THE co-founder of tech unicorn Blippar has called for the growing movement in London which is encouraging more women in Scotland to aspire to senior positions, launch their own business or move into technology to spread its influence north of the Border.
Jessica Butcher, part of the team which founded augmented reality specialist Blippar in 2011, says the feedback she receives from influential businesswomen in Scotland points to the country lagging the UK capital in these key areas.
Ms Butcher, who will address the Business Women Scotland Awards, in association with Women’s Enterprise Scotland, on October 26, would like to see the “community spirit” that has emerged in London make its way to Scotland.
Asked why she feels Scotland is currently trailing London in levels of female entrepreneurship, as well as the presence of women in technology and senior business positions, the Oxford graduate said: “I should say it’s fairly new to London as well, that the various stakeholders in this have started to come together. There has been a lot of lone voices. I think it ultimately comes down to their being few senior role model women who are prepared to stand up on platforms and talk about what they are doing.
“We’ve got the same problem in London, and Scotland, being a smaller economy, a smaller centre, will have still fewer.
“I think women are more shy about coming forward. It’s time for us to issue a rallying call to try and get themselves more in the limelight.”
Ms Butcher said there were few female role models she could look up when she began her career around the time if the “dot.com bubble” in the late 20th, early 21st centuries. She cited Martha Lane Fox, co-founder of Lastminute.com, as the only senior female figure in business who had “any sort of profile” then, adding that there was little movement in this regard for some years.
“It was only by joining the internet and tech community that I got to know many other impressive female entrepreneurs,” Ms Butcher added. “But then none of them enjoyed the profile of the guys who were doing quite well in technology. To me now, it is other women in London who have scaled and exciting other interesting businesses, whether that’s Sarah Wood with Unruly, or Alex Deplege who started Hassle.com. There are still fewer than 20 women who have scaled businesses, even down in London.”
That there is now serious debate around issues such as pay equality and how best to ensure more women achieve higher positions in companies offers evidence to Ms Butcher that positive change is afoot. But she said it remains the case that the debate often arises because of negative events, such as the identification of “specific discriminatory practices or imbalances”.
Ms Butcher adds: “I think we should move this debate on to, now, identifying and profiling those women that are achieving, albeit in a minority, and then giving younger aspirational people figures to potentially emulate and learn from. And I think we need to do a lot more work to get those individuals into the media, telling their stories in what tends to be in a more honest fashion than a man might, without wanting to give too broad a generalisation.”
While keen to avoid stereotypes, Ms Butcher does feel that women are, on the whole, less reluctant to put themselves forward. “I do feel it is a genuine thing. Of course, I’d be the first to shout down stereotypes and to acknowledge that there are both men and women that buck those stereotypes out there, but I do feel some generalisations can be made. And to deny that there are some differences between the sexes is to deny some of the things that I feel are the strengths of women. To say that we are all exactly the same is simply not true.
“Whether that is a result of society or convention, or it is more of a biological condition, I wouldn’t even pretend to comment [on] or have any knowledge of. I’m certainly not focused on these things. I understand that even science is conflicted on this.
“But I think as a result of the society we are born into women tend to have softer skills. They have a tendency more towards wanting things to be right and perfect, and high achieving women carry that tendency. Had they been A grade students throughout school they carry that into the workplace.
“And I think they are less inclined towards the risk taking that we see more men doing, let alone applying for jobs with half of the boxes ticked. Whereas a woman is more likely to apply for a job if she had 90 per cent of the job spec covered.”
She added: “These are all trends and habits – it is right that we are asking as to why this is, but more importantly how do we combat it.”
Ms Butcher has taken a step back from the day to day running of Blippar to pursue “more of a portfolio career” that allows her to follow her passions of female entrepreneurship, women in tech and developing “start up to scale up culture” in the UK. She said it is “criminal” that British businesses don’t reach the scale of their counterparts in the west coast of America. Ms Butcher also said she would like to see more women become involved in mentoring, networking with people immediately above and below themselves “on the ladder, so there is a constant sharing” of advice.
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