Finding it ‘too hard’ to build a gender diverse team? This is our story

When I was given the task of building NAB Ventures, one of my first challenges was to find a partner. This was a tough task, in a shallow market where good talent is hard to find. It would surprise no one that most of the applicants were men. In the end, the strongest candidate just happened to be a woman. I was fortunate to convince Melissa Widner to leave another venture fund and join me to build NAB Ventures. Melissa is one of the most experienced VCs in the country having worked in venture in both the US and Australia for well over a decade. Also, she’s a successful entrepreneur with an empathetic understanding of the challenges faced by founders.

After interviewing several strong candidates, Melissa and I hired our first associate, Lachlan Hughes. He set a high bar and just happened to be a man. A few months later, we were ready to hire our next associate, we wanted to make sure we were considering a pool of men and women. But this turned out to be a bigger challenge than we imagined. It took about four months longer to find our second associate, Lucinda Hankin. We did not sacrifice quality or experience to achieve gender diversity but we did have to work harder to find a top-quality female candidate. At the time, we just didn’t have a deep pool of female candidates!

Fast forward another year and we were ready to hire our third associate. The strongest candidate, Jackie Vullinghs, happened to be a woman. She initially contacted us while she was still living in London. She reached out to Melissa, not me. She has subsequently told us that one of the reasons she approached NAB Ventures was the fact that we had women on our team, something missing from most Australian VC firms.

I’m proud to have a gender diverse team and I’m convinced (supported by research) that we are stronger and make better decisions as a result. Today only 7.5% of partners at Australian VC partners are women and most firms don’t have a single woman in a partner role.   I’ve heard some of my VC colleagues say they would like to hire a female, but it’s too hard to find them. To them I say, “C’mon guys. You’ve raise hundreds of millions of dollars by convincing people you are uniquely skilled to identify and attract hard to find talent yet you can’t find even one QUALIFIED WOMAN”?!

I hope that I’ll live to see a future where it’s not an anomaly to have a gender-balanced team in Venture Capital. It is not only the RIGHT thing to do, but also the BEST thing to do to drive fund performance in the long run.

https://www.nab.com.au/about-us/corporate-responsibility/our-people/gender-equality

www.nabventures.com