firms to hire women and an emerging class of female trailblazers, it might not be too long before a female Mark Zuckerberg explodes on to the scene.
For more interesting facts and data about women in tech, be sure to check out the Coupofy infographic.