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2.6
The perception and the reality around gender diversity in European tech are not aligned
The gender diversity reality is that women make up just 9% of CxO positions at venture-backed European startups, including just 2% of CTOs and only 6% of CEOs
Gender composition by job title for Executive-level positions of selected European Series A and B venture-backed companies
This huge underrepresentation of women is also evident in the European venture capital industry, where just 13% of decision-makers are women
Gender composition of UK venture capital industry
But the tech community's perception tells a different story. The overwhelming majority strongly agree that gender diversity is positively reflected in employee composition
Gender diversity is positively reflected in my company's employee composition and hiring
If I look at diversity from an Estonian perspective, we still have a long way to go. We still don’t have enough girls going to STEM fields, they do not go to learn programming because there are still these stereotypes as if ICT were only for guys with long hair in ponytails. These stereotypes are still very strong. In that sense, the US is so much bigger than us and are a bit ahead in that they can hire very specific people into their companies who are responsible for building a diverse culture and setting up company diversity policies. This is not something we have not adopted yet or at least I have not seen it happening as much.
