Female tech CEOs very rare in Canada

53% of firms have no execs who are women

TORONTO• A new report says just five per cent of Canadian technology companies have a female founder and a similar fraction have a woman as CEO, figures that suggest the industry’s gender diversity is lagging other sectors.

The study, co- authored by PwC, the MaRS Discovery district and non- profit MoveTheDial, also showed that women comprise 13 per cent of the average Canadian tech company’s executive team while 53 per cent of firms do not have any female executives.

The new figures released on Wednesday, based on research and analysis of more than 900 companies, suggest that there is less representation of women at the helm in the country’s tech sector than in the broader Canadian corporate world.

Jodi Kovitz, the founder of MoveTheDial, says that as technology becomes intertwined into every aspect of modern life, it is “critical” that both men and women, and other diverse views, have a voice in shaping its decisions.

“Otherwise, we will not have solutions that are reflective of our actual population,” she said in an interview. “We have a long way to go in tech, in terms of advancing women to the leadership table.”

The study comes less than a month after the Canadian Securities Administrators released its latest review of female representation, which showed that at least 62 per cent of compan- ies had at least one woman in an executive officer position.

The CSA’s review of more than 600 issuers also found that 14 per cent of total board seats were held by women.

That’s compared to eight per cent of board seats at Canadian technology companies, according to the report released Wednesday, which Kovitz says is the first, comprehensive study of its kind.

It also comes after some Silicon Valley tech giants faced accusations of sexism and discrimination, some of which have led to legal action.

Last week, three female software engineers sued ride- sharing company Uber for allegedly discriminating against women and people of colour.

In August, a male engineer at Google wrote a memo that attributed biological differences between men and women as the reason why “we don’t have 50 per cent representation of women in tech and leadership.”

The memo, which was denounced by Google CEO Sundar Pichai, went viral.

The chair of the Ontario Securities Commission, Maureen Jensen, said last week that it might be time to strengthen its measures to get more women on boards after little progress.

Maithili Mavin kurve, co-founder of Canadian artificial intelligence company Sightline Innovation, is optimistic that the needle is moving as she encounters more female founders every day.

“As we see more women in those ranks, and as we see more women starting these companies, then naturally that will have an impact on that next generation of women,” she said.