What inspired you to get involved with helping female entrepreneurs?
I got the entrepreneurial bug and got passionate about female entrepreneurs because I was very concerned that a miniscule amount of venture capital funding was going to female-funded or female-lead companies. The excuse that’s always used is that women do not found companies that are venture capital fundable. They’re basically retail or service businesses—small businesses that can’t scale. There were a lot of us in the area who were in technology or life sciences or bio-tech and we basically looked at each other and said, “Well that’s not true, because we’re here.”
Why do you think those businesses get overlooked?
Because primary investors, angel investors—you don’t cold call them. You have to have networks. By and large, at that stage, people invest in people more so than an idea or a business. They invest in someone that they believe can get it done—someone that they might know personally or who knows someone who knows them personally. That is a crucial stage for all entrepreneurs, but I do think that because of personal connections, [for women], it’s a little harder.
What role does mentoring play?
Any successful entrepreneur will point to several people who are helpful, influential mentors. Because it does take a village. You can’t do it on your own. So I mentor women whenever I can. If anybody calls, I certainly try to help. I’ve also worked as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Wharton. That’s more formal. You have office hours and students can come to you at any time. When I see a company that I mentored doing well and impacting the world, I feel good about that.
Are there any other areas in which female entrepreneurs need more support?
My next big mission is that I am a very big advocate of having female entrepreneurs in the classroom because there are none. If you’re a business student and you’re thinking about entrepreneurship or studying entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurs are much [more rare] than male. So it’s harder to find female entrepreneurs to lecture or be in the classroom so that they have role models. It’s important to get true entrepreneurs in the classroom [because] it requires certain skill sets that a lot of people don’t think about.
The other thing I’m passionate about is corporate governance. Big topics on public company boards now are innovation and disruption. [Yet], when they recruit, they go to the same wells. There are no entrepreneurs on these boards. These are big issues for these companies and there is no one on these boards who has ever started a business or who has ever innovated and I find that just so ironic. I am co-chair of Women Corporate Directors Philadelphia, and what I’m hearing is that they cannot find women board members. That’s the excuse. My response is that you are looking in the wrong places. You are looking at the sitting CEOs of public companies. Women have not completely populated those areas, though we are getting there. Women bring a completely different perspective to the board room. They bring their skills set and their expertise, but they also bring a completely different perspective as consumers. The first thing I did when I got on my first public company board was to recommend another woman who is now on that board. Diversity is very important.
Do you have any advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?
What I tell students is that it’s not the easiest thing to decide you’re going to start a business and if you’re in it just for money, I can’t imagine that you’re going to be successful. It’s really quite an undertaking, so there has to be something else driving you. There has to be passion for what you’re doing. You have to have a very clear vision of where you’re going because a lot of times you can see it and nobody else can.
Captured in Fall 2019.
Images curtesy of Denise Devine.