Electrify Aotearoa 2024
Right out of the gate, I want to say what a privilege it was to spend the day amongst 500-600 amazing, smart, talented, and motivated women. The speakers were interesting, eloquent, and open, and in response the audience was energetic and engaged. If you are wondering what you missed out on, imma go ahead and tell you.
Electrify Aotearoa is a female founders event, featuring business-lady bangers like Judith Collins of National Party fame who has a long CV of business achievements, Brooke Roberts of Sharesies founder greatness, and Brianne West, founder of Ethique, the shampoo bar products that are making waves globally.
The conference is organised by the Ministry of Awesome founder and startup community (who aren’t an official government department, but probably should be). This was my first year of attendance so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The day began with a short kōrero and poem by John Allen, the Chancellor of Vic Uni. While not a female or a founder, John started the proceedings with energy, passion and a good sense of humour.
It’s a unique experience to be at an event about business and be amongst predominantly female-identifying attendees and speakers. It’s one of those situations that you don’t realise is rare until you are amongst it. The vibe was different, less self-conscious and more adventurous. Women felt like they owned the space and belonged there. For many of us, that feeling does not come often enough. I first noticed the difference while in the queue for the ladies' loos; a breakaway group was staging a takeover of the men's toilets - but first waiting politely for the one male occupant to leave. It was sensible to move to an all genders based toilet system but no one needed to be harmed in the process. Why can’t all political and civic change to be that civilised?
Now what kind of blog post would this be without a list right? Without further ado, here are my top 4 takeaways from Electrify Aotearoa:
New Zealand would be in a better economic position if there were more female-identifying founders
Male founders outnumber females at a ratio of 6:1, but female-owned businesses (on average) have double the ROI than male-owned (Boston Group). This works out to approximately $32 billion of potential GDP growth that New Zealand is missing out on. You can’t argue with dollar signs my friends. I can’t remember who to attribute this little gem to but I’m going to assume it was our host Julia Arnott-Neenee, who carried us through the day with enthusiasm, knowledge and style (those sneaks were on point too).
You belong
Belonging, and the general shittiness of imposter syndrome came up a couple of times throughout the conference. Being at an event where I felt like I belonged was a stark contrast to many of my other professional and even personal experiences where there was a slight niggling feeling that I didn’t quite fit.
Judith Collins talked about the funding processes for startups - founders get funding based on competence and charisma, so female founders are missing out when these feelings of self-doubt hold them back.
Anna Curzon, a Director at Kiwibank, went on to talk about actually removing the words ‘Imposter Syndrome’ from the female vernacular, and quoting Brene Brown to emphasise her point. “Stop walking through life looking for reasons you don’t belong because you will absolutely find them” An event like Electrify does a lot to help us feel like we belong in the world of businesses and startups. I guess the question on my mind now is how can we grow that feeling out in the real world?
You can be ethical and profitable
I love this one, and my business partners are probably sick of hearing me quote this nugget since I came back from the Electrify event - but it's worth going on about. Brianne West has proven the point with her business Ethique. They’re on a mission to reduce waste in the beauty industry; Brianne has created a business that is now worth over $100 million (stuff.co.nz). Her success story is not an isolated event, female founders and business leaders tend to be more motivated by creating an environment that is beneficial to staff and the wider community, while still bringing in that sweet, sweet cash.
Anna Curzon also touched on this in her talk, mentioning that women tend to be more motivated by intrinsic values like autonomy and making a difference - Forbes Magazine backs this point, stating “Most female founders are motivated by intrinsic factors like autonomy and making a difference, and they appear to have a stronger desire to contribute to society than men. While external rewards are important, they are not the sole motivator for performance.” So, in summary, mo female founders, mo good in the world, mo money!
Control the algorithm
We need to teach the internet what's good. We’re looking at a future of algorithms and AI, but AI is trained on what it can see. At the moment, it’s learning from an internet that’s dominated by patriarchal, race and gender stereotyped content. But we can shape these algorithms and change this echo chamber.
Katie Brown from Social Good & Te Ao Matihiko encourages us to be active on social media - LinkedIn specifically - liking, commenting, and sharing posts by female founders, business-ladies, and women we admire to make sure the algorithm and AI know what's important to the world.
To round it all out, I had a great day and felt at home with my fellow business-ladies. I ate a delicious gluten free scone and added another free bottle to my extensive water vessel collection. From the loo insurgency gang to the women bossing it on the stage, I felt like I was amongst like minds and came away inspired and energised.
Did you attend Electrify Aotearoa 2024? What were your top takeaways?
Photo courtesy of Ministry of Awesome
