The Infosys Knowledge Institute: Show Her the Money with Catherine Gray and Rohini Williams

Jeff Kavanaugh: Hello and welcome to this edition of the Infosys Knowledge Institute podcast where we talk with experts on business trends and share their insights. I'm Jeff Kavanaugh with Infosys Knowledge Institute, and today, we celebrate Women's History Month with an inspiring look at women's role in venture capital, both as founder and as fun-ders. My guest today, first, is a pioneering venture capitalist, Catherine Gray, and also Rohini Williams, who leads private equity at Infosys. Welcome, Catherine and wel-come, Rohini. Thank you very much for joining us.

Catherine Gray: Thank you, Jeff. So glad to be here. Appreciate it.

Jeff Kavanaugh: All right, let's just jump right in because you've done some amazing work, Catherine, both on research and what's going on in the venture capital world. We hear the com-panies with all women founders are only 2% of all the capital out there. Why is that, and what is holding that back in venture capital overall?

Catherine Gray: Well, what's holding it back as far as I can tell, I did a TED talk about this, it's called Fund Women-Save the World. And that is that people tend to invest in people they identify with. It's a fact. And so, when you don't have any women or people of color or LGBTQ people sitting at the decision-making table deciding who gets the funding, well, that's why they're not getting funding. And so, with our film, Show Her The Money, that we're taking on a 50-city tour, we're trying to educate people about what is venture capital, why is it so important, and why are women getting only 2% and men are getting 98%. The imbalance is unbelievable. And so, we have to fix that. And I believe one of the ways is to educate people on what it is and how they can partici-pate. What a fascinating asset class it is. Can be very lucrative and make such an im-pact for your legacy.

So, for all those reasons, it's important that women who are coming into trillions of dollars in the coming decade know about venture capital and actually invest in ven-ture capital specifically in women-founded funds that are very focused on women, BI-POC, and LGBTQ.

Jeff Kavanaugh: You got it. And to complement that, VC is at the early part of the game, some of the startups and the smaller aspects, when it gets to a larger company still in the private world, private equity might behave a little bit differently. Rohini, what's your take on the whole imbalance of women as either corporate leaders or the financiers?

Rohini Williams: So, from a private equity perspective, what I'm seeing is there is a lot of thinking in-volved in doing these investments. From a financial perspective, if it makes sense, which is black and white, right? But from an intuitive perspective as well as from a creative perspective on why not, right? If it makes sense. So that the entire duality of black and white, I know that can be done by anyone, but the creative side of solution-ing and the intuitiveness there, we all know women have a higher capacity for that. And if we miss out on half of the population not being able to use the skills, we are losing out big time. And these are the startups which will take humanity to the next level. So, it is not only a PE or a portfolio failure, but this will be a humanity failure if we don't do this.

Catherine Gray: I agree a hundred percent. And rather, people are investing in private equity directly into companies like we do showcase in the film as well, or into venture capital funds where it's more like a mutual fund but in the venture capital space. They're super im-portant that we are investing in these overlooked communities that have been un-derrepresented in venture capital. And like you're saying, I agree with you a hundred percent, Rohini, we cannot leave 50% or more of the brain power on the side of the road. All of those innovations and ideas that will help save the planet, come up with cures, products and services that are necessary to move the planet forward. All of those would be not happening if we are not utilizing all the brain power we have here on the planet. And so, what a great opportunity to invest in those sectors and what a great opportunity to leave a legacy where we are actually helping to save the planet and make it a better place.

Jeff Kavanaugh: If we deconstruct the problem into a couple of root causes, one of them could be, there's a willful or bias against having more women or more diversity in the funding pool. And I'm sure that has played a big role in the past. What about also the pipe-line? Because you could decide today to do something, if you don't have people with the funds or with the training or maybe it'd being exposed to even knowing this, the whole idea, if you can't see something, you can't be it. Could you comment, Catherine, on the pipeline development for these founders?

Catherine Gray: Well, number one, we're all put on the planet for a purpose, right? And so, women, and BIPOC, and LGBTQ people get a download just like anybody. They get downloads of innovative ideas that are genius. And it's so interesting to be in that space and hear about all of their innovation. So, there's plenty in the pipeline, it just needs to be funded. But what a great opportunity for investors. These are people that tend to stretch the dollar longer and be more successful. So, it's just a matter of education. It's why we made Show Her The Money, we've thought it takes a film. I'm a big be-liever it's film and television that helps change culture because awareness creates change, right?

