Maven's Pledge to Pathways

Ana Stewart’s pioneering Pathways Pledge, an independent initiative where companies sign up to specific actions aimed at driving diversity, equal opportunity and female participation in entrepreneurship and business, has launched its seventh cohort.

“The seventh cohort launch demonstrates the growing influence and impact of the Pledge initiative. It brings together a diverse group of organisations to collaborate and deliver new, measurable and additive initiatives to existing strategies. It’s great to see both internal and external facing pledges which will be tracked and monitored over a twelve month period. We’re excited to welcome the latest cohort and look forward to connecting them to our Pledge community.”  

Ana Stewart, Chair of Pathways Forward

Maven is committed to supporting the advancement of female entrepreneurship in the UK by improving access to tools, resources and finance from the financial services sector. As part of its Pathways Pledge, Maven has adopted “See it to be it” as an internal and external theme to guide its actions, communications and engagement with female founders and colleagues.

Across the UK, many women building high growth businesses still face structural and cultural barriers when raising capital and of accessing the right networks. The Pathways Pledge brings together organisations across the industry's investment firms, professional services, education and innovation partners to commit to practical actions that improve access and visibility. For Maven, it aligns closely with our existing work supporting female founders and it strengthens how we listen, learn and respond with measurable initiatives.

“Maven is committed to supporting diversity in access to finance and the Pathways Pledge closely aligns with our commitment to increase investment opportunities and support women-led businesses. We aim to strengthen engagement with female founders, help to foster a more inclusive business ecosystem and encourage greater knowledge and confidence in approaching investors.” 

Lorna Kelly, Strategic Development Director at Maven

In March, analysis by the ScaleUp Institute in partnership with Pathways Forward revealed that while the growth of female founded and co-founded Scottish scaleups is outpacing the UK national average, challenges remain in areas including access to investment, talent, and support. 

What Maven is committing to:

• Maintain diversity within investment decision-making, including continuing to strengthen female representation at Investment Committee level.
• Monitor and share gender disaggregated data through our ongoing commitments as a signatory to the Investing in Women Code.
• Use findings to inform practical actions, ensuring our support is evidence based and founder informed.
• Continue to participate in ecosystem initiatives that promote female visibility and access, alongside Maven’s own workshops and scaling programmes.
• Support flexible working that helps retain and progress talent across the investment profession.
  
  

What success looks like

• Increased internal awareness and activity across female focused initiatives to drive:

  (1) practical data-led support for female-led entrepreneurship

  (2) internally, spotlight success stories and positive initiatives for females in the business.

• Improved external visibility for female founded and mixed gender management teams.

• Clear, publishable data insights to backing female founders.

• Increased engagement from female founders, reflected in introductions and  funding discussions.
  

Read more about the Pathways Pledge seventh cohort and the analysis by the ScaleUp Institute here.