Welcome to The Bigger Pie

EVERYONE IS INVITED

The Bigger Pie is here to support those in blockchain/crypto assets who embrace diversity, inclusiveness and belonging in the workplace.

It’s our job to make it easier for businesses to adopt practices that support diversity and inclusion. This allows those businesses to focus on their core activities while supporting their desire to build a talented, diverse and inclusive culture.

Currently women represent less than 10% of those involved in this emerging tech, as such we are focusing our efforts on supporting these incredibly talented and pioneering #womeninblockchain.

This means working with businesses across the sector to make it easier to:

Provide support and resources for #womeninblockchain

Raise the visibility of women and attract more women into the sector

Find the right leaders and people for your teams

Grow and support more female founders

Businesses that embrace diversity and inclusion across all areas, including gender, race, culture and thinking, have consistently proven to be more profitable and successful.

Come join our community.

WHY BLOCKCHAIN?

Blockchain technology has the ability to fundamentally change the way we do business, adopting a more collaborative and co-petitive approach to problem solving. It’s opening up a swathe of new solutions and efficiencies, including those that could serve millions across the globe who have historically been underserved.

From changing the way we view money and providing financial capabilities to the unbanked, to providing identification to even the displaced amongst us, to disrupting supply chains, and establishing provenance throughout the entire journey of goods from origin to the end user and so much more, blockchain technology has the promise of disrupting every sector across both developed and undeveloped countries.

The very tenet of decentralisation over the traditional centralised operations, the idea of being able to spread the control and therefore power from one place across to many others opens up a new world of possibilities. Changing how we operate in the world, who controls our data on an individual scale through to how organisations are run, how businesses can collaborate together. It’s a radical mind shift in thinking and solving problems that historically without the trust of a centralised third party, wasn’t conceivable.

WHY NOW?

This is nascent technology and the promise of its potential and successful widespread delivery is yet to be bridged. The businesses that will harness this technology to deliver new solutions across the globe have yet to be built, which makes this emerging technology doubly exciting.

Why? Because it gives us the chance to build these businesses right the first time, with diversity and inclusion at the very start. To include and represent the people whom these solutions are being delivered to. Who better to know how to solve a problem than those with experience of it? How better to approach a new way of thinking than with a diverse pool of thinkers?

WHAT WE’RE ABOUT

We’re about taking action which you can see through our Work and Services.

When all data and research into companies that hire more women, and have greater diversity and inclusion in their culture, show they are more profitable, then why wait a moment longer?

Indeed, a recent McKinsey report suggested just by having a scenario where women play an identical role in labour markets to that of men, then as much as 26% could be added to global annual GDP by 2025.

And it’s not just women in the workforce, we need to grow more female founders too.

*In a study of over 350 startups, Mass Challenge and BCG determined that businesses founded by women deliver higher revenue—more than 2 times as much per dollar invested—than those founded by men, making women-owned companies better investments for financial backers. The authors calculated that VCs could have made an additional $85 million over five years if they’d just invested equally in both the women- and men-founded startups.

We have a real chance now to build businesses based on blockchain with this parity at its foundation.

Everyone is invited: everyone can contribute

A diverse company is a successful company

Blockchain has the opportunity to give everyone a voice

  • If you’re a woman already in blockchain
  • Or if you’re interested in learning more and getting into this space
  • If you’re a business owner or leader looking to be able to attract more women into your teams
  • If you’re an investor looking for more opportunities to invest in determined and talented founders

Get in touch and join us, we want to hear from you.

There are a number of fantastic initiatives around the globe that are working to achieve this, we support them and will be working collaboratively together. It takes everyone.

Together we can make real change.

Women in Blockchain
8.5%
Women raise less VC funding
45%
Yet generate more revenue
100%

Our Team

Bridget Greenwood

Bridget Greenwood

Founder

Inspired by both blockchain's potential to fundamentally change the way we do business and the pioneering women working in this nascent space, Bridget is determined to see more #womeninblockchain succeed. Bridget has worked in the financial services sector since 2000, originally as an IFA and then running her own companies after a mini retirement break following the birth of her son. She became interested in Bitcoin and blockchain in 2017. She's worked with two start ups in the sector - one retail facing, the other servicing institutional clients. Gaining an insight into the market place, challenges, pitfalls, regulation and breadth of projects and businesses in this rapidly evolving space.

Sharon Henley

Sharon Henley

Advisor

A scientist/engineer at heart Sharon has lived and worked in Silicon Valley for 10 years as an Imaging scientist designing digital cameras including building neural networks and machine learning for automatic facial recognition and image enhancement. Her goal is to build an incubator and accelerator for Women in Tech – in particular on and for blockchain. Having spent the last 9 months looking and investigating the broken ecosystem and how currently the incubator/accelerator/routes to funding don’t work for women Sharon is looking to turn the models on their head and make them fit for purpose.

Genevieve Leveille

Genevieve Leveille

Advisor

Genevieve is the Principal Founder of AgriLedger, a FinTech venture aiming to empower agricultural producers by democratising their access to financial services and improving the transparency of the supply chain. Genevieve is leading the collaboration of AgriLedger with the Haiti Ministry of Commerce and Industry and other local partner ESIH for the delivery of a DLT Pilot sponsored by the World Bank. The solution is addressing the Haitian fruit farmers, their customers and families who can look forward to this year’s harvest and to reaping the benefits of market inclusion and improved food security.

"Blockchain technology has the potential to change the nature of the systems that lie beneath the things we do every day and could be the greatest driver of value creation in our lifetime"

Blockchain Investment Advisory Sagl co-founder James Duplessie.

Fun Facts to Change

% representation by women in blockchain or crypto
For every £1 of VC investment in the UK, female-founded startups get less than 1p.
women generate twice the revenues as their male counterparts*
If women played an identical role in labour markets to men, 26% could be added to global annual GDP by 2025

Services

Network

Network

A valuable network and eco system that ensures that women are involved at this greenfield stage and increase diversity within blockchain - providing a safe space to learn and grow both online and in person. To enjoy premium benefits join our exclusive membership.

Women to Watch

Women to Watch

Raise awareness of the work individual women are doing through interviews, podcast, blogging, guest blogging and most importantly getting more female experts speaking on stage.

Mindset & Education

Mindset & Education

Women are looking for accountability, balance, continuous improvement, coaching/mentoring and empowerment. We will offer our members a variety of programmes to support this. We'll also collate trusted educational resources. Training materials for online, remote or in person delivery. Offer the chance to become a Mentor/Mentee

Events

Events

Events Directory - working with event organisers to highlight events and make it easier for them to access expert speakers Speakers & Panelists - working with our members to give them more speaking and panelist opportunities. Connecting members before an event and at events. Organising events and helping members organise their own events

Supporting Founders

Supporting Founders

We need to grow more female founders and support those we have: Educate female founders on the types of investors and how to Pitch to them. Offer a panel of skilled professionals who can help improve areas of a business's plan and pitch. Use the network to find your team members and cofounders. Create a Panel of Investors. Intelligently match founders to Investors.

From the Blog

Announcing 3 More VCs for Getting Female Founders Funded

February 20, 2020

Pitch Your Business in Front of these Investors

We’re thrilled to confirm 3 more VCs for our event Getting Female Founders Funded on March 6th in London, honouring International Women’s Day.

As we support women in tech we’re constantly having conversations about how we can best provide support to see women succeed. Getting access to real investors, to investors open to female founders is always high on the list of requirements.

When we see posts like this:

We hear about all these fantastic female-focused VCs and funds. They all have an amazing mission. Their teams are successful female entrepreneurs, operators, and investors. They all raised money for their fund recently. And, they focus on helping female founders, underrepresented founders, and minorities.

So far, amazing. As a society, we have come along way.

But, here’s the twists. It’s so hard to talk or get any attention from the above-said pioneers of female founder supporters. There is no way to speak to them. Believe me. I’ve tried. Email via their website, Linkedin, Twitter, etc. It’s as if we are again faced with the same old ways of VCs. “Get a warm intro,” be an ex-Googler, Facebooker, etc. or be connected to Silicon Valley elite to get a response.

Then we want to do something about it.

This is your chance to meet, network and pitch in front of investors who are in the room. Cheque books open, happy to meet and talk with you.

Do any of these match you?

  • You’re a founder who is passionate and has good communication skills and you’re looking for £50-200k
  • Your core business activity addresses one of the twin challenges of climate change or resource scarcity and you’re pre-seed looking for £75k-150k
  • You’re post-product, post-revenue, looking for funding provided for 18-month runway
  • You’re pre-seed/pre-revenue looking for £500k-£5m (UK based)
  • You’re seed looking for €500k – 3m size.
  • You’re enterprise and consumer focused, investing in areas where Europe has an advantage, including financial services, industry 4.0, food tech, gaming, music and fashion.
  • You’re equity pre-seed, with a strong tech team, and have something unique for market
  • You’re looking to funds through debt rather than equity and you’re looking for  purchase order based lending for any company
  • You’re Seed to series A, revenue generative in Advertising technology | Media technology | Big data | AI | Automation (Uk based)
  • You’re Pre Series A/Series A, Deeptech | Sustainability, with a diverse founding team
  • You’re Pre Seed looking for £20k-£50k ticket sizes
  • You’re Seed/Series A looking for £500k – £2M
  • You’re not ready for funding yet, but you will be in the future and want to start networking and learning now

Then book your place now to meet:

Celebrating #IWD – Getting Female Founders Funded

February 19, 2020

For every £1 of VC investment in the UK, female-founded start ups get less than 1p, yet women generate twice the revenues as their male counterparts.

To celebrate #InternationalWomensDay #IWD2020 we’re looking to move the needle when it comes to Getting Female Founders Funded, and we’re not alone. We’re organising an event to introduce Investors to founders and we’d love to see you there.

Let’s meet the investors who believe in supporting and investing in female founders:

If you’re a female founder looking to raise funds, here’s your chance to meet these investors in person on March 6th 2020, book your place here.

Susannah McClintock from Sustainable Ventures.

Susannah leads investment and accelerator activities for early-early stage start-ups. She holds more than 20 years’ experience in start-up growth and finance and is passionate about business models which aim to maximise their use of funds and resources to create sustainable enterprises that achieve specific environmental or social outcomes.

She holds Board and Trustee positions for both start-ups and charities focussed on environmental and social outcomes. She leads the Finance initiatives for the Mayor of London’s Women in Cleantech.

Bill Morrow from Angel’s Den.

Bill set up Angels Den in 2007 with some bright people and has been named the most influential figure in Alternative Funding by City AM. More importantly, 92% of all the businesses funded since that fateful day are still growing. He now runs a Family Office fund, investing around $5m pa.

Abi Mohamed at CGV and Scout for Backed VC

We (at CGV) invests in underrepresented entrepreneurs looking to change the world and communities they operate in. CGV offers a number of services including advisory (ranging from tech, marketing, and business strategy) and pre-seed funding.

In the two years since launching Backed.vc they have backed 25 rapidly scaling companies, building products loved by the millennial generation or solving deeply technical problems faced by the next generation. Over ninety percent of the companies they backed more than 9 months ago have already secured follow-on funding at an average valuation markup of 3x, raising from the best investors in Europe such as Index Ventures, and in the US such as Founders Fund.

Arunkumar Krishnakuma from Green Shores Capital.

Arun is a Venture capital investor, podcast host and a writer with particular interest in Deep technology solutions with a sustainability angle.

He has invested, advised and mentored startups and is passionate about purposeful innovation. His investments usually have an emerging markets angle to them, with business models serving the underserved and tapping the untapped.

Yao Huang from The Hatchery

Yao is a highly entrepreneurial executive who works with businesses and start-ups in many industries with a focus on technology, assisting with revenue and funding.

She founded The Hatchery, a venture collaboration organisation with international reach bridging the gap between entrepreneurs and investors through resources, advisory, funding and building communities. She has had multiple successes as an entrepreneur and supports other companies in advisory and C level management roles. She leads up the enterprise incubator in New York building products with corporate partners — from ideation, development, sales, funding to exit.

Devina Paul from Galvanise Capital

Galvanise provides innovative solutions for both large organisations and start-ups, and unique opportunities for early stage investors. We use our years of experience at the forefront of the digital space to work with our clients and partners to get to the root of the challenge quickly and find stimulating solutions.

