Bio
Mary Kathleen (MK) Flynn joined PEI Media as Editor-in-Chief of PE Hub in 2021. She leads the content for the Hub and covers all things private equity-related, especially transactions, trends and dealmakers. She has covered private equity and M&A for 15 years. Most recently, she was the Editor-in-Chief of Mergers & Acquisitions, a role she served in for a decade. Previous positions include Senior Editor/Senior Video Producer, The Deal; broadcast Reporter at CNN and MSNBC; and Associate Editor at U.S. News & World Report and PC Magazine.
Our Conversation
I had the pleasure of talking with MK last week about her experience of gender inequities in private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) firms and she brings a really unique perspective as someone who has a bird’s eye view of different companies that are growing in the market. Throughout her career, she has spearheaded projects that shine the spotlight on some of the most influential women leaders in the PE world, so she was obviously someone who provided a lot of insight into my research.
She brought up an interesting perspective that is specific to the world of corporate finance about perpetual factors that continue the gender inequities. Typically, in private equity and venture capital firms, the percentage of women in entry-level and mid-level positions is low, but it is higher than the partner level, which is basically a point where you are one of the primary decision-makers of what investments the firm makes. Across the world women make up 32% of junior roles and 25% of mid-level roles in private equity on average, according to Preqin. That weighting drops to 12% for senior positions. However women are typically pushed to marketing positions and are told they are “great with people” or would “make a great ambassador for the company.” Because women are pushed on a different branch or vein of these firms, they are put on completely different paths of leadership within these firms. This is a perpetual cycle that we’ve seen and it also certainly doesn’t help that as we continue to look up the corporate ladder that the participation of women decreases. In order to minimize this for the future PE partners or VC partners out there, it’s important to actively pursue deals and do the due diligence on different companies to show that you are meant for researching the investments of different companies and you are meant to part of the central decision-making bodies of the firm. I found it really interesting that they found ways to divert women from those leadership positions but this is also coupled with the fact that women’s participation in leadership decreases because of the course of life. The long hours and travel associated with private equity and venture capital can interfere with family life, so many women end up leaving investment firms, which is one reason why we continually see the gender inequities in leadership in corporate finance.
Fortunately, this might not have to be the norm for the next few decades. I believe that the younger generations are more in tune with the societal issues that we are facing when it comes to gender inequities and racial inequities. And since we are the next generation that will be taking over the working force, many of these companies have actually started to evolve their thinking. COVID-19 might’ve actually provided a place for this as well because it normalized familial needs, working from home style, and showed that travel for face-to-face interactions wasn’t as essential because it could be replaced with a Zoom call. While I certainly might hate the idea of working online, I will say that it’s made things more accessible across socioeconomic situations.
Younger generations care about making the connection between work and their value systems and making investments that actually make a positive impact.
MK Flynn
Younger generations are now faced with the choice of waiting for these companies to evolve or forging their own paths with their own companies to establish these “should-be” norms of gender and racial equality. And for me, I think I would choose to forge my own path.
