The Remarkable Woman: How ONE word in Shivani Gopal’s company “Tech Bros” sparked

Australia’s tech industry is such a ‘boy’s club’ that when a start-up added the word ‘woman’ to its name, ‘tech bros’ were so triggered that they pressured it into an expensive rebrand.

Shivani Gopal launched her idea of ​​a women’s networking app called The Remarkable Woman in 2023 – but changed her name after men felt complaints.

Ms Gopal used the relaunch to add new features, but she had to replace her strong concept of a women’s community with what is now “a digital platform for social learning and mentoring”.

She confirmed to Daily Mail Australia that the change was forced on the company to make the name more “inclusive”.

A supporter of Ms Gopal’s project, Sydney technology entrepreneur Candice Burningham, believes the case shows how men are still making career-defining decisions for women.

Shivani Gopal used the relaunch to add new features, but she had to replace the strong concept of a women’s community with what is now “a digital platform for social learning and mentoring”.

Sydney tech entrepreneur Candice Burningham believes a change forced upon The Remarkable Woman shows how men are still making career-defining decisions for women

One of the few women to have found success in senior positions in Australia’s tech industry is Canva co-founder Melanie Perkins

Her comments come from a LinkedIn study released to mark International Women’s Day last week, which found that just a third of all senior management positions in Australia by 2022 were held by women.

“When an announcement is made that a woman has been appointed to one of the most senior positions in an organization, it still comes almost as a surprise,” Ms Burningham said.

‘That’s a shame.’

While the tech industry is considered progressive in part because it embraces innovation and offers employee perks not found in most companies, it was the third worst offender.

In 2022, only 20 percent of technology leaders were women.

In construction, just 17 per cent of managers were women in 2022, making it Australia’s worst-performing industry with transport and logistics at 18 per cent.

Education performs best, with 42 percent of managerial positions held by women.

While the number of female leaders in some industries remains very low, overall the situation is slowly approaching parity.

Women held 41 per cent of all new managerial positions in Australia in 2022, up from 37 in 2018. Overall, women make up 45 per cent of the workforce.

Ms Burningham believes Ms Gopal’s company did not get the limelight it deserved because his name was only seen as attractive to women.

The company is understood to have secured new sources of seed funding and its future is looking much brighter.

“I think they could have nailed it with the name The Remarkable Woman? NO.’

Ms Burningham, who has worked in insurance, merchant banking and media for decades here and in the UK, claims tech remains “a boys’ club” in Australia.

She said one of the worst examples she’s seen was of an unnamed founder of a tech start-up being interrupted at a convention by a man who wanted to talk to a man about her company.

In the Australian construction industry in 2022 only 17 per cent of executives were women

“I hear a lot from other women that they’re having to deal with a bro culture, which is quite common in tech companies where guys are like, ‘Hey bro, yeah bro.’

She said the “bro culture” in tech is not “hostile” to women but regularly overlooks their accomplishments.

“The articles I read and hear about venture capital firms always seem to support male-led tech entrepreneurs.

“It’s always about the guys from Afterpay or Atlassian.

“The only one with a female manager was Melanie Perkins at Canva.”

Perkins co-founded Canva with Cliff Obrecht in 2007 when she was 19 and still at the University of Western Australia.

As of January 2022, Perkins and Obrecht were estimated to have a combined net worth of $9.21 billion, according to Forbes.

Ms Burningham said the media is probably worse than the tech sector because it doesn’t provide avenues for women to get into C-suite.

Ms Burningham, who worked primarily as an executive assistant before turning her experience into two companies, said the best chance for a woman to take on a senior position in technology is to start her own company.

“I did it myself… I don’t think people look at an EA and think they can be business leaders.

“So I went around and did it my way instead of going through the ranks.”

LinkedIn’s Prue Cox said traditionally male-dominated workforces are more resilient to senior female leaders.

“While the data shows that there has been some improvement when it comes to Australian women’s representation in the workforce, there is no denying that we still have a long way to go to achieve equity, particularly in industries traditionally viewed as ‘male dominated’. Roll.”

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk