Spotlight on: The Women in Finance Charter
Fresh from a WomenInvestEU event in Brussels, where I had the pleasure of meeting equity investors dedicated to supporting female founders, one statistic continued to dominate the conversation: globally, women-founded businesses receive just 2% of venture capital (VC) funding.
The good news is that the event showcased inspiring examples of organisations working to change this reality.
Early-stage and pre-seed angel investing is a vital part of the funding ecosystem for women entrepreneurs. Networks such as Alma, Win Ventures, and Sie Ventures are actively building communities of women investors who, in turn, are backing the next generation of women founders.
Frustrated by the persistent funding gap, many women have gone a step further by establishing their own VC funds. Their success is demonstrating not only that investing in women is commercially sound, but that greater diversity in investment decisions delivers stronger outcomes for the wider ecosystem.
Yet improving the numbers alone is not enough. Investment decisions are often influenced by relatability—investors tend to back founders who remind them of themselves. That is why increasing the representation of women in investment decision-making roles is so important.
One organisation tackling this challenge is Level 20, whose network of more than 7,250 professionals across the venture capital and private equity sectors is working to increase the number of women in senior investment positions. Through mentoring, career development and partnerships with more than 120 VC and private equity firms, Level 20 is helping remove the barriers that prevent women from progressing into decision-making roles.
Public accountability also has an important role to play.
First, as taxpayers, we should expect public institutions to consider gender outcomes in their investment decisions. Across Europe, public funding accounts for an estimated 40–50% of VC investment, creating a significant opportunity to drive greater investment in women-led businesses through clear targets and expectations.
Second, we need to build a financial services sector that reflects the diversity of the customers it serves. This was the focus of the first session of the Alliance CBX (Central Bank Exchange), where we highlighted the UK’s Women in Finance Charter.
Launched by the UK Government in 2016, the Charter encourages financial services firms to improve gender balance in senior leadership. Today, more than 400 organisations have signed up, representing almost the entire UK financial services sector.
The latest report shows that women now hold 37% of senior management positions across the sector. Insurance leads the way at 40%, followed by banks at 38%, while investment banking—and particularly venture capital and private equity—continues to lag behind.
Nine years of reporting have also created something equally valuable: a shared understanding of what good looks like. Firms are increasingly benchmarking themselves against industry standards and embedding ambitious yet achievable gender targets into their own strategies.
Many Alliance members developed workforce gender diversity and inclusion strategies before launching Women’s Market programmes. Similarly, the UK established the Women in Finance Charter before introducing the Investing in Women Code.
Whether these initiatives happen sequentially or in parallel, the lesson is the same: organisations that invest in gender diversity internally are better positioned to serve women externally. Building inclusive workplaces is fundamental to building inclusive financial services.
National public-private initiatives such as the Women in Finance Charter help create the conditions for lasting change, and ultimately support the goal we all share: expanding women’s access to finance.
Our resource of the month is a case study that documents how three financial services providers in the Dominican Republic, Banco BHD, Banco ADOPEM, and Banco Popular— each with its own distinct characteristics and market positioning—have benefitted from and contributed to affiliation with the country’s WE Finance Code. You can find it here.
For readers interested in the equity investment landscape, WomenInvestEU’s Learning Hub is an excellent resource, offering practical guidance and tools to support gender-conscious investing.
Finally, thank you to all our members and strategic partners for your continued commitment to investing in women and for the many ways you strengthen the Alliance community.
In community,
