By Sara Holoubek (Founder & CEO, Luminary Labs)
In the fall of 2010, A Field Guide to Female Founders, Influencers and Dealmakers went live. It was a rapid affair to create a resource we could point in response to the refrain “where are the women?”
To put it bluntly, we hit a nerve.
Over the past year, a number of people have dedicated time to solving the “let’s get more women in here” problem. This is a good nut to crack, as it is about quantity, or achieiving scale, if you will. The more women in the room, the more normal it will seem, and the more likely that these women will have strong mentors, opportunities and create wealth.
In the interim we also need to address the “Invisible Woman” problem. This is about quality. The most frequent response to “Why aren’t there any women on your executive team / conference panel / board of directors?” is “I couldn’t find any,” as if women were a rare breed deserving of a field guide for the uninitiated.
In here lies the problem: People seek out people who look like themselves. it is not intentional, nor is it malicious. Rather, it is an unconscious bias that is painfully reflected in the make up of boards of directors, conference panels, executive teams and lists.
Solving the quantity problem will take time. Surfacing quality should be easier, as a pool of successful women currently exists. Therefore, this next iteration of A Field Guide To will serve as an intentional conversation regarding the visibility of these women.
We hope that you enjoy this evolution, as well as the following new features:
- We are expanding beyond New York to feature women across the globe
- We will highlight curated lists of women by on a regular basis
- Profile pages can be claimed and updated by their owners
- We have added a blog
This blog post was originally posted on A Field Guide To.
Editor’s note: Here is the list of women who have exited their companies. Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.
About the guest blogger: Sara Holoubek is Founder and CEO of Luminary Labs. Prior to Luminary Labs, Sara served as iCrossing’s Chief Strategy Officer, building the firm’s New York office and repositioning the iCrossing brand as it raised an early VC round of $13 million. Prior to this experience, Sara held strategy roles with interactive agencies Organic and Blue Dingo. She serves on the New York Board of Directors of the Step Up Women’s Network. Sara holds a BA from the University of Iowa and an MBA from HEC in France. Follow her on Twitter at @sarita.