And so, we're just saying, "Hey, there's a huge opportunity for investment here in pri-vate equity and venture capital into these sectors, into these brilliant, smart people with ideas and innovations and step into it." It's exciting and fun and can be very lu-crative and very rewarding. And so that's the purpose of the 50-city tour, the movie. And later, we'll be distributing it in other ways that we can reach people around the world. But right now, it is live and in-person all over the country and people can actu-ally go to showherthemoneymovie.com to see where and when it's going to be in an area near you.

Jeff Kavanaugh: Before we go any further, Catherine, what was the inspiration for the movie and what are your plans to go beyond the in-person screenings?

Catherine Gray: The inspiration for the movie is really just that I feel like it's film and television that helps change culture and also brings awareness. Awareness is, of course, what cre-ates change. I think nobody really wants to talk about venture capital. So, it was so much more effective to create a film about it that we tell engaging stories about women in that ecosystem. So, it puts a focus on women that are starting their own venture capital funds that I consider the real rock stars of the industry. I think they are the unsung heroes that people don't know about, and I want to shed some light on them because they're out there raising 25, 50 or 100 million dollars to invest in women, and BIPOC, and LGBTQ, all those underserved communities.

And so, the other sector is the women that are investing in those funds and they're incredible stories. And then the third sector is, of course, the women innovators with the great ideas that are getting funding from these women-founded funds that other-wise would not be getting funded. So, it's the intertwining of those three sectors that really tell the story in a powerful way. And that's what the movie does.

Jeff Kavanaugh: Rohini, private equity, you almost consider to be, I won't call it the boring, older sib-ling of venture capital, but it's got a different dimension because companies are a bit more established and yet, it also is often overlooked. What are you seeing with pri-vate equity and what are some steps that can be taken for women to take more of a role?

Rohini Williams: Thanks, Jeff. So, I think the timing, Catherine, is perfect. The interest rates are high. Everybody is moving towards the VC and private equity route. They don't want to take loan from the banks. They would rather work with the private equity and VC communi-ty. There is so much of dry powder. We are sitting on 1.3 trillion of dry powder here. And they are assets, it's a shark tank out there. It's competitive to get the right as-sets. So why not look at assets which need the due financing? And we should have parity in that as well. And what we are seeing in the private equity sector, Catherine very beautifully laid down the personas of people that we have, the women who are investing, and in the women who are raising the funds, the women who are entrepre-neurs who need these funds. All these personas are extremely important that they take and carry this banner of diversity above, right? And take it out there to the mar-ket so that we can leverage a holistic way of thinking.

This is a topic that has come up everywhere. You look at the World Economic Forum, everybody's been talking about private equity and diversity in the private equity and VC space. And if we don't take steps right now, it will be difficult. I usually work with the operating team, and operating teams are the ones who work with their portfolio companies to restructure them. I again see a lack of diversity in the operating teams as well. And to my mind, the question comes is, why? Women are known for nurtur-ing. They are known for nurturing a spoiled brat into a good kid. These are all dis-tressed assets or fast-growing assets. Women will be able to nurture these compa-nies to the next level of growth.

Catherine Gray: Yeah. And to follow up on that, Rohini, women are coming into trillions of dollars in the coming decade. What are they going to do with it? If they don't put some of that into private equity and venture capital, the world will suffer. So, we have to educate them in a heartfelt way because that's the way women run, right? You have to ap-proach it in a way that speaks to them differently, probably, then speaking to men. You can't talk to them about it, you have to have a movie and storytelling about it. And then they relate to it, and they say, "You know what? I want to participate in that. I understand now how important it is that I put money into those sectors that I knew nothing about, but I know about it now." And that will make all the difference. We have to educate them in an inspiring and engaging way. And that's what we've tried to do with our movie Show Her The Money.

Jeff Kavanaugh: The word education, I'm glad you brought that up, because I was going to bring it up before, is so important because it's the ultimate ROI. And I think that that might be an area where education, especially financial education, and maybe the confidence to back it up to go off and either take the risk or maybe an informed risk, it's so im-portant. One positive in my research for this discussion stat that I came across, 2019, the 2% still has been holding, but the 2019, 2.6% of deals were all women founders and it's up to now 7.1. Now, the overall money hasn't changed, but the number of deals as growing up. Maybe, Catherine, you could comment on that and maybe ways to take that to the next level or maybe what you think that will translate to.

