Converge joins Pathways Forward

Pathways Forward has announced its second cohort of Pledge partners, with Converge, The Open University in Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, SIS Ventures, Social Investment Scotland, South of Scotland Enterprise, and the University of Strathclyde committing to actionable steps aligned with the principles set out in the Pathways report. 

Launched in September 2023, Pathways Forward aims to revolutionise Scotland’s entrepreneurial landscape by addressing gender inequality. Created in response to the Scottish Government-commissioned report – Pathways: A New Approach For Women in Entrepreneurship report – the initiative brings together key stakeholders within Scotland’s innovation ecosystem to create measurable change through the Pledge partnership. 

AccelerateHER, CivTech, CodeBase, Deloitte, Eos Advisory, Scottish EDGE, and the Scottish National Investment Bank were the first to sign up to the Pledge in February 2024 with Converge and the latest signatories expanding the partnership’s reach and influence.

The causes of gender imbalance in entrepreneurship are structural and deep-rooted. By making public commitments to support women entrepreneurs, and with a focus on actionable and trackable pledges with shared and published results, Converge and other signatory organisations hope to drive profound and meaningful change.

As part of our pledge, Converge has committed to integrating an Equality and Diversity component into our business training programme. Designed to help early-stage founders foster a culture of inclusion from the get-go, this new training component will demonstrate how inclusion can help build more robust teams, unlock a broader range of perspectives and, ultimately, grow more sustainable businesses. We will also capture enhanced gender data, gleaning more meaningful insights into Converge-supported companies to better understand the support needed by women entrepreneurs.

Adam Kosterka, Executive Director (Interim) of Converge comments:

“Inclusivity is at the heart of Converge so joining Pathways Forward felt like a natural next step in our long-standing commitment to empowering founders, regardless of their gender and background.

Through a collaborative approach with our Pathways signatories, we are taking further action to encourage, support and launch more female-founded businesses than ever before. If we do this, we all win”.

Photography credit: Stewart Attwood