Starling Bank’s Anne Boden is to chair a Government-backed ‘Taskforce on Women-Led High-Growth Enterprises’
This aims to support women entrepreneurs, tackle investing barriers, and increase the number of women-led fast-growing businesses.
Only one in three UK entrepreneurs are women – a gender gap equivalent to 1.1 million missing businesses, and male-led SMEs are five times more likely to scale up to £1 million turnover than female-led SMEs.
Anne Boden, CEO and founder of Starling Bank says: “More women than ever are starting new businesses and many of them are scaling-up their companies. The Taskforce aims to give women entrepreneurs the tools to take their businesses to the next level: access to finance and growth capital, technology adoption and leadership skills”
The Taskforce will build on the work of the Rose Review, chaired by NatWest’s Alison Rose, which found that breaking down the barriers for women entrepreneurs could boost the economy by £250bn.
The project will have a particular focus on driving change in the area of growth capital, with the objective of meeting the Government’s overall target of increasing the number of female entrepreneurs by half by 2030 (equivalent to nearly 600,000 female entrepreneurs)
Taskforce members are: June Angelides, MBE: Investment Manager, Samos & CEO and Founder, Mums in Tech Alexandra Depledge MBE: CEO and Founder, Resi Poppy Gustafsson OBE: CEO and Co-founder, Darktrace Judith Hartley: CEO of British Patient Capital & British Business Investments, British Business Bank and more