Catherine Gray: I can only say that we need to see more women at the investment decision-making table. We impact 80% of the buying decisions.

Rohini Williams: Yeah.

Catherine Gray: We should impact similar with the investment decisions. And with women coming in-to more wealth than they ever have in history, we do have an opportunity to play that role, to be the deciders of who gets the funding. And that's going to be a very im-portant role to play. And that is why we're taking Show Her The Money, the film, on a 50-city tour around the world to enlighten women about what is venture capital, what is private equity, and how important it is to our future, and how they're going to want to be a part of it. Not only because it's a great investment, can be a very lucrative as-set class that they haven't known about before. But also, the impact they're going to make on society.

And that's really important to women. They always want to know they're making an impact. It's why they do so much money into donating to charities. But they have to realize, it's just as important to invest in women founders, BIPOC, and LGBTQ with in-credible ideas that are going to help impact the planet. That too is making an impact. They just happen to make a profit from it. And isn't that a perfect combination?

Jeff Kavanaugh: Rohini, can you give examples of maybe some industries where you're seeing early signs of this transition or women are more in the leadership roles?

Rohini Williams: Absolutely. So, I think again, on an operating side, because I tend to work on an oper-ating side a lot, right? So, they have operating partners for ESG that Catherine just pointed out. I see a lot of women leaders on the ESG side and the healthcare and re-tail side. On the portfolio company side, I see a lot of women CEOs being brought in for the retail and healthcare side because retail and healthcare is again, very consum-er centric. So, women tend to understand the sentiments of the consumer and do very well. So, I've seen a lot of women leaders in the consumer and healthcare side as well as on the ESG side is what we're seeing. And I want to just comment, Cathe-rine, the trailer that I looked at, the kind of content that you have put out there is not only for women, but for men, for them to understand the PE and VC space. We are in the tech sector, so we understand technology well, but it'll be a great instrument for me to take it out to all our sales and consulting leaders to make them understand and sensitize them about this space.

Catherine Gray: Yeah, oddly enough, this is a story that's never been told. And the majority of men and women don't know much about venture capital or private equity, oddly enough. And so, it's such a wonderful opportunity for them to learn about it, like I said, in a storytelling engaging way that makes it fun and easy to understand. It's not as com-plicated as people think, right? And they don't really realize, you don't know what you don't know, but once you become aware of it, I think people will be like, "Yes, let me into this incredible opportunity of investing in future innovations that are going to help impact the world in a positive way and make money doing it." And what a perfect combination that is.

Jeff Kavanaugh: Like many of these societal stats, to change the number of women as founders, fun-ders, and I guess originators, requires inspiring the next generation of women entre-preneurs or investors. What do you see as essential for success, Catherine, and what do you see as being done now and maybe it's you want to double down on?

Catherine Gray: Well, Jeff, 100%. We do have to start with people young women and men, educating them about this space. I wish I had known in my twenties. I'm sure Rohini feels the same.

Jeff Kavanaugh: Same for me. It wasn't just you.

Catherine Gray: Yes, yes. And Jeff too. And we've been approached by so many universities. We have been screening at those universities and have been asked to create a curriculum to go with that. So, we are creating that so that it will be something that they can im-plement into their syllabus to include educating the young people about this oppor-tunity of how they could enter into being in venture capital in so many different ca-pacities, either in the workforce or as an investor.

Jeff Kavanaugh: Rohini, I'm going to ask you, transition a little bit, because you mentioned we're in the tech industry and you see a lot with technology. AI, of course, is everyone's favorite two-letter word right now. And it is all the rage, and beyond the hype, what are you seeing in helping the PE in venture capital industry? How does it provide tools or in-sights to do better at investing?

Rohini Williams: Thanks, Jeff. So, I think AI and generative AI, to be more precise, has a very good use case for the private equity sector, solid use case, I would say. Because private equity thrives on information, knowledge. And on the basis of information and knowledge, the information has to be current, they make decisions. So, the generative AI has ena-bled the synthesis of syndicated information at fingertips for these investors. Now you can imagine how powerful this tool can be. So that is on the investment side.

