Investing in Women Code: signatory Green Angel Syndicate highlight the work they’ve done so far and their plans moving forward

Following on from the publication of the first Investing in Women Code report, we’ve been speaking to some of the signatories to find out their reaction and to discuss what work they’re doing to encourage and promote diversity and inclusion in the ecosystem. We recently spoke to Green Angel Syndicate’s Leader of the Diversity & Inclusion group and Investment Coordinator Patricia Silva and Marketing Director David Sheridan, to take a deeper look at the fantastic work they’ve been doing.

The only angel syndicate focused on climate change and global warming that’s based in the UK, Green Angel Syndicate was established in 2013 and to date has 270 members. They focus on making investments into companies related to climate issues and at the time of writing, they have 27 businesses in their portfolio. Alongside their climate focus, Green Angel Syndicate has also done a lot of work when it comes to improving diversity and inclusion within the business, leading the way for other syndicates in the ecosystem.

Before Patricia joined Green Angel Syndicate, David acknowledges that the company had a diversity issue citing a board meeting with members where there was not a single woman present. They actively decided to change that by encouraging members to bring along female guests to events, and the approach worked. Now Green Angel Syndicate has 60 women across their staff and investors, a significant change that David says has changed the dynamic to the benefit of everyone.

Given that Green Angel Syndicate had already been doing work to address diversity within the company, it wasn’t a difficult decision to sign up to the Investing in Women Code. David comments:

“We as a board absolutely recognised that the industry is woefully not diverse, particularly in gender. By signing up we wanted to put pressure on ourselves because by becoming a signatory, you’ve got to live by the code. We’ve turned the spotlight on ourselves and we are turning our momentum into action.”

After signing up to the code, Green Angel Syndicate has had time to reflect and ask themselves ‘have we done all we can be doing to live up to the code?’ David believes that it has made Green Angel Syndicate look wider than just women, exploring investing in diversity in a broader sense, as they are part of the same bigger picture.

One area of the Investing in Women Code report that particularly interests Patricia and David is the findings around mixed teams. Mixed gender teams receive slightly less investment than all-male teams and within that David recognises a problem.

“The statistics would suggest that by adding a male into the team, that the amount of money that can be raised goes up. It was almost on a parity with an all-male team, which is embarrassing if that’s the case. It seems to me that there’s this inbuilt reluctance to invest in an all-women team. As soon as the investors see a man is involved, their desire to invest goes up or the amount they want to invest goes up.”

An area that Green Angel Syndicate has been working on is engaging with their female members, particularly to use their voices during online events. They’ve been encouraging women to ask questions and put themselves forward, as well as ensuring that events aren’t always hosted by men.

“We actively look for diverse founders from the partner organisations that are working on climate solutions.”

“We’ve got some really talented women investors on our membership list. They’ve reached the top of their game in their various sectors but it can be difficult to get them to stand up and say something in public. We need to encourage that and I think that’s something that we as a company with members can do and try and make that easier,” observes David.

As we approach the second half of 2021, Green Angel Syndicate is continuing to work on improving diversity for investors and founders. Adopting a three-pillar approach – portfolio companies, members and internally – Patricia is keen to explain the work that the company is doing. For portfolio companies, Green Angel Syndicate is partnering with diverse organisations that have diversity in their entrepreneurs such as Cornerstone Partners, who focus on investing in black and diverse founders in early stage, and HERmesa, an investment club that backs female-founded start-ups. Patricia says:

“We actively look for diverse founders from the partner organisations that are working on climate solutions. If they fit our thesis, we welcome them to pitch with us. For these companies and for others, we encourage a management team member who is female (or other member that is considered a minority) to pitch. This is a step forward towards making diversity more common in our events and eventually in our portfolio.”

For members, it’s also focusing on increasing the number of female investors. Patricia believes that a greater diversity among Green Angel Syndicate’s investors helps ensure that diverse companies don’t get overlooked during the pitching process.

The last pillar looks inwards to how Green Angel Syndicate can set an example and lead in the ecosystem. Patricia explains that board training is another activity they’ve undertaken to ensure that the board fully understands the challenges and benefits of diversity and inclusion, and the importance of recognizing any potential biases so that Green Angel Syndicate can meet its diversity and inclusion goals.

“We are now focused on hiring more diversity in terms of gender, age, ethnicity and disability. Our current hiring processes make recruitment decisions more unbiased and, for further internal accountability, we have implemented a D&I policy that can be found on our website. We been succeeding in bringing more diversity and inclusivity to our pitch events and sessions with some tweaks in how we host the events, and with that, have increased engagement among diverse members.”

You can read the Investing in Women Code report in our ‘Policy & Research‘ section.

Find out more about Green Angel Syndicate at https://greenangelsyndicate.com.