International Women’s Day: Delivering on Our Promises

In America, we pride ourselves on aspirational thinking. We talk about equal opportunity. Still, while women are half the population, we make up less than a third of Congress and Fortune 500 corporate boards. This imbalance is firmly entrenched in investment banking, venture capital, private equity, the hedge fund community, and access to capital. 

As we celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, I am driven by the opportunity to contribute to women's strides in the global capital markets as the founder of Athena, an entirely female-led SPAC network. Female-led is still considered unique. Together, with a powerhouse roster of diverse and accomplished women, we are working to change this.

I am a venture capitalist and entrepreneur by trade. When I began looking at SPACs, I found none were led by women. Athena Technology Acquisition Corp. became the first all-women SPAC and closed its $250 million IPO last March. Fast forward one year, we now have Athena Consumer Acquisition Corp. and Athena Tech. II, led by industry trailblazers: SoftBank's first female investing partner, Kirthiga Reddy; the first African American woman to own and operate a billion-dollar company in the US, Janice Howroyd; and the first woman to ever head a broadcast network, Kay Koplovitz – just to name a few. 

Only 15% of American venture capital partners are women; fewer than 30% of CEOs and managing directors are women; 32% of board members of the 100 largest companies are women; and only 5% of fintech CEOs are women globally. In fact, the U.S. ranks behind 19 other countries in providing women with chances of equal treatment at work, according to The Economist. We don’t need to do a lot of analysis to acknowledge the disparity between the experience of women and their place in the halls of wealth and power creation. 

Athena is excited to announce an initiative to launch an annual report in the coming months that will shine a brighter light on this disparity. This will hold all of us, men and women, accountable for ensuring the financial world is driven by the competence and track record of talent and better reflects the ideals of meritocracy. 

As a diverse group of immigrant women, Athena’s members appreciate the American dream. Several of us grew up in dictator led regimes; some of us, in countries where the rights or encouragement to pursue an education was very different for girls than it was for boys. All of us found our way to the United States, a land of unquestionably better opportunity. All of us embrace our responsibility to accelerate the progress that trailblazing women who preceded us created. We will define our legacies by delivering on the promise of opportunities for our daughters.   

We have accomplished a lot. At Athena, we are proud to have delivered the first all-women SPAC, the first all-women follow on SPACs, the first all-women combination, the first black woman CEO to ever ring the bell at the NYSE for an IPO, the first Korean-American woman CEO to ever ring the bell at the NYSE for an IPO, and the youngest woman chairman of a publicly traded company.  

Legendary women have paved the way for so much that we often take for granted. However, we are all in an enviable position to continue to contribute to our shared history. Today, we can wave a banner of encouragement, and together commit to doing so much more.