Africa’s technology sector is showing a striking imbalance: women are gaining greater visibility as leaders of tech companies, yet remain largely excluded from the earliest stages of company creation.

This finding is highlighted in a new gender diversity report by the African Private Capital Association (AVCA), which points to a disconnect between executive inclusion and entrepreneurial access. While women are increasingly trusted to manage and scale technology firms, far fewer receive the support needed to found them.

The data suggests that progress in boardrooms and C-suites has not yet translated into equal participation at the foundation of Africa’s tech economy.

Women Are More Likely to Run Tech Firms Than Start Them

According to AVCA’s Gender Diversity in African Private Capital report, women appear more often in CEO roles than among founding teams within the technology sector.

Only 9% of female-founded companies in AVCA’s dataset operate in tech, highlighting how uncommon female-founded tech ventures remain. Although this share is gradually increasing, it underscores persistent gaps in early-stage funding, mentorship, and access to innovation ecosystems.

Rather than reflecting full gender inclusion, the trend reveals how capital availability and investor networks continue to shape who gets to build companies—and who is later selected to lead them.

Investor Hiring Is Changing the Founder-to-CEO Pathway

The report shows that female-led tech firms now outnumber female-founded ones, reversing the traditional progression from founder to chief executive.

This shift reflects a growing reliance on investor-driven executive recruitment, where women are brought in to professionalise operations and drive growth once businesses move beyond their most volatile stages. However, similar openness is far less evident at the ideation, incorporation, and seed-funding phases, where risks are highest and barriers to entry are steepest.

As a result, women are increasingly entrusted with execution, but remain underrepresented at the point of creation.

Capital-Heavy Industries Remain Male-Dominated

The imbalance is even more pronounced in capital-intensive sectors such as Industrial Goods, Telecoms, and Energy & Environment.

AVCA’s data shows that these industries make up nearly one-quarter of all portfolio companies, yet account for less than 5% of female founders and only 9% of female CEOs.

These sectors have long been shaped by technical gatekeeping, male-dominated professional networks, and workplace cultures that limit women’s access to entry-level and leadership opportunities.

Africa Reflects a Broader Global Trend

The report’s findings mirror global labour market patterns. Across 187 economies tracked by the World Bank, men outnumber women by an average of 13.6 percentage points in technical and capital-intensive industries.

While Africa performs slightly better, with the gap narrowing to 7.8 percentage points, structural barriers such as limited access to technical training and exclusion from specialised networks continue to restrict women’s participation.

Consumer-Focused Sectors Offer More Entry Points

In contrast, women are more visible as founders and leaders in Consumer Goods, Services, and hospitality-related industries.

These sectors typically require lower startup capital, allow for more flexible business models, and align closely with everyday consumption patterns, making them more accessible pathways into entrepreneurship for women.

How Female Leadership Influences Hiring

Representation at senior levels has effects that go beyond symbolism; it actively reshapes organisational outcomes.

AVCA’s report supports the notion that female leadership leads to more inclusive hiring. In Africa, private capital-backed firms with a female founder or CEO employ close to 50% women, nearly 20 percentage points higher than male-led companies.

Even partial representation delivers results:

• All-female leadership teams employ the highest share of women
• Mixed-gender teams report 44% female staff
• All-male teams average around 30% female representation

These patterns suggest that inclusion compounds form over time. When leadership teams lack diversity, hiring practices often reinforce the status quo. When women are present in decision-making roles, recruitment pipelines broaden.

Female-Led Companies Outperform Financially

The impact of female leadership also extends to financial performance.

AVCA found that companies founded or led by women consistently report stronger revenues and faster growth than male-led peers, an important signal in private capital markets where scalability and returns are paramount.

In 2024:

• Female-founded firms recorded average revenues of $10.5 million
• Male-founded firms averaged $4.9 million
• Revenue growth reached 18% year-on-year for female-founded companies, compared to 5% for male-founded peers

These outcomes align with global studies linking executive gender diversity to improved financial performance.

Closing the Real Gender Gap in African Tech

Within Africa’s private capital ecosystem, where resilience, growth, and investor confidence are critical, female leadership is increasingly demonstrating measurable value.

The remaining challenge is structural: ensuring women are not only recruited to lead successful companies, but are equally enabled to create them through fair access to capital, networks, technical pathways, and early-stage funding.

Until that gap is addressed, Africa’s tech sector will continue to show progress at the top—while inequality persists at its foundation.