Sara Simeone from Digital Oracles

Enabling Early Stage Investors and Business Angel Networks to discover the most promising emerging technology companies in Europe and beyond. Digital Oracles provides additional insights to investors trying to identify the most disruptive and promising startups and increase the overall level of education in Emerging Technologies.

Kevin O’Mellean from Akasha Innovation Hub

Kevin is COO of the AKASHA Innovation Hub in Dublin, Ireland. Advisor for the AKASHA Foundation in Zug, Switzerland. Experienced Finance Director in fintech and media with business focus on operational performance, growth management and strategy implementation.

With more investors to announce!

They’re willing to share their knowledge with you, help you get investment ready, and there’s even a chance to pitch your business to these investors. Book you place now. Click here.

Women 2 Watch

21 Women to Watch in Blockchain – Q1 2020

January 6, 2020

2020 is set to be a promising year for blockchain and crypto as the sector continues to mature. Since the 2017 cycle of interest and awareness that the jump in bitcoin price attracted, and the subsequent fall away of those who weren’t serious about what blockchain technology can deliver. We’ve seen others steadily hold their vision and continue to build their companies and projects and lay down the rails for blockchain and crypto to continue to develop.

In a statement provided to Forbes by the secretary-general’s office last month, Guterres touted the technology  as a crucial component of the organisation that generates $50 billion in revenue annually. Enterprise blockchain and start ups have worked hard during the ‘Winter’ of crypto and 2020 looks set to be a blossoming Spring.

Raising Visibility

We celebrate the women leading the way in blockchain and crypto across all disciplines. As part of our mission to raise the visibility of the great work these women are doing we’re delighted to publish our 21 Women to Watch for the first quarter of 2020.

Energy

Dr Jemma Green is Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at Power Ledger, a technology company that uses blockchain and AI to enable the transition to low cost, low carbon and resilient distributed energy markets. Power Ledger has had a busy year, as they say, democratising the global energy market. They’ve announced 15 new projects across four continents and showcased their energy trading technology to the US Congressional Blockchain Caucus at Capitol Hill.

JoJo Hubbard gained an interest in the renewable energy story that started in 2009 and led straight into renewable energy asset financing. From very early on she wanted to help solve the energy trillema which said that energy could either be cheap, green, or secure. This led JoJo to McKinsey to do an energy digital transformation where she saw the need for a market-based, decentralised co-ordination of all the assets and capabilities in the energy system. JoJo is Co-Founder and CEO at Electron a London based EnTech company designing and building the digital infrastructure that will enable the transition to cheaper, cleaner power.

Business & Finance

Dr Jane Thomason is the CEO of Fintech Worldwide, The World’s Leading Network for Fintech, Blockchain and Digital Impact. She has been recognised in Forbes Magazine (2018) as Blockchain’s Leading Social Development Evangelist and is the Lead author of “Blockchain Technologies for Global Social Change” IGI Global 2019. Dr Jane is an advocate for social impact and is focussed on catalysing ESG investments in emerging economies and enabling Frontier Technologies to accelerate achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Dr Jane believes that the next wave of transformational innovation will be from emerging economies and this will have the potential to transform economies and attainment of SDGs.

Jessica Camus is Head of Partnerships and Impact at Diginex, based in Geneva. Jessica helps organisations to strategically address social and sustainability risks and opportunities for value creation through the lens of blockchain technology, impact investments and sustainable supply chains. Currently she works across public and private sectors to enable purpose-driven blockchain solutions at scale.

Georgie Benardete is a technology investor and entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of Align17. Keenly aware of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Benardete believes that private wealth holds the key for impact financing to scale. By creating the most relevant digital destination for private investors to source vetted, impactful deals, Align17 believe they will accelerate the positive effect of finance in the world.

Linda Leaney is a highly experienced Investment Banking professional, with over 18 years at Tier 1 Houses. She is involved in harnessing traditional risk management techniques to new technologies, and new opportunities. She’s the CFO at Globcoin. A company ready to bring stablecoins to the next level, and the currency of the global village to the biggest possible audience.

