Who is an investor and how is that changing?

Close your eyes and picture “an investor.” What comes to mind?

What do they look like? How do they talk and act? Where do they live and where did they go to school? Do you see your own identity and lived experiences reflected in them?

If you pictured a white male with a degree from an elite university living and working in New York or California, you’re not to blame — a 2017 study found angel investors are overwhelmingly white and male, while 65% of venture capital firms have no women as partners and 81% have no Black investors.

Still, there has been some progress in recent years and a growing awareness in the industry that this is an issue that needs to be addressed directly. A 2018 report by Deloitte and the National Venture Capital Association showed modest gains in the percentages of women and non-white investment professionals compared to 2016, but there is still much work to be done before the investing community more closely reflects the general population.

That work has been a consistent topic of discussion on the second season of Off the Sidelines, an investor education podcast produced by us at Technical.ly and sponsored by Project Entrepreneur, a program by UBS. Project Entrepreneur is on a mission to change the status quo for women founders and accelerate their growth through increasing access to capital and building ecosystems to advance women entrepreneurs, and this season of Off the Sidelines has looked at the institutional and systemic factors necessary to enact that change.

To examine this fundamental question of “Who is an investor and how is it changing?” we spoke with Pam Kostka of All Raise, as well as investor, entrepreneur and diversity advocate Tracy Chou.

Check out the full episode to learn what essential qualities and experiences they think make a good investor regardless of background, and hear what each of them are doing to accelerate diversity, equity and inclusion in the investing world — and how you can help.

Stay tuned to Off the Sidelines for more conversations with notable figures throughout the investing world. Click below to subