On 21 January, Burson, Burson Buchanan and Axicom brought together their networks of clients and advisors for a panel event in London with representatives from Sage, Investec, Labour Digital, LightheartedAI and LSEG to discuss the continued evolution of the AI sector with a particular focus on exploring the lack of female representation and the scarcity of funding for women in AI.
By Stephanie Whitmore, Associate Partner
- What gave you the idea for the Rebalancing Innovation: Women in AI event?
In January, as technology experts across the Communications, Investment, Corporate, Media and Advisory worlds set out their ‘Key Predictions for 2025’, the recurring theme was that AI is going mainstream. It was time for AI to move from “Confident Toddler” to “Confident Teen” – according to our panellists.
The critical impact AI can have on everything from how we fight disease, to the way we work, to how we run our families and homes was made clear.
However, as LinkedIn lit up, corporate marketing gathered pace and column inches grew, the question emerging in my mind was whether we are at risk of making another technological shift as monumental as the introduction of the internet, or pillar of society as influential as Western medicine, that was neither made by or for women?
I was not aware of a physical or virtual space where the lack of equality evolving within AI – in the building, application and regulation – was being discussed. And what impact will there be if AI continues to evolve with an inherent bias towards men? More importantly, what could be done to change this?
- Why is now the time to be talking about this topic and how did working with Burson & Axicom impact the event?
In July 2024, Burson Buchanan joined forces with BCW, H&K, and Axicom to create a leading global communications agency. As the newly formed Burson Group, we have relationships across the corporate lifecycle; we can help clients fundraise, build a brand, protect reputation and help influence public policy, all of this being led by WPP’s most cutting-edge AI technology. With over 6,000 employees across North America, Latin America, EMEA and Asia Pacific, Burson represents some of the world’s leading brands and high growth organisations.
The Burson Group is therefore uniquely placed to bring people together to discuss this important topic. If we accept that AI is the next era defining development, it’s imperative we get this technology right from the start, in a way we perhaps haven’t for other technological shifts.
However, to have any meaningful success we need to find a way to not only look at the issues but to also tease out the solutions in a collaborative way that does not isolate experience to the individual. We need to bring women and men from across roles, sectors, and business growth stages together.
We’ve had six months to start exploring how we can all work collaboratively, and it felt like a great opportunity to bring our newly joined worlds together. Now was the time to explore the questions, think about solutions, and build relationships to address emerging bias.
As one of the panellists said in the run up to the event “it’s not a unicorn we need, it’s a whole different beast required to make it as a woman in business”. We want to help provide visibility for women, which in turn leads to accountability, and encourage a more equitable future.
- What were the key takeaways?
When Lucrezia Cester, CEO and Founder of startup LightHeartedAI, said it was estimated that only 0.4% of funding in AI is given to female founders, with $billions currently allocated to the sector, we were all taken aback, particularly when women make up 51% of the global population. There were so many important conversations to emerge from the diverse panel but a couple of key points included:
Addressing early years education was a recurrent theme. Making STEM learning for women and girls more attractive, accessible and culturally normalised, was vital – it was great to hear some of the grass roots programmes Sage was running up in the Northeast. A huge part of making these subjects attractive to girls at school is by having more women in leadership roles in STEM sectors to look up to and aspire to be like.
Fundraising for women in AI/tech was also discussed at length, and the experiences of Virginia Bull, Investec, and Lauren Crawley-Moore, London Stock Exchange, were central to this debate. To build the next generation of female founders, there needs to be access to funding pools, and those funding pools need to have women as well as men on investment committees. Virginia explained in 20 years of investment banking she’s never worked with a female founder – this isn’t good enough! It’s not just a Founder problem – it’s a challenge for the whole industry. There’s so much focus on UK pension fund capital allocation policies – and those of VCs and PE houses – do we need to amplify the voice of women more here too? The key takeaway was that it’s imperative that female-led companies are given the right opportunity at the right time and with the right investor audience.
Attracting and maintaining female talent was another theme that was highlighted in the insightful Q&A session. We hosted a fantastic audience, with the likes of Amazon, Sky, BT, Nomad and Sage joining us, as well as a whole host of growth focussed businesses and the intermediaries that support their ecosystem; it soon became clear that the gender imbalance is affecting the success of UK businesses across the board. This was not only in terms of lack of funding but also difficulties with hiring female talent across all levels and maintaining female employees to the point of them obtaining leadership and Executive roles. On the latter point, it was highlighted how women are over mentored and under sponsored – the mentoring often does not lead to tangible results.
We must remember that this isn’t about demanding a percent of women in business for the sake of it, diversity is the key to future corporate success. We learnt that Sage has a policy for no more than 60% of one gender in a leadership team as the dominance of any one particular group does not provide the best outcomes – that’s a great takeaway as we return back to our desks.
Another example was given of women in a tech company being asked for their feedback on how to improve the workplace to both attract and retain female employees – something so simple and yet more than likely overlooked in most companies for all employees!
- How do you think the event helped move the conversation forward for individuals, companies and Government?
Bringing such diverse perspectives together was a privilege – highlighting the individual challenges but, importantly, thinking about solutions too.
Men and women working together was discussed as an absolute, for everyone’s benefit, and the risk of creating echo chambers – particularly with AI in use – is a concern and not productive for anyone. Thinking about how we get more men into the room to hear these important conversations is a real point of focus going forwards, and communicating that pushing one gender up isn’t to the detriment of the other.
The discussion zoomed in on the importance of building communities and networks to elevate concerns, share tips, and establish the intersections of our working worlds. I’m glad we can use our network of Burson, Burson Buchanan and Axicom to navigate some of these important issues and bring people together.
In terms of practical steps for businesses, the common misconceptions involved when hiring either a women or a man in their 30s were discussed and how they can create further barriers for women entering the technology industry. To change expectations and assumptions, maternity and paternity policies need to be more equal and management teams need to be aware of the true data behind building a stable workforce.
Our moderator Casey Calista did a fantastic job, and her current position as Chair of Labour Digital left her well placed to explore how policy would be at the heart of moving the conversation forward. She mentioned the Women Pivoting to Digital Taskforce and some of the key areas they are focused on.
Our CEO startup Founder, Lucrezia, commented that certain UK Government initiatives have been really helpful for female founders – but there’s still a bias among investors who think female led businesses are less revenue generating and more ‘lifestyle’ businesses which is wholly untrue.
The final point I’ll bring up is the media: “girls can’t want to be something they can’t see”. As Communications professionals, we have a responsibility to “do the work” to get more female leaders visible in traditional and social media to give role models for younger generations, ensuring we can make it through the two key drop off points of tweenhood and senior leadership outlined by Amy Lawson.
It was also interesting to learn how many communities and networks there already are that can help. So many communities, networks, podcasts and wider resources were mentioned today. We’d like to collate and share a list of these so we’re asking all our attendees to send their ideas and we’ll follow up in a few days time!