Thessy Mehrain is Co-Founder of Liquality.io @Consensys, providing plug-and-play tech to build peer2peer financial services which don’t require a middleman with the goal to increase liquidity and raise equality. Liquality enables low-fee, censorship resistant value exchange across different blockchains while eliminating counterparty risk.  Thessy founded ‘Women in Blockchain’ in 2016, and was previously VP of Product Strategy at JPMorgan’s investment bank, worked with Occupy’s Alternative Banking Group, and co-founded a scientific peer reviews system.

Veronica Mihai has over 15 years experience in management consulting for enterprise programmes in non-profit organisations, private corporations and public sector in the UK and Europe. Veronica now concentrates her skills and knowledge in the Blockchain space and is Partner and Head of Investor Relations and Compliance Officer at Bloomwater Capital. She invests in blockchain and women-led start-ups and owned an enterprise grade cryptocurrency mining farm. She’s also a great supporter of women in blockhain, an advisor and mentor.

Iman Mutlaq is currently working with public, private and international organisations in a venture to create the first Blockchain based ecosystem in the MENA region. This Ecosystem is built on three pillars, [INGOT Academia] [ICO Factory] and their main project [INGOT Exchange].  She’s also the first instructor for the art of living foundation in Jordan, an educational and humanitarian movement engaged in stress-management and service initiatives, launched by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, which promotes peace and development.

Phu Styles is the Founder of Women in Blockchain Foundation, CEO of Blockchain PR, Co-Founder of Startup Villas, and a Venture Partner. She is also an Advisor for several companies including Serve, Vezt, Snowball, HK EOS, & Blockchain at the University of California, Irvine. In 2017, Phu was awarded the Female Founder Fellowship from Founder Institute and founded an Augmented Reality startup before joining the Blockchain & AI revolution.

Linda Goetze is President and CEO of Blockchain Chamber of Commerce. For Linda educating about cutting-edge technology brings her joy. If you haven’t heard of (or just don’t understand) exogenous ketones, electrolyzed-reduced water, or distributed ledger technology (DLT), she’d love to point you to powerful resources that could be life-changing. Linda also has personal experience with Bitcoin and Blockchain since 2012 which she uses to lend her perspective as she helps individuals and businesses enter the Crypto Age with confident caution.

Eva Kaili is a member of the European Parliament (EP). She is a staunch advocate for digital transformation and believes digital assets and the distributed ledger technology (DLT) that underpins them are not going away. She’s Co-Founder of the World Future Foundation, which is a lab for policy makers, scientists and leaders who experiment with disruptive ideas & exponential technologies.

Technology

Cindy Chin co-founded and co-organised the WOTB conference. She is CEO of CLC Advisors, LLC, an advisory firm that focuses on frontier technologies which includes artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain. As a member of NASA’s Women in Data innovation program she firmly believes the advancement of technology will only be successful if approached responsibly on a human level incorporating diversity and inclusion.

Prof. Sally Eaves has been described as the ‘torchbearer for ethical tech’. She is an international advocate for opening access to opportunity and has founded Aspirational Futures to help skill, empower and support the generation of interdisciplinary talent into careers yet to be conceived, alongside scaling the application of emergent technology as an enabler for business transformation and social good. Sally is also the Social Impact lead for the UK Government Blockchain Association and contributes to parliamentary policy thought leadership.

Genevieve Leveille originally from Haiti, is the principal founder and CEO of AgriLedger. She has more than 25 years’ experience dealing with large corporations and banks in financial supply chain optimization. Her background is in corporate and institutional banking. With a reputation for the delivery of disruptive technologies in large-scale projects, Genevieve is recognized as an authority in the realm of digital identity and financial transformation. Exploring the powers of distributed ledger technologies (DLT) for over three years, her work in the financial inclusion for Africa with her previous employer, the global bank consortium IdenTrust, is well known.

Isabella Brom a solution architect and manager with international background. Isabella combines experience in IT architecture and business advisory in financial services, applied blockchain and DLT in insurance and treasury, blockchain and database technologies. Isabella worked with Fortune 500 companies on digital transformation projects and was key to building and leading EY Switzerland’s Blockchain Technologies Advisory.

