Lack.

Lack of women in senior roles. Lack of successful female founders. Lack of wealthy women. Lack of female investors and here it comes ... lack of confidence.

The world sees lack while I see something different. I see nothing but a wrong, outdated narrative.

As a start. Women are better at financial management than they think. Studies consistently show that women are more accurate in financial risk assessment. They avoid overconfidence hence incurring less financial catastrophes. Women investors deliver equal or better long-term investment results because they trade less, panic less (!), and stick to their, often longer term, plan. In other words, their natural decision-making style is an advantage, not a weakness.

The real gap isn’t knowledge, it’s permission. Self-permission. Women underestimate their financial abilities because the financial world was historically male-coded with expert language that creates unnecessary distance. Women were rarely encouraged to see themselves as investors or wealth builders. If you strip away the jargon, most women understand the essentials: income, expenses, margin, cashflow, debt, risk, value, … It doesn’t require a different brain to get this.

Women outperform when they participate. Venture teams with women deliver higher returns on investment. Female fund managers often match or outperform male peers, with lower volatility. Women-owned companies face fewer bankruptcies, are better at paying back bank loans and, as US data shows, grow revenues faster than men-owned firms. We don’t have a skills gap, we have a participation gap.

Finance is a learnable skill, not a personality trait. Money is not an innate talent. Every essential financial skill can be learned in under 20 hours: understanding cashflow, knowing your revenue model, reading your profit & loss statement, understanding risk, building margin and investing consistently. You don’t need a degree in advanced mathematics or an MBA to grasp these. Financial literacy isn’t a mountain. It’s a staircase.

Women have fewer biases that harm long-term wealth. While men often act quickly, trade frequently, tend to overestimate their understanding and love complexity, women typically ask questions, take time to understand, take risk consciously and prefer sustainable strategies … all leading to better long-term results.

The market - is - catching up as women are controlling more wealth, founding more companies and investing more personally and professionally. Gender-lens investing, female-focused funds, wealth-building communities and educational platforms geared towards women, albeit relatively new to the world, are on the rise.

I don’t see lack. I do see the need for a different narrative. Do you?