by Kathy Scott
The image below is the Advisory Board for Metamorphic Ventures. Here’s what the company says about their advisors: “We are very proud of our advisor group, and they are a fundamental part of Metamorphic’s strategy to help you accelerate your business. A day doesn’t go by that we don’t connect one of our entrepreneurs with one of our advisors. Click on a image below to view more details.”
Do you see anything wrong with the Advisory Group? There are 31 men. There are 0 women. What do you think about the fact that Jim McCann, chairman and CEO of 1-800-Flowers.com is part of this group? Surely his demographics skew nearly all women, if not in actual purchases, at least in influence.
According to She-conomy.com, “Women account for 85% of all consumer purchases, including everything from autos to health care.”
And, we’re just getting started. “Women represent the majority of the online market.”
- Digital Divas By The Numbers
• 22% shop online at least once a day
• 92% pass along information about deals or finds to others
• 171: average number of contacts in their e-mail or mobile lists
If women direct where the money is spent, why do you think this advisory group doesn’t even include one? Think Jim McCann runs his business differently than he chooses which boards to belong to? Take a look at his management team at 1-800-flowers.com. There are 10 senior executives. One is a woman, and she is a…yes, the human resources senior VP. Let’s look at the board – seven men, one woman. Women aren’t valued enough to be put in high positions, only to buy products, I guess.
It’s not like women aren’t getting educated or making strides. WomenMovingMillions.com notes:
- Women represent 51% of the nation’s PhDs, 51% of business school applicants, 67% of college graduates, and more than 70% of 2012 Valedictorians in the US.
- Nationally, about 58 percent of US college undergraduates are women, with some campuses at 70 percent.
- Nationally, women are 57 percent of all US college students but only 26 percent of full professors, 23 percent of university presidents, and 14 percent of presidents at the doctoral degree-granting institutions.
- In 2011, 37 percent of young women had at least a bachelor’s degree compared to 29 percent of young men in the US.
- In 2009, 57.2% of Bachelor’s Degrees, 60.4% of Master’s Degrees, and 52.3% of Doctoral Degrees awarded in the US were awarded to women.
So why aren’t we winning? I think many women don’t want to be invited to a party simply to even up the numbers. We want to be valued. And, the only way we can do that is to show businesses what owning 85% of the U.S. Economy means. Companies that don’t value us shouldn’t get our business. It’s that simple. If you want to know which companies have a vested interest in you, 2020wob.com (Women on Boards) has created a directory of companies and sorted them by women’s participation on boards. If you link over to the site and put only the state in under the ‘company directory’ section, then press ‘search’, you’ll get an entire list of companies in a particular state with codes for the percentage of women on each company’s board. Once you find out info, take it to social media.
As time goes on, we’ll get better at sharing information with each other, and those who once ignored us will be begging to have us as part of their team. If they don’t, they won’t have the benefit of our intelligence and experience or our money. As for Metamorphic Ventures. I haven’t heard of any of the companies in their portfolio. I don’t see how success follows any company that leaves out the insight of half of the world market, but that’s their choice. Ours is to #ownit.
Kathy Scott launched Me and My 1000 Girlfriends, That’s Who! in 2011 as a Facebook community of women poised to assist each other when asked to create and distribute emails, phone calls or letters. City council members, senators and governors were recipients of communication including Florida politicians interested in creating controversial 2011 Teacher Merit Pay Legislation, which planned to tie teacher salaries to students’ grades. The move would have hurt some underperforming low income areas where many teachers most wanted to teach, but would be unable to do so with the low pay rate. The legislation was hotly debated with 1000 Girlfriends doing their best to communicate to legislators. The law was later vetoed by Governor Crist.
Scott can be heard every Wednesday evening at 7pm ET at the Women on the Move Blog Talk Radio program. She recently launched her clothing and premium design – Women’s Party of America available on her Website under the Shop tab. Her success mantra is: Failure is not an option. Connect with 1000 Girlfriends on Facebook.
