Report shows that only 5% of Canadian technology firms have a female founder or CEO

According to a new report created by a collaboration of PwC, the MaRS Discovery district and MoveTheDial, the Canadian technology industry is significantly lacking in female leadership.

The research statistics have revealed that only 5% of Canadian technology firms have a female founder, with the same percentage having a female Chief Executive Officer.

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“The report's purpose is to generate awareness of the gender disparity that exists in Canada's technology industry and to challenge our leaders to take action and drive positive change,” says MoveTheDial founder Jodi Kovitz, CEO of AceTech Ontario.

“This is not a choice, it's a social and economic necessity. When we don't have great women leaders, we miss opportunities to collaborate, to bring diverse viewpoints to the table, to address the sector's growing talent gap, and to create technologies that serve the needs of everyone.”

Women only make up 13% of the average leadership team of a Canadian tech company, whilst over half of companies surveyed have no women executives. Further, on average, only 8% of Directors at these firms are women, whilst 73% of Boards have no women present.

"It is not good enough that only 5% of our founders and CEOs are women,” said Chris Dulny, National Technology Sector Leader at PwC Canada. “If we want Canada to be a global technology leader - whether in e-commerce, artificial intelligence or quantum computing - we need to be bringing our full talent pool forward."

The report shows a greater need for Canadian firms to incorporate women into their leadership teams, with Ilse Treurnicht, CEO of MaRS stating that without this, “our innovation ecosystem will remain undifferentiated and subscale, and our economy and our communities will suffer”.