Legal

Alexandra Levin Esq is a partner and founding chair of the Blockchain Technology & Digital Currency practice atYK Law LLP. A U.S. law firm in association with one of China’s leading law firms, Yingke International. She’s also Co-Founder and CEO of Womin.io, a decentralised employment marketplace powered by blockchain that provides a platform for employers and freelancers (Smart ContractorsTM) to engage directly on a peer to peer basis, meeting the needs of both in a growing freelancer economy. She is also the Co-Founder of the WOTB conference.

Angela Angelovska-Wilson formely General Council and Chief Compliance Officer Digital Assets Plc, now at DLX Law. Leading a new kind of law firm for a new economy. Experienced General Counsel and Fin-Tech attorney in all aspects of blockchain and distributed ledger technology, from development to implementation, smart contracts, cryptocurrencies, payments and biometrics.

Ash Costello is a Privacy Lawyer with her own consultancy in New York/London/Dublin, and is the former Global Head of Legal of MUFG Investor Services (a division of Mitsubishi Bank).  She has spent 2019 focusing on advising blockchain entities on how they can comply with the different privacy & data protection law challenges which are arising globally, and has spoken at numerous events including at New York’s Columbia University.

Media & Communications

Jillian Godsil has held senior positions with global PR companies in Sydney, Singapore, London and Dublin. She was PRO of Iona Technologies (Ireland’s first company to float on NASDAQ). She changed the law in Ireland in 2014 and is a former European Parliamentary candidate (as an independent). She is a co founder and journalist in the Blockleaders.io and named as none of the top 100 Blockchain leaders globally by Lattice80 https://www.lattice80.com/lattice80-2019-blockchain-100/.

If you want to nominate either yourself or someone else for the next series of 21 Women to Watch then please email [email protected] with your submission.

Women in Blockchain 2020

Make 2020 an incredible year for Women in Blockchain

December 23, 2019

2020 The Decade of Women in Blockchain Begins

In September this year we launched our Women in Blockchain WhatsApp Group (WAG), and I’m so proud to see it grow as a community of leaders and learners all supporting each other in the world of blockchain. As we enter into 2020 I’m delighted to announce our first event. An opportunity to get to meet those you’ve not connected with, and further strengthen the relationships you have with those you know.

The Bigger Pie, which provides support and resources for women in blockchain, has ambitious plans for 2020.  What are your plans? Let’s get together and start the year off as we mean to go on. Focused, determined, and supportive of each other for a great year ahead. The first year of a new decade.

Join us

Thursday 9th January, 10am – 2.30pm at the beautiful Qadre offices near Kings Cross Tube Station, 8- 12 Leeke Street, London, WC1X 9HT.

Take the opportunity to focus on your goals for 2020 so you leave with a clear map of the direction you’ll be taking . Focus on your professional or business goals on the day whilst getting to know each other better.  Collaborating and learning from each other.

Reflect

  • Let’s celebrate what progress you have already made.
  • Where are you/your business today?
  • What changes need to be made?

Vision

  • What does success in 2020 look like?
  • Define your professional/business intentions.

Progress

  • What needs to be done to achieve this vision?
  • What ideas do you have or could you try?
  • What actions will you commit to doing?
  • How will you measure your success?

You’re welcome to stay longer after the event and attend the BTC node session.

For those of you interested, Veronica Mihai has kindly offered to show how to run a BTC node immediately afterwards.

Book Your Place Now

Women in Blockchain 2020

We only have 20 places available. Once you’ve booked, you’ll receive an email asking you a few questions on what you’d like to focus on for 2020 and to let us know your dietary requirements. Book now and make your payment (£47 for the day plus eventbrite fees).

What will you need?

Just bring yourself and a pen. Feel free to invite a friend if you’d like, but places are strictly limited to the first 20, so make sure you book now to ensure you secure your place.

What will be provided?

Qadre’s offices offer a relaxed open and light space, making it ideal for our day. Refreshments are available throughout the day and a yummy finger buffet lunch so we can keep chatting while nourishing ourselves. You’ll be provided with your own Change Canvas Board (printed) to work with, take home with you and use throughout 2020.

Excited? Hell yes!

