The glass ceiling that holds back the progress of women entrepreneurs remains intact. Two decades after quotas for their participation on the boards of listed companies were first introduced, women have made tangible progress in this area. However, despite representing 40% of new business founders in the United States, women entrepreneurs receive only a fraction of the available cash from their invested capital. Now is the time for governments and asset managers to help up the ante. A mandate put in place to force companies to seek out more female talent is finally bearing fruit. Twenty years after Norway first introduced quotas for women in corporate governance (2003), the diversity of listed companies is growing. The proportion of women on the boards of the largest listed companies in the European Union peaked at 32% in April 2022, but was higher in countries with binding rules such as France and Italy. Last year, even in unregulated Britain, there were women CEOs and board members. for the first time in its history will exceed the limit of 40%. Investors, for their part, have cause for concern.

Researchers at the NEOMA School of Business Administration found that companies with more women in leadership positions tend to take less excessive risk. However, for talented women who want to start a company, the global landscape looks less promising. The trend of venture capital to shun women entrepreneurs risks undermining their contribution to the global economy. According to the Kaufman Foundation, female business founders made up 40 percent of everyone in the United States in 2021, a percentage that has remained relatively unchanged since 1996. However, according to the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor, companies founded exclusively by women’s teams raised just $4.6 billion in 2022, or just 2% of US venture capital. This percentage has not changed much over the past decade. American startups with mixed teams of women and men fared better, raising 17.2% of venture capital last year. However, new companies run by all-male teams continue to own the lion’s share of the pie.

In Europe, women-led startups also received just 2% of venture capital in 2021, according to the European Women in VC report. Governments and asset managers could do more. In Europe, public authorities and national investment funds, which tend to allocate significant amounts to finance small and start-up businesses, can allocate a fixed share to companies run exclusively by women or socially diverse groups. Asset managers and those looking to attract environmentally and socially conscious investors can insist on similar numbers when distributing funds to private companies. If women and men had equal opportunities to start and support businesses, up to $5 trillion would automatically be added. dollars in global GDP, according to a 2019 Boston Consulting Group study. Helping women entrepreneurs to succeed will benefit women and the world at large.