GSV + Emeritus India Summit: Women Entrepreneurs Lead Conversations on Gender Funding Gap

Six women entrepreneurs met on the opening day of the three-day GSV -Emeritus India Summit, in Gurugram, to discuss the urgent need to close the gender gap that women in the workforce are facing. The panel was comprised of Ashley Chiampo, Chief Learning Officer, Emeritus; Smita Deorah, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, LEAD; Vani Kola, Managing Director, Kalaari Capital; Prerna Jhunjhunwala, Founder and CEO, Creative Galileo; Supriya Paul, CEO, Josh Talks, and Lisa Tenorio, SVP, Learning Design, Harvard Business Publishing.

They were part of a panel discussion titled “Power of Women Leading Innovation” that explored the impact women leaders are making in their respective communities, and how they are leveraging education and entrepreneurship to create positive change.

“Only 6% of venture funded businesses in India are co-founded by a woman. Yet, if you look at the CEO level, it is only 2%. As per a study we did recently, 70% of the women who wished to start their businesses claimed they mostly pitch to male investors. 68% of them believe that raising money is more difficult because of their gender. We must initiate discussions about this and look for solutions,” said Vani Kola, Managing Director, Kalaari Capital.

The panel also explored the challenges women have had to face as they strive to lead. Prerna Jhunjhunwala, Founder and CEO, Creative Galileo, said that “Women make up 75% of all teachers. When we consider Principals, this figure drops to 50%. When we consider edtech founders, the figure drops to 6%. And less than 1% when it comes to policymakers. As a founder, I firmly feel that this needs to change. We also need to change the mindset of people to foster the right environment for women entrepreneurs.”

The world's most brilliant and influential leaders in education innovation, as well as, Indian government decision-makers gathered on the first day of the three-day summit to exchange ideas and develop a narrative about the future of the Indian edtech sector and its function in leveraging learning to transform lives around the world.

Over three days, the summit will feature speakers including Hon’ble Minister Smriti Irani, Nandan Nilekani (Infosys), Sandhya Devanathan (Meta), Anant Agarwal (edX),  Sandeep Singhal (Westbridge Capital), Vani Kola (Kalaari), Deborah Quazzo (GSV Ventures), Alakh Pandey (Physics Wallah), Vivian Wu (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative) Madan Pilutla (Indian School of Business), Rajendar Pawar (NIIT), and other eminent leaders from Blackstone, Accel, MIT, Harvard, upGrad, Simplilearn, Duolingo, Classplus and more.