On the operating side, I think there is a lot of work that can be augmented and dis-placed with AI, which helps reduce cost, which again, is music to ears for private eq-uity, reduction of cost. And then on the other side is understanding customer senti-ments for growth, using AI for that. That itself, again, will help propel the growth for these portfolio companies. At Infosys, of course, we've been using AI use cases for code generation, for customer service, and many more use cases are now coming up. So, these are right now at a POC stage, which now will need to get scaled very rapid-ly. And private equity and VCs are having a very close eye on that. Not only are they deploying it in their portfolio companies, but they want to invest in these companies because these are high-growth companies as well.

Catherine Gray: Yeah, and just to chime in on that, I was talking to some women the other day that are creating an app that will connect using AI, connect founders and funders. And I thought that's a really cool aspect of how it will be utilized to improve this arena.

Rohini Williams: Right, right, right. And it opens up the entire retail investor space, Catherine, which is so exciting.

Catherine Gray: Yes.

Jeff Kavanaugh: Catherine, if you were in front of, and you got off on our leaders, financial leaders, people making policy, what is it that you would pound the table and passionately ad-vocate for? What would you tell them to do to generate this tidal wave we need?

Catherine Gray: Well, one of the things they could do is what California just did and pass a policy where there's an accountability factor of them disclosing where the funds are going and showing that a certain amount is going to women in BIPOC and LGBTQ. I think accountability is key whenever you're trying to make change or create growth in any way, shape, or form. So certainly, it applies to this as well. That's how I would think, taking that California policy that they've already passed and making it nationwide, if not, global. The UK almost just passed a policy that was going to increase the amount of money people needed to make or have in order to invest in this asset class. And they fought it. And right now, it's at bay and I know it's being talked about by the SCC here in this country, and I hope that doesn't happen because it would give less peo-ple access to investing in this sector.

And so hopefully, we will all continue to make sure that that doesn't change here in the US either, because it shouldn't just be for a limited number of people. It shouldn't be just for billionaires. It should still be for people making 200 plus that fit in that category as it stands right now. So hopefully, we will not be changing that. And that's where policy is super important too.

Jeff Kavanaugh: Yeah, and even with that number, it's not even to exclude people below that because there are some structures set up that you can invest partial class, other words, you can still take part in the market even if you have whatever means or funds you have if you're educated and you're able to make those decisions.

Catherine Gray: And one of the things in Show Her The Money we make very clear is that you don't have to have a half a million dollars to invest in venture capital. Some of the venture capital funds that these women have started are as little as a 25K investment, and a lot of people don't know that. So, we wanted to make that common knowledge. And then like you mentioned, there are private equity deals that people could invest even less than that. So, we always encourage people to get with people like Rohini, to learn about private equity, check out angel groups, check out the venture capital funds. We have to educate ourselves on what this opportunity means and what the entry level is. But there's a far less barrier than people think.

Rohini Williams: I completely agree-

Jeff Kavanaugh: Yeah.

Rohini Williams: ... Jeff, with what Catherine is saying. This is not a normal film or a documentary. This movie Show Her The Money is a movement. It is a movement which has to be suc-cessful for us to move forward. If it requires policymakers, if it requires a societal change, we must do that. It is the right thing to do.

Catherine Gray: I say it's a movie and a movement, so I'm making up a new word. It's a movie-ment.

Rohini Williams: Movie-ment. Yes, it is a movie-ment.

Jeff Kavanaugh: What are the messages you'd like to leave our audience with and send them forth?

Catherine Gray: I would really just like to leave the message that it's important to see Show Her The Money so that you educate yourself on what venture capital is. It's entertaining and storytelling. You're going to enjoy it. The stories of these women are incredible, and you'll walk out of the film knowing what it is and why you would want to be a part of this fascinating arena. So showherthemoneymovie.com is our site. We also have a re-sources page where people can learn more about it through everything from podcasts and book to workshops and directly connecting you to venture capital funds. So yeah, thank you for this opportunity to talk about the film and the movement and look for-ward to collaborating with you all.

Jeff Kavanaugh: Yeah, absolutely. The Knowledge Institute podcast is an Infosys Knowledge Institute production. Please follow us wherever you get your podcast. And visit us at in-fosys.com/iki. Yulia De Bari and Christine Calhoun produced this podcast. Dode Bigley is our audio engineer. And I'm Jeff Kavanaugh from The Knowledge Institute. Keep learning and keep sharing.