Today's MBA Student is Tomorrow's Entrepreneur: A View of How Gender Impacts Career Choices (Illuminate Ventures)
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Illuminate VenturesSummary
- Over 85% of surveyed MBA students are considering entrepreneurship as a current or future career path; men (88%) were slightly more likely than women (80%) to select this answer.p.4
- Entrepreneurs from the top twenty-five MBA programs founded 9,450 companies (14% led by women) between 2006 and 2020, including 72 unicorns.p.4
- 63% of men and 53% of women students have interest in a venture capital career, but perceive very high barriers to entry.p.13
- There are fewer than 1,500 active venture capital firms, typically creating less than 100 new investing partner-level positions a year.p.14
- Male and female MBAs selected financial security (58%) as a very significant barrier, followed by access to startup capital (37%).p.17
- The survey covered over 500 students representing 22 MBA programs.p.18
Key insights
- Over half of the students have previously founded a business (23%) or worked in an early stage company (an additional 36%).p.4
- 40% of Fortune 500 CEOs have an MBA on their resume, according to Forbes.p.4
- In a study of 4,000 professionals, men self-rated their capabilities at an average score of 61 and women at 45 on a scale of one to 100.p.7
- Fifteen percent of male founders selected significant financial gain as their top motivation versus less than 7% of student respondents.p.8
- More than 50% of students, founders and female venture investors put resilience/perseverance in the top spot among success attributes.p.9
- Balanced teams with one technical founder and one business founder raise 30% more money and have 2.9x more user growth.p.12
- Over half of all current VC partners earned an MBA, according to TechCrunch research.p.14
- At the historical pace of change, it will take 400 years to reach parity in venture capital.p.15
- Illuminate Ventures' internship and Student in Residence program has more than 60 graduates, with more than 45% women and 78% from diverse backgrounds.p.16
Published by Illuminate Ventures (funder profile)
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