Why did you sign the Diversity Commitment?
It’s very simple – diversity is a driver for performance! Diversity drives better decision making, more innovation and broader market knowledge – just to name a few. Danske Bank,Growth and Impact signs the Diversity Commitment because it is time to act and lean forward and together with the leading investors in DK unlock the untapped potential in the Danish ecosystem!
What are you hoping the initiative will lead to?
I hope this ambitious and much needed initiative will lead to a lot of things: more diverse founders starting their own business – and that they will be able to get funding, so that we will be able to change the skewness in the Danish eco-system when it comes to investments in female founded vs. male founded teams. I hope many other stakeholders in the Danish startup ecosystem will see the business arguments in having a strong and continued focus on diversity and help drive the change
What do you see as the biggest challenges in reaching the goals?
Change will not happen overnight – we are looking into a marathon of work rather than a sprint. However, it is an ambitious and enthusiastic group of partners, who have jointly agreed to drive the change and I am reassured that this will move the needle. Now, we have agreed to set up common goals on diversity and very importantly – also tracking the data. We have not had data points in terms of diversity in a systematic way up until now, but we need data to get the full overview as it puts us in a better position for changing the status quo.
Where do you see that you as an organization can play the biggest role?
In Growth & Impact, we have large touch point with the Danish ecosystem through our different activities and with that also comes responsibility, even though we don’t sign the commitment as investor. We have an important role to play when we identify and select startups for our different (pitch) events, when we set the team of Growth Advisors, attraction of applicants at the Hub, recruitment to + Impact Accelerator and not least when we educate new investors through our business angel education. We have interpreted the common goals into diversity KPIs for each of the various initiatives in Growth and Impact, which will help us boost and improve diversity – and track it not least!
Who would like to see joining the initiative?
I actually think that all types of investors and other important ecosystem players, such as accelerators and incubators should join the initiative – there is much work to be done and we need to engage stakeholders at different stages in the ecosystem. And hopefully, someday, we will reach a point where a Diversity Commitment is superfluous – when all founders receive an even distribution of investments in DK and being diverse – as a startup or as investor is something we are and act upon, because it is bad business not to….
