“Equality is about ensuring that every individual has an equal opportunity to make the most of their lives and talents.” Equality Human Rights
Achieving a positive impact is a core part of our business purpose and is about valuing people, the environment and the society we live in. At Alberts our goal is that ‘everyone feels welcome’. This is why we are focusing on equality as one of our four Impact Venture themes.
We are proud to work with business leaders like our Chair, Sam Mostyn AO, who are leading the charge for greater gender equality.
In her recent address to the National Press Club of Australia Sam asked “what would it take to build a post-pandemic nation that flourishes on the world stage by using every ounce of its talent? What would our country look like if it finally moved on from all the worn-out notions of toughness and blokey mateship and, instead, began reimagining a society that truly celebrates care and invests in all its women; a country that ensures opportunities for women and men alike, and that treats women with the decency and respect that is our basic human right. Not just as a moral obligation – although that should be enough – but as a powerful driver of performance, innovation and effectiveness in every sector of society.”
We believe that investing to address the causes of inequality will help accelerate a transition to a level playing field and a better and fairer world. A world where everyone has the opportunity to flourish, personally and professionally.
We recognise that we have an opportunity to level the playing field through using our capital to create and support change; the organisations that we choose to partner with; and the way we operate as a business.
1. Investing in pioneering entrepreneurs and ideas:
We want to work with pioneering entrepreneurs who are levelling the playing field. Initially, we are focusing on gender equality, the 5th UN goal and a huge category on its own. Over time, the plan is to extend our focus more broadly. We are concerned about growing inequality globally, trends in biogenetics and AI that are only accelerating the wealth divide, and according to some this gap may become insurmountable[1].
2. Backing female founders:
We focus on supporting female founders noting that only 2.3% of female-led startups receive venture funding[1], with a gender pay gap of 13.4%[2] that expands to 47% at super[3].
3. Looking at how we operate as a business
We have implemented a range of measures throughout Alberts to improve accessibility for diverse individuals. For example:
- Our business board, management team and our Impact Ventures’ team are all majority-female
- We use Be Applied for hiring – this helps us choose more neutral language and remove unconscious bias
- We use calibration questions that we ask every founder to ensure we reduce unconscious bias
- We track and monitor female founders in our pipeline (how do you improve what you don’t measure?)
- We help our founders with HR policies that are inclusive and encourage them to maintain diversity throughout their organisations
- We held a Board workshop on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion that helped each of us reflect on our own unconscious bias, influences and beliefs and considered the benefits, barriers and best practice solutions in this important area. We will also be rolling this out across our team.
Our music legacy
Alberts recently entered a music publishing administration agreement with Sony Music Publishing, driven in a large part by the inclusiveness focus of their global CEO Jon Platt who throughout his many years in the industry has advocated for diversity and equality across and within the music business.
While we are proud that former Alberts executive Fifa Riccobono was one of the first (if not the first) female CEO’s in the Australian music industry we also recognise that the music industry continues to face systemic issues when it comes to equality, highlighted by the numerous examples of misuse of power that have been well known for many years but have only recently been made public. We have supported and co-funded the National Music Industry Review and believe it is critical in helping to ensure that there is a safe work environment for all those who work in the music industry and we are therefore helping to fund this important piece of work.
We are excited to be directly investing in more equality by backing pioneers combatting these systemic issues. Watch this space for sub-themes we’ve identified under the equality umbrella with the release of our equality deep dive findings.
[1] Nir Yval, 21 lessons for the 21st century
[2] https://hbr.org/2021/02/women-led-startups-received-just-2-3-of-vc-funding-in-2020
[3] https://www.wgea.gov.au/terms/gender-pay-gap#:~:text=The%20national%20gender%20pay%20gap%20drops%20to%2013.4%25,over%20the%20last%20six%20months
[4] https://www.womeninsuper.com.au/content/times-up-and-the-super-gap/gjktn8
