Since 40% of F1 fans are female, we need more female drivers and staff members.

Melissa Di Donato, the chair and CEO of Kyriba and a supervisory board member of Porsche AG, examines what it’s like to be a car enthusiast in a world where most drivers are men and how STEM and International Women’s Day might help tip the scales in favor of women. Writer for City A.M. is the non-executive director of the Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology.

This week, both on and off the track, F1 has had the entire globe captivated. But I for one was eager for the racing to begin when the Bahrain starting grid filled up last weekend.

I have an obsession with cars. Since my father bought open-wheeled, modified race vehicles when I was a young kid, I have been in love with automobiles. I studied to race them at the United States’ Skip Barber Racing School as soon as I was old enough. A go-kart was the first expensive item I ever owned, not a pair of earrings or shoes.

And I love Formula 1. But when the pit teams left the starting grid, I couldn’t ignore the uncomfortable truth that no woman would make the podium in this, or any subsequent race this season. Because all 20 drivers, from Alex Albon to Zhou Guanyu, were men.

F1 and tech alike

Switch the F1 roster for the employee register in your average tech company, and you’ll see the same dynamics at play. I’ve led teams at Salesforce, SAP and Oracle. I’ve led the management teams of software companies SUSE and Kyriba, as CEO. And through all those teams and all those years, I’ve remained a minority. The anomaly on the starting grid.

Tech companies have been talking about getting to gender parity for decades now. Not only has proper progress not been made, but some perceptions have shifted into reverse gear.

According to new research from Nigel Frank International, four in five men in tech believe women are treated equally in the industry. They don’t see a problem. It’s a reminder that if you’ve never experienced the invisible structures that prevent equality, you don’t know they’re there.

But the numbers are clear. Women occupy only 22 per cent of tech roles globally. And 56 per cent of women have truncated careers of 20 years or less in tech. It’s starker still when you follow the money: only 3.5 per cent of UK equity investment went to female founded businesses in the first half of 2023.

There are initiatives galore in tech businesses. Inclusion programmes, reverse mentoring programmes, inclusivity training. And there’s evidence of movement: 25.3 per cent of leadership roles in tech companies are now occupied by women, which is a big 19.5 per cent increase on 2019. But we know the funnel of women into tech businesses has to be stronger.