TechCXO takes a multi-faceted view of diversity. As part of the larger technology community, we understand that there is much work to do to help correct the imbalance of representation, particularly in entrepreneurship, venture capital and tech companies in general.

We look at three primary areas regarding our diversity efforts.

Diversity… among our Clients

One of TechCXO’s most pointed areas of focus is to support startups that are female and minority-founded. Much of our assistance comes in the form of helping startups with critical operational and strategic issues, such as access to equity, cash conservation, IPOs, revenue acquisition and retention, successful exits and acquisitions, and securing less expensive resources and platforms in order to scale.

One of the ways we best encourage diversity among our clientele is to aggressively invest in them with discounted upfront rates, friendly payment terms and deferred payment/warranty arrangements. In this way, we become a true partner to our clients. We also aggressively pursue minority-founded businesses to provide them with both our expertise and the strength of our extended network.

The following is a partial list of female-founded and Black-owned startups we’ve assisted, the industry and cities in which they operate:

Diversity… among our People

TechCXO people believe wholeheartedly that diverse organizations outperform their non-diverse counterparts. Research we embrace points to the fact that the gender composition of management teams matters. Of the top firms in Standard & Poor’s Composite 1500 list, on average, “female representation in top management leads to an increase of $42 million in firm value.”

We believe equally important benefits — financial or otherwise — come from filling an organization with ethnic and socio-economic diversity from the full spectrum of life.

Among our more tangible efforts, we strive to promote female leadership at the highest levels of our organization, including Managing Partners/Practice Leaders and our Chief Operating Officer.

Our Diversity Committee reports directly the our Executive Committee and a number of our Committee members are also on our Executive Committee. Diversity discussions and training are increasingly part of the TechCXO culture.

Perhaps most importantly, TechCXO’s growth is dependent on adding more partners. Our outbound recruiting efforts are singularly focused on an increasingly more diverse, racially and ethnically representative partner pool.

Diversity … among our Perspectives

One of the anomalies of TechCXO and our presence in the tech world is that the average age of our partners skews… well, higher.

In a space that is dominated by youth, we look a bit different. This is a natural occurrence as the prerequisite to become a TechCXO partner is to have successfully served as a C-Suite executive.

More often than not, that requires a few years in the saddle.

This affects us culturally. We sometimes have to overcome some resistance to our gray hair. We found that this has opened us up to be much more patient and solicitous of varying opinions and perspectives.

When you attend a social gathering of TechCXO people (or perhaps a heated debate), we like to think we have a collegial environment that listens and respects different perspectives first and withholds judgement.