Male founders outnumber women in 2023 Smart50 Awards, showing more work needs to be done

The SmartCompany team has reaffirmed its commitment to creating more pathways to celebrate and recognise women-led businesses, after the 2023 Smart50 Awards list featured a majority of companies founded by men. 

Unveiled at an event in Melbourne on Thursday evening, the 2023 Smart50 Awards recognise the fastest-growing small and medium businesses in Australia with a ranked list of 50 companies, and eight special category awards. 

The Smart50 list is based on self-nominations from companies, and is ranked according to percentage growth in revenue over a three-year period.

Of the 50 companies included in the Smart50 list, 34 companies (68%) were founded by men, and 11 companies (22%) were founded by women. The remaining five companies (10%) have male-female founding teams. 

Overall, the Smart50 list includes 92 founders and directors, 73 of which are men. There are 19 women founders and directors on the list. 

The results were more evenly distributed among the category award winners, with awards presented to four companies founded by women, three companies founded by men and one company founded by a man and a woman. 

More work to be done

While SmartCompany has long held a relatively even gender split among our readership (our most recent data shows a 54.9%/45.1% split in favour of men) the results from this year’s Smart50 show there is much more we can do to elevate and champion fast-growing and innovative women-led businesses in Australia. 

And just as we have reported on instances where other business lists have featured too few women, or none at all, it is critical that we are transparent and hold ourselves accountable. 

And it is equally important that we are also celebrating the business achievements of people of colour, First Nations peoples, those who live with disabilities and other groups that too often are missing in the business media. 

Our team is reviewing this year’s Smart50 Awards with a view to making next year’s program more accessible and inclusive, and we would love to hear any feedback or suggestions you have. Please email us at news@smartcompany.com.au. 

At the same time, we are working hard on developing our other events and competitions, including the Pitch, Smart50 Workplaces and Scale Up, to make sure we are recognising and championing startups and SMEs at all stages of their journeys. 

Of the business media landscape in general, SmartCompany editor-in-chief Simon Crerar said “We certainly think there is a gap in coverage of women-led businesses, so that’s something we work every day to rectify. We hold ourselves accountable. More broadly, we audit our output and seek to elevate founders from diverse backgrounds, be that gender, cultural and linguistic background, geography, age, ability et cetera.”

On the Smart50 program, special features editor Ben Ice said “We approach a diverse range of guest judges to ensure our programs have greater share of voice in the decision-making to choose winners. But it is clear SmartCompany itself needs to do more outreach to ensure a more representative community of businesses is actually entering our awards. We can, and will, do better.”