If you're a female entrepreneur Australia's not a bad place to live

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This was published 6 years ago

If you're a female entrepreneur Australia's not a bad place to live

By Cara Waters
Updated

Sydney and Melbourne have landed inside the top 20 in a global ranking of a city's ability to attract and foster the growth of women owned firms.

If you're a female entrepreneur Sydney is the 11th best place in the world to base yourself and Melbourne is the 17th according to the Dell Women Entrepreneur Cities Index announced on Monday in San Francisco.

Dr Catriona Wallace, chief executive and founder of Flamingo listed her business on the Australian Securities Exchange last year.

Dr Catriona Wallace, chief executive and founder of Flamingo listed her business on the Australian Securities Exchange last year. Credit: Lucas Jarvis

The global gender-specific index ranked New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, London, Boston and Stockholm as the top-five cities for high-potential women entrepreneurs

Building on the past five years of Dell research on women entrepreneurs, cities were ranked on five characteristics: capital, technology, talent, culture and markets.

Dell's Australia and New Zealand boss Angela Fox says there are still obstacles standing in the way of women starting a business.

Dell's Australia and New Zealand boss Angela Fox says there are still obstacles standing in the way of women starting a business.

The WE Cities index found access to capital is still the biggest barrier faced by female entrepreneurs.

Sydney's strength is its 'enabling environment' culture, ranking second in the world for this category behind only New York City.

The WE cities report notes Sydney has a high standard of living and a growing start-up culture, although Melbourne is also regarded as a significant hub of technological innovation in Australia.

Sydney's weaknesses were the gender wage gap which sits at 16 per cent, but in some industries such as professional, scientific and technical services is at 27.5 per cent, and high property prices which are seen as an impediment to entrepreneurs establishing themselves in the city.

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Melbourne scored strongest (14th) in the enabling environment, propelled by a ranking of eighth in culture with strengths in data collection, advocacy, equal pay, non-discrimination in hiring, and parental leave.

But Melbourne is weakest (37th) in the talent pillar. Its biggest weakness is the comparatively small percentage of workers with a tertiary education.

According to the WE Cities Index when impediments to female entrepreneurship are removed, there is a dramatic uplift in a city's economic prospects.

Sydneysider Catriona Wallace returned to Australia from the United States to list her fintech business Flamingo on the Australian Securities Exchange last year.

The needle is not moving as fast as we need to around the world.

Angela Fox

"The movement of women entrepreneurs in Sydney is stronger than than in Melbourne there is no question about that," Wallace says. "Particularly for fundraising for women, whether it is Sydney or Melbourne is still particularly difficult. Access to technology and technologists for women is improving but is still difficult to access."

Angela Fox, co-leader of Dell EMC in Australia and New Zealand, says more can be done to support female entrepreneurs in Australia.

"The enablers are definitely there, there are great role models happening but there is still opportunity around access to capital," she says. "You still have situations where women are not getting the access to capital or they don't have information to know how to pitch for capital. It's a known fact that male entrepreneurs are still far more successful in getting their business beyond that million dollar turnover."

Fox says the WE Cities ranking continues to draw attention to "seemingly obvious things".

"The needle is not moving as fast as we need to around the world," she says. "Even you look at New York, it rates highest but it is only rated 62.9 out of 100. You think we are making progress but frankly there are still obstacles standing in the way of women starting a business. There is more chance in Australia of women getting into business but then are they growing it?"

Sydney was ranked eighth on the index last year and Melbourne wasn't included but Dell warns the 2016 and 2017 studies differ in several ways, including the total number of cities, number of indicators and the weight of indicators based on new data sources so the scores should not be compared year-over-year.

The WE Cities index was launched at the Dell Womens Entrepreneurs Network in San Francisco and the 50 cities were ranked as follows:

1. New York

2. Bay Area

3. London

4. Boston

5. Stockholm

6. Los Angeles

7. Washington, D.C.

8. Singapore

9. Toronto

10. Seattle

11. Sydney

12. Paris

13. Chicago

14. Minneapolis

15. Austin

16. Hong Kong

17. Melbourne

18. Atlanta

19. Amsterdam

20. Portland (OR)

21. Berlin

22. Taipei

23. Pittsburg

24. Tel Aviv

25. Copenhagen

26. Vancouver

27. Houston

28. Johannesburg

29. Barcelona

30. Seoul

31. Munich

32. Miami/Ft. Lauderdale

33. Nairobi

34. Dublin

35. Warsaw

36. Belfast

37. Milan

38. Beijing

39. Tokyo

40. Bangalore

41. Kuala Lumpur

42. Sao Paulo

43. Dubai

44. Shanghai

45. Mexico City

46. Lima

47. Guadalajara

48. Istanbul

49. Delhi

50. Jakarta

The reporter travelled to San Francisco for the Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network Summit as a guest of Dell.

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