Balance isn’t always enough.  When people talk about this year’s UN Women Australia’s  International Women’s Day theme, Balance the Scales, entrepreneur and investor Phillippa Lewis has a slightly different take.

In fact, she thinks the phrase might be a bit polite for what’s actually needed.

“When I hear this year’s theme, ‘Balance the Scales,’ I find myself hesitating,” Lewis says. “In business, real gains rarely come from gentle rebalancing. Disruption is necessary.”

It’s a blunt assessment, but one grounded in decades of experience across medtech, biotech, digital and AI. Lewis has founded more than ten start-ups and worked across North America, Europe, China and Australia, so she’s seen the business world from plenty of angles.

And from where she sits, the scales are still pretty clearly tilted.

The leadership gap we’re still ignoring

Despite years of discussion about gender equality in the workplace, Lewis says the imbalance is still obvious in the places that matter most: leadership and capital.

“We still see an imbalance at the board level and across senior management,” she says.

Career pathways also haven’t evolved to match the realities of modern life. Many women step out of the workforce to raise children, yet the system still treats those breaks as career derailments rather than normal life stages.

“We still lack secure and flexible career pathways that reflect the reality that many women take time out to have children,” Lewis says.

But perhaps the biggest gap is money. Small businesses make up 97.3 per cent of Australian companies, forming the backbone of the economy. Yet when it comes to venture capital funding, women founders receive only a tiny slice of the pie.

“Multiple studies in Australia and overseas consistently show that more than 90 per cent of venture capital funding goes to male founders, with less than 5 per cent going to women,” Lewis says.

Which raises a pretty obvious question: if women are building businesses across the country, why aren’t they getting funded at the same rate?

Lewis believes the answer lies in bias that still lurks beneath the surface.

Merit … or something else?

On paper, most hiring and promotion decisions are described as merit-based. In practice, Lewis says the story can be more complicated.

“In day-to-day life, this shows up in insidious ways,” she explains.

“Women with equal merit are overlooked for senior roles. Decisions not to appoint women are framed as ‘merit-based,’ but fear often lies beneath them.”

The fear she’s talking about is familiar to many working women: the assumption that they might take parental leave, step back from leadership, or become a “risk” for the organisation.

Meanwhile, many women are quietly doing the equivalent of three jobs at once.

“Many women are working full-time, building careers, raising children and supporting ageing parents, all without acknowledgement,” Lewis says.

The case for starting earlier

When discussions about gender equality arise, quotas often get thrown into the mix. Lewis has a different idea.

“If I could change one norm tomorrow, it would not be a quota,” she says.

Instead, she believes the shift needs to start much earlier.

“It would be early education that replaces patriarchal attitudes by teaching boys and girls that leadership and agency are not gendered.”

According to Lewis, the problem isn’t just structural. It’s cultural.

“The silent reinforcement of male superiority harms everyone, including the young men who inherit that expectation.”

Lewis believes if we want equality in the boardroom, we might need to start in the classroom.

The capital problem

When the conversation turns to funding, Lewis doesn’t sugar-coat the numbers.

Women founders receive only a fraction of available investment capital.

“One Deloitte study indicated just 0.7 per cent of capital funding in Australia went to female-founded companies,” she says.

That’s a staggering figure, especially when you consider the number of women launching businesses across the country. Lewis doesn’t believe the issue is capability.

“That is not because women lack ideas or competence. It reflects an often unspoken bias about who can be trusted with money.”

The confidence from male founders is often accepted at face value, while female founders face far more scrutiny.

“Women are expected to perform at a ‘15 out of 10’ before they are considered investable,” Lewis says.

The risk equation looks different for women

There’s also a practical reality many founders don’t talk about openly: financial risk.

Starting a business often means months or years without reliable income. Lewis refers to this as the “dry period”, when the bills keep coming but the revenue hasn’t caught up yet. For many women, those risks can be harder to take.

“Many women can’t take the same financial risks as men unless they have a partner supporting them through what I call the ‘dry periods’,” she says.

During those periods, the business is still being built but there’s no salary. Meanwhile, mortgages, childcare and everyday expenses keep ticking along.

“For women, ambition is tempered by a complex domestic and financial ecosystem.”

Learning to speak the language of money

One of the biggest lessons Lewis says she’s learned over her career is the importance of financial fluency.

“What I wish I had known earlier is the importance of learning to be ‘in the room with the money,’” she says.

That means understanding forecasts, capital structures and investment strategy. Not because women aren’t capable, she stresses, but because credibility in finance-heavy conversations often depends on speaking the language of capital.

“Financial language builds our credibility in rooms still dominated by men.”

Holding the door open

Lewis has spent years mentoring female founders and executives, focusing on three areas she believes are critical.

Self-confidence.
Financial literacy.
Strategic thinking.

“Women do not lack capability,” she says. “They lack reinforcement.”

Sometimes what’s needed most is a direct push.

“Someone to shake them up and say, ‘You are far more capable than you think.’”

Lewis continues to promote, mentor and sponsor women into leadership roles, something she sees as essential for long-term change.

“The answer is not to sideline men,” she says. “It’s to recognise that diverse leadership strengthens organisations.”

And when it comes to achieving real equality, Lewis believes the work is far from finished.

“Balancing the scales may not be enough,” she says. “For the next two to three decades, we need to hold the door open and keep it open until equality is truly the standard.”

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