The IT industry is not for women? Anu Einberg sees it differently! She has been CEO at the software development company Mooncascade since 2018. In her guest article for Fondsfrauen, she reflects on how we can attract more women to male-dominated industries.
To this day, the financial sector has a very preconceived image in which women hardly find a place. Unfortunately, this is not just a prejudice, but a bitter reality. Currently, only 18% of the first management positions are held by women. This is the result of a study by the Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB) The ironic thing? More than half of the employees in the insurance and finance industry are female. How can there be such a huge discrepancy between employment and representation in the executive ranks?
It starts in childhood
Although the reasons are manifold, one particularly important aspect cannot be overlooked: This is awareness. Many young girls do not even know what interesting opportunities are waiting for them in the financial sector.
For this reason, there are some initiatives, such as the "Girls' Day", which is supposed to give girls the opportunity to get a taste of professions that they might not have thought of before. Within the initiative, only professions that have a female quota below 40 percent are presented. If we would inform young girls more about the financial world and trust them to find their way in it, they would probably be more interested in pursuing an interesting occupation here.
"No big deal"?
What stands in the way of women entering the financial sector is primarily the lack of information and the mindset that it would be "no big deal". In fact, lack of initiative to change creates many opportunities for systematic misogyny. For example, many women in male-dominated fields report that they do not feel fairly paid, properly promoted and respected in their jobs.
Thats´s why 50% of women consider it particularly important to fill more management positions with women, while only 30% of men feel this is important. Unfortunately, such statistics prove that it is often not felt necessary to deal with this issue - at least for all those who are not directly affected.
Initiatives such as information evenings can help. In these evenings, the problems should be examined in detail and illustrated by reports of experiences. In this way, empathy can be created and the working atmosphere for women can be improved in the long term.
What it really needs are role models
An important factor for women in the financial sector are role models and pioneers. In other words, people who have already made it in the industry and can actively talk about their experiences and share helpful information. This increases the general interest in the industry, and it no longer seems impossible to become successful yourself. After all, there is no evidence that women are better or worse at finance than men.
In this respect, I was very lucky that I was offered some opportunities for advancement at Mooncascade. I was allowed to try my hand in all departments and learn something everywhere. I really wish all women in finance had such low entry thresholds and such high confidence! When I felt I could no longer learn much new in the departments, it was quite natural to aim for a management position. Fortunately, the biggest challenge was not to prove myself to others, but to find out what kind of leader I want to be!
Inward visibility is important!
I also noticed that there was an increase in female applicants as soon as women were also represented in the marketing material. So you can see a slow change within the industry and the changes already start with the job advertisements. You see more and more pictures of women in job advertisements.
This makes a lot of sense. After all, everyone wants to work in an industry where they feel welcome. Therefore, it is important for companies to present their employees, and not only in external communication.
What it takes is representation in all areas. Whether it's visuals, team events or corporate structures. There is no shortage of female professionals, they just need to be given the chance to reveal their strengths!
About the author, Anu Einberg, CEO of Mooncascade
Mooncascade has been successful in the software development business since 2009 and today serves more than 250 clients from various industries, including the financial sector. Anu Einberg, who started at Mooncascade as a former quality assurance specialist and rose to become the company's CEO, has been CEO of the FinTech company since 2018.
About Mooncascade
Mooncascade was founded in 2009 by four software engineers Ahti Liin, Asko Seeba, Indrek Ulst and Priit Salumaa in Tartu, Estonia. The company supports companies and organisations in digital product development: from consulting to design and software development - whether on business goals, revitalising existing services or launching new fintech products. Mooncascade's clients include not only smaller start-ups, but also unicorns such as Wise (formerly TransferWise), Monese and Bolt. The Estonians have built a strong partner network that now includes Google Cloud and Amazon AWS. Today, Mooncascade is one of Europe's leading project developers with an international customer base and reach. In 2016, the company was nominated by the German-Estonian Chamber of Commerce in the category "fastest growth" and by the city of Tartu as best SME.
Under this author name you will find guest contributions from various people that we publish on their behalf.