Investing in Female Leadership: A “Novel” Idea

Insights

Mar 8

There was never a doubt that I would start Juno with a woman. It was important to me to be a women-founded firm, for a multitude of reasons, but mostly because my experience in a working environment with women was very positive. Women could manage many competing demands and execute on all of them. And, quite frankly, I thought the world could use more of us – female founders, that is.

Vicki and I founded Juno in 2010 and often remarked on two trends we noticed from candidates and clients. When negotiating salary for women, they’d often shrink themselves and their compensation during that process. And remember, this was long before pay transparency was a “thing” – so the conversation would go something like this, “I know the range is $75,000 - $85,000, I guess if we could land somewhere in the middle, I’d accept – I don’t want to seem greedy.” And this is how their male counterparts were negotiating, “If they could stretch to $90,000, that would be great. I know my value and I just think $85,000 is a little low for this job.”

It was crazy how often this happened. There’s a pay disparity and on top of that, we’re terrible negotiators and advocates for ourselves. And guess what? We weren’t exactly misguided in our approach – how many times did a woman push the envelope and then “raise a red flag” with a company/client? Was demanding a higher salary then viewed as being “aggressive” and jeopardized the offer all together? Indeed – that happened and men advocating for themselves were rarely labeled aggressive.

Another trend we noticed was on the client side, a female executive was often much tougher on female candidates. Almost to a fault – we would think and say out loud, “Why isn’t so and so a better advocate for other women?” It’s only upon reflection that I realize that was their version of advocating for other women. I akin this to my marriage (to a woman) – marriage wasn’t legal until 2014, many people still don’t believe we should have this right and over the years the government continued to make us wonder if it would always be recognized. Thus, my marriage has to be impeccable. It’s not, of course, because it’s…marriage. But I used to think that – don’t show any cracks, they don’t think we’re deserving of this institution and we cannot fail. I really believe this is what would happen with female executives of a certain generation – they were almost sending the message – be tough, be impeccable – the world is waiting for us to show a crack.

On one side of the spectrum, we were watching women minimize and reduce themselves to ensure they wouldn’t make anyone uncomfortable and on the other side, we were watching female executives develop an exterior that was impossible to penetrate. What a dilemma!

Here’s my little disclosure because we now live in a world of polarization and absolutes – of course I’m making generalized statements based on themes – this, as with literally everything else in the world, is not 100% of all cases – not all female executives are Anna Wintour – but these themes were very hard to ignore.

I’ve not taken much time to research copious stats and studies to cite, mostly because I think we already know that this is all proven out. Pay inequity, a lack of women in Boardrooms and on executive teams, paltry VC dollars going to female founders…right? It’s a thing – we know that, right?

So, what can we do?

Hire more women:

That should be easy. OK, maybe you have less (diverse) applicant flow for certain positions – so here’s what I would suggest. Work harder to ensure you have an entirely diverse set of candidates for each and every role. If you are a white man and you work with a bunch of other white men and you “go out to your network” to fill a new position – that’s not the best strategy, as an example.

To be clear, I emphatically do not believe in hiring diversity just for the sake of hiring for diversity – no one wins in that scenario. Trust me, there are plenty of qualified women, this won’t be an issue.

Pay women:

No really, just conduct a compensation analysis and ensure that women are equitable. And when negotiating salaries, stay accountable.

Invest in women:

We have a small venture arm, we don’t invest in only women, but check us out. https://www.juno.capital/ - lots of diversity, right? We didn’t even have to strategize – it turns out women and other under-represented founders are really smart and have great ideas. Give them the money to build.

Educate:

I was in a situation recently, all white men and me. We were determining what to do for dinner and they said, “Mikal – find a restaurant that can accommodate us and make a reservation.” I, was in fact, not the assistant for this particular event – so that was a teachable moment.

By the way, I’ve been on the other side of these teachable moments and wow – it can be uncomfortable – get uncomfortable. As long as there is kindness, respect and an honest desire for everyone to be better – it can work really well!

Teach your children well:

RIP, David Crosby.

I’m raising two little boys. In a very diverse school district. Surrounded by strong women. Who will, I hope, never even question these concepts. But we have to keep educating our kids – they must understand our history to be the change agents of our future.