Investor Vandana Tolani On The Need To Change Gendered Conditioning For Progress

Written By: Rajkanya Mahapatra

Vandana Tolani is the Co-founder of the boutique investment firm, Convanto that helps early-stage startups with fundraising. Her career spans over two decades and her expertise lies in investment banking and international and domestic business advisory.

In conversation with, Pallavi Pareek, Founder and CEO, Ungender, Vandana discusses the need for education to trigger large scale changes on how women are finally able to operate within the formal workforce.

Pallavi: Vandana, let’s start the interview with your journey. How has it been so far and what are some of the key observations from your journey of over 15 years?

Vandana: I have worked previously in Jakarta and Singapore. This is my sixth year back in India working in investment banking. My six years of journey in this field has not been an easy ride, of course, and things really need to change. This field needs to change in terms of giving women a lot of opportunities, giving them the platform, giving the right kind of backing. We are conditioned in such a manner that we think everything stops for women after marriage or after having kids, everything stops. I think it’s the conditioning, the mindset that needs to change.

Of course, we’re moving ahead but not very open-mindedly. There are many educated people who still have the same mindset. They may have good experience working in corporates, come from strong backgrounds but still have the same mindset. So that’s the thing that I feel needs to change. Not only that, equal opportunities can be created, equal skills can be identified for both the genders. But for women, the platforms are not there. I’m sure if they are given the right platform, they can really outshine and perform and create a lot of difference in the economic system in the country.

In many startups, women entrepreneurs don’t get the kind of investments they deserve. We might show to the world that we have changed, but we have not changed, people look differently at married women and single women. There is a lot of labelling that happens, when they say, you know, she’s not tech savvy or she is not this or that. How would you know what potential she has, unless she’s given the platform? I’m sure many men lose out on opportunities as well but they have access to that platform. They have that support, they have that backing – they are more fortunate that way.

Many times, what happens is that if men have achieved something, we never say, “oh, you know, you must have done something to reach that level.” The moment there’s a woman who has shown great progress, people will start doubting or question her character. But in reality, it is her own skills, her own way of doing things that gets her those opportunities, and it’s her own talents, the way she speaks the way she performs.

Pallavi: How do we go about fixing the gender gap in venture capital firms and the startup ecosystem?

Vandana: It begins with education. If the girl child is given the right kind of education and given that backing by the father and the mother in the house to get her to that education level, she will outrun others. Second thing, marriage should not limit her. Marriage should empower her to move ahead and the same applies to having kids.

In addition to these three changes, when there is diversification in the portfolio, in terms of ethnicity, in terms of gender, in terms of many other things, automatically that company or that fund will outshine others because they would have shown so much diversification, and it will show a lot of progress. If we want to keep it that way, we have to start from our homes.

Pallavi: What are some of the other things that you think hold women back in the startup ecosystem?

Vandana: When we give our decision making powers to others or when we put our trust in something, we tend to go back to not check back on certain things. So what happens is investors at times might take women entrepreneurs lightly because they might think that she might not have the knowledge or don’t know how much she’s willing to fight for her enterprise.

We need to have our own checklist that tells us what skills we’re missing. We don’t need to be perfect in those skills, but at least when we’re aware of it to a certain extent they are stronger in terms of signing up, receiving the funds and approaching the investors, and the like.

Also, women have to learn and unlearn how to speak in this context, you know? Many women speak in timid tones when a man raises his voice. This also happens when they are asked questions, regarding their startups, they would go timid, because they might just be handling the operations part of the startup, the finance part, somebody else would be handling. There are so many factors behind these things. Everybody needs to brush up their skills, not have too much dependency and keep a certain level of confidence in themselves.

Pallavi: At Convanto, are you dedicatedly looking at sourcing women founders or women-led startups?

Vandana: No, no. We’re a sector agnostic investment bank. We’re currently connected with 175 funds including venture capitalists, angel investors and more. We’re connected globally and we welcome everyone who comes with an open heart. We treat everyone who comes in equally. In case, any woman wants to reach out for any help, they’re welcome to approach us.

Watch the full conversation on Ungender’s YouTube channel, here.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Ungender Insights is the product of our learning from advisory work at Ungender. Our team specializes in advising workplaces on workplace diversity and inclusion. Write to us at contact@ungender.in to understand how we can partner with your organization to build a more inclusive workplace.