Ms Jayne Brady:

As my colleague Orla mentioned, I am a partner in Kernel Capital. My background is in electrical and electronic engineering, and prior to taking up this position I held a number of technology leadership positions with multinationals and startups in a variety of global locations, including Europe, China, India and North America. I am also a past chairman of the Institution of Engineering and Technology in Northern Ireland, which is one of the world’s leading professional organisations for the engineering and technology community, with more than 150,000 members in 127 countries.

When I left school to take up a career in engineering, which was almost a quarter of a century ago, the world of technology was a very different place. There was no Internet and there were no smartphones, and only 1% of the population in Ireland had a mobile phone. The percentage of female engineers was 7%. We have seen a massive change in the world of technology, driven by continual innovation. Now, more than 90% of us own a mobile phone. Surely the percentage of woman pursuing careers in engineering has also been transformed? A 2013 report by Engineers Ireland found that men outnumber women in the engineering profession by nearly nine to one, and that male engineers are almost twice as likely to work in senior management compared to female engineers.

The issues here are as much about improving business performance as about promoting equal opportunities for women. If we are to meet the grand societal and economic challenges, the solutions exist in the science and maths domain. One of the greatest natural resources of our economy is our human resource; if we leave 50% of the talent pool of Europe and Ireland behind, we will not be able to meet these challenges.

The business case for managing gender balance in the workplace was well made by Warren Buffett in Fortune Magazinein May 2013:

For most of our history, women - whatever their abilities - have been relegated to the side-lines. Only in recent years have we begun to correct that problem....The closer that America comes to fully employing the talents of all its citizens, the greater its output of goods and services will be. We’ve seen what can be accomplished when we use 50% of our human capacity. If you visualize what 100% can do, you’ll join me as an unbridled optimist about America’s future.

At Kernel Capital we are also optimistic about Ireland’s future. We need the best leaders and entrepreneurs, be they male or female, or we are wasting the assets of our economy. It is crucial that we encourage young girls to take on maths and science courses and to participate in solving these problems of the future. At Kernel Capital we are willing to play our part to support addressing the gender gap, both in our words and in our actions. Kernel Capital were recently promoting female entrepreneurship at the inaugural I Wish event in Cork, a partnership between Cork Chamber, it@cork, Cork city and county councils, UCC and CIT, which aimed to inspire and encourage female transition year students to pursue STEM careers. It was an excellent event that could go country-wide. It really captured the interest of lots of young women who had previously considered STEM to be a male orientated subject area. Hopefully, events like these are a step towards normalising STEM achievement for girls in our classrooms. We are going in the right direction and we need to build upon the momentum already established.

The gender gap does not apply solely to technology sectors; globally in 2014 about 6 % of VC partners were women. I am delighted that Ireland is bucking this trend with prominent female VCs such as Elaine Coughlan, general partner of Atlantic Bridge; Sinead Heaney, managing director of the BDO development capital fund and 50% female partnership representation in Kernel Capital.

My colleague, Denise Sidhu will discuss balanced regional development of entrepreneurial hubs.