The Gender Gap is a subject near and dear to my heart. I started my first job at the age of 15 and have been working ever since. Throughout my various careers I have seen many injustices to women in the workforce. Like many women of my generation, I grudgingly accepted the reality of inequality in leadership positions and wages. Being a working mother of three, however, raising two boys and a girl it has become an issue that hits close to home.
A friend who noticed my growing concern and passion for equal rights, introduced me to Katica Roy, Co-Founder and CEO of the Denver company, Pipeline. Pipeline is a Software as a Service (SaaS) company that leverages artificial intelligence to identify and drive economic gains to “increase financial performance through closing the gender equity gap.” I knew in under fifteen minutes of meeting Katica, that she was going to change the world.
Katica leverages her passion to eradicate economic inequality and champions the rights of refugees, women and children. She is an ambassador for gender equity in the workplace and beyond. The daughter and sister of refugees and an award-winning business leader with more than two decades of experience in technology, healthcare and financial services, Katica is credited as a rare combination of expertise in and passion for gender equity, people analytics and sales operations. “Few debate whether gender equity is an issue, but most agree it’s a massive economic opportunity,” said Katica. “My life’s work has focused on the economics behind gender equity not just for one position or within one organization, but the benefits of gender equity throughout a person’s career. It’s not just good sense, it’s good dollars.”
In no country on earth are women equal to men. Not one and not by any measure. In fact, global gender equality is 217 years away at our current pace. With key insights from the World Economic Forum, United Nations, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Pipeline’s primary research, Katica digs deep into the economic impact of adjustments to wages, rights, perceived value, safety, wealth, elected office, corporate leadership and opportunity that improve for women, and thus our communities, when the world chooses equity for all.
Beyond the immediate social injustice, gender equity is fundamentally an economic issue. A lack of gender equity causes off spouts and cracks in the workforce pipeline where missed opportunities for potential investment in female employees leads to their departure, to a lower level of females in the labor force, and overall decreased levels of leveraging talented women. We have a leaky pipeline — one that costs the U.S. trillions of dollars. Businesses that fail to address this pipeline problem miss out on potential revenue, which constricts their economic footprint, and not only causes a shortage of female talent to get the job done, but ultimately lost opportunity for growth and innovation across their ecosystem.
At a time when women are the primary or sole breadwinner in 40% of U.S. households with children under the age of 18 (and 42.5% in our home state of Colorado), Katica understands how our communities and future generations suffer economically when we underinvest in our female labor force.. From education to innovation, debt to social security, poverty to healthcare, a common thread exists in the effort to improve performance in all of these issues: gender equity in the workforce. As communities, as people, and as a global economy, we all benefit when we keep women in the workforce and we invest in them. “My personal mission is to end the gender equity gap once and for all. I want Pipeline to be a very strong partner globally to cut the time to gender equality in half. The World Economic Forum estimates that will happen globally in 217 years. In North America we are 168 years away from gender equality and in our home state of Colorado, we are 40 years away from closing the pay gap. I want both men and women to participate in the conversation of what it looks like when we close the gap and collectively envision how that is better for men, women and society.”
Katica also pours her knowledge and unique lens into several community and global initiatives, including as a board member of Edge of Seven, Book Trust, and Isabella Bird Community School, a member of the CU Leeds Women’s Council, and the Women’s Foundation of Colorado. Katica is also an industry entrepreneur, thought-leader, and frequent editorial contributor and speaker, a 2018 Colorado Governor’s Fellow and was recently named a Luminary by the Colorado Technology Association.
I’m extremely grateful for Katica’s innovative mind and furious drive. Pipeline will do the work so many of us have been longing for – many of us for generations. Visit pipelineequity.co for more information, bring Pipeline into your organization and refer them to other organizations that recognize the economic opportunity of gender equity.