Personally I can’t wait to hear about all of your goals for this coming year, and to share with you the plans we have to support you going forward. It’s going to be a perfect boost to start the year.

Fantastic! Count me in!! Really looking forward to meeting everyone in person.

This sounds really interesting and a great opportunity to meet some of the amazing ladies in this group 🙂
I’d like to be included.

Would love to join you!

Count me in, don’t know too much about blockchain but … need to learn a bit more. Happy to be with like minded people.

Am hoping to fly in from Spain that week. Sounds like a must attend event.

Book Your Ticket

Click here to secure your place now (£47 for the day plus eventbrite fees).

A Desire to Learn and an Opportunity to Grow – #WomeninBlockchain

December 4, 2019

I was recently invited as to be interviewed, along side Paulette Watson, at the London Women in Blockchain Talks and was thrilled to discover the event attracted so many first timers coming along to learn more about blockchain. In the audience were women from all backgrounds and age ranges, from a recent graduate to 20 years experience as a stock broker, to someone returning to work after a career break, across all sectors from education, healthcare, music, tech, fintech  and more.

With the ability to connect these inquisitive women to talk to blockchain businesses, employers, founders and employees to get a real flavour and potentially hands on experience of working in the sector, we can make a difference.

This is hugely encouraging as we desperately need to attract more #WomeninBlockchain.

The engagement level showed the appetite for learning, and congratulations to the host Lavinia for making the event so welcoming. It’s vital that events like this one are available to attract more women who wish to learn about blockchain, to be able to connect them to ongoing communities and opportunities to network and discover more.

It would be great to see your favourite meet ups around blockchain and crypto in the comments section below, which are the best events to attend?

Supporting learning with experience

It struck me the desire for those in the room to be able to support their independent research and learning, with a community they can be a part of (both off line and online) could also be exponentially improved.

With the ability to connect these inquisitive women to talk to blockchain businesses, employers, founders and employees to get a real flavour and potentially hands on experience of working in the sector, we can make a difference.

A chance to see what types of companies are out there, the size of the teams, the roles, the sectors, discover how they have successfully transitioned into the sector, which route they took, how and where they educated themselves, which resources they found invaluable.

The calibre of female talent

I’m always so impressed with the women in blockchain that I get to talk to, invariably they have multiple degrees, speak multiple languages and have a resume to impress anyone, and that added desire to put their hand out to help others on their journey.

A quick poll of the women in our community showed their education levels:

Is your business in?

I believe it would support attracting and retaining women in blockchain if we could allow these curious and self motivated individuals to be connected to blockchain businesses. As such let’s gather a list all the businesses willing to open their doors to newcomers so we can match these women with real life experience.
This could be in the form of having a conversation with team members, sitting down with founders, doing internships, etc. I’d love to visibly see those firms that are in the space and female positive. It’s also a great opportunity for those companies to attract great talent to their projects/teams. So a win win.

If your business is in then let us know here.

If you know other businesses that would like to attract more women, or who are open to sharing their stories with these inquisitive minds, then please do share this post and if you’d like the link to the form you can find that here.

Democratising access to PR

November 25, 2019

In seeing #WomeninBlockchain succeed and attract more women into the space, visibility is key. You’ll hear me say many times that “you can’t be what you can’t see” and we need to see more women in leadership roles. This is not to say they don’t exist, because of course they do, the problem is they’re not visible enough.

So when I came across Yuilya and the advice she could share to help women get access to a bigger platform for their voice, I wanted to have her wisdom shared with all of you.

Yuliya Belyayeva

Yuliya ran media, crisis, and public affairs campaigns at Edelman, interacted with the press during Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign and Inauguration, and was the Head of Marketing of an acquired fintech start-up.

There is a big gender and diversity gap among sources quoted in the news. The stats in the US show a 3:1 male to female ratio and only 25% of sources are non-white. We can surely do better.

To change that and to democratise access to PR, Yuliya wanted to share a few lessons to use to vocalise the power and value of your expertise to create a thought leadership platform and be included in the news.

1) Understand the news cycle

To set the scene: the media landscape has changed a lot over the last decade. Consumers have switched to digital and social media to get their news, publications have laid off staff, and reporters are under tighter deadlines, covering additional beats (ie. subjects) and writing more articles than ever before.

