#58: UK female entrepreneurship and The Gender Index with Jill Pay
Jill Pay is a former Serjeant at Arms in the House of Commons and she was the first woman to hold this position in 600 years. Her appointment was unusual in that her predecessors all came from a military background, whereas Jill’s experience has been in business management. She retired in January 2012. Since leaving Parliament, Jill has held a number of senior roles for organisations including the children’s literacy charity Coram Beanstalk, the women’s business network Savvitas Global and the Women and Enterprise All Party Parliamentary Group chaired by Craig Tracey MP. Jill leads The Gender Index, the largest ever study into female entrepreneurship in the UK. She is a major driving force behind the growth and empowerment of female entrepreneurs. Jill is a Non-executive Director of mnAI, the data platform that powers The Gender Index. We cover the following in the conversation: Female entrepreneurship in the UK vs US The Gender Index and the story behind it The key stakeholders in the startup ecosystem and investors: who needs to do more What needs to be done differently so more female founders have access to capital and can scale their business? ***