What that means for you, as a news source, is that we need to know how to make your expertise presentable and relevant to the news cycle. Each interview for reporters comes with an opportunity cost, so the more obviously you can tie in your background to their beat, the better.

So for any reporter outreach, think about what your hook is: Can you comment on a developing news story (ie. you’re a conservation expert who can comment for the UN General Assembly)? Or, in more passive engagement, would you like to introduce and pitch yourself as an expert for any upcoming stories?

2) Think and talk like a reporter

Although reporters have different preferences around the best time and method to pitch them (email vs. Twitter DMs), they all agree that it should be short. Don’t use buzzwords, don’t ask for permission to send them a media kit or relevant docs (just attach it!), and don’t be overly formal.

A good template for outreach is a LinkedIn bio, so present how your background would be helpful to their future coverage in 3-4 sentences. Include links to your LinkedIn, Medium, or Twitter, and any previous relevant media coverage.

3) Use your expertise to establish a thought leadership platform

One of the source application questions on Peer is “What makes you news-worthy?” Since we launched, I’ve had a number of women ask for advice answering that question — and I get it. It can be easy to praise another woman’s accomplishments, but it can be a struggle to talk about our own wins.

My trick is: if you had to write a Medium post — what would you say? This can come from your background (graduating from a non-target school and making partner), work experience (ie. five years in cybersecurity) or just be a big part of your life (ie. double duty as a female founder and mother).

I also encourage you to go and write that Medium article to start building up a portfolio of pieces for your thought leadership platform as this will improve your chances for an interview and other public engagements, such as panels and conference appearances.

If you are a founder, these pieces may fold under your general content and marketing strategy. If not and you’re focusing on your current work, coordinate with whoever is responsible for external communication to make sure the messaging is aligned.

4) Engaging in the interview

After you’ve successfully pitched and gotten an interview, the reporter may send you a general sense of what the conversation will be about ahead of time.

Create three core messaging bullets that you want to relay, and stick to them. These points can be general trend forecasting, comments on a breaking story, how your company is solving for it, or background information to help a reporter have a better grasp on the subject.

Reporters are looking for concise, clear commentary, so it doesn’t benefit you to meander. Journalists build up a list of go-to sources, so the more meaningful your insights are, the higher the chance that you will become a trusted source.

Mastering interviews is an art, but for the sake of brevity of this article, the media training portion has been bypassed. If you’d like to learn more, Yuliya is happy to answer any inquiries.

Feel free to drop your questions in the comments or reach out directly to [email protected]

Diversity in our Women in Blockchain Community

November 11, 2019

I’ve been invited by Elisa Giudici to be a panel member at her event Expanse Summit. The panel discussion is on

Make Money by Doing Good: Social-Impact Investment in Fintech and Blockchain

It is my belief that start ups, investors and businesses that are able to create, invest and build with teams that are diverse and develop cultures that are inclusive. When everyone feels like they belong, this definitely does good and has a social impact as well as being more profitable.

It arguable covers a number of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

It’s my intention to be able to show that being open and inclusive in one area, like our group is, you will find you attract diversity across many factors. But to do this I need your help.

Please complete the D&I survey that I’m sharing with you that’s been created by CultureAmp. Below is a short slide deck explaining why I’ve chosen this tool

I’m delivering the talk this Friday – so if you can find the time to take the survey in the next 48 hours I would truly appreciate it.  This survey also asks important, though sensitive, demographics like gender identity, race/ethnicity, and sexual orientation. It only takes about 1 minutes to complete. All responses are anonymous.
*****ONLY ANSWER LAST SECTION DEMOGRAPHICS  – SKIP ALL OTHER SECTIONS – I REPEAT GO STRAIGHT TO THE LAST SECTION – THE DEMOGRAPHICS SECTION IN THE SURVEY*****

We strongly encourage you to participate; we’re looking to gather as much feedback as we can about our community. This survey is anonymous and there is no way to identify specific individual responses – they are only presented in aggregate.

TAKE THE SURVEY HERE: Remember, go straight to the last section and only complete those questions. Authorisation code: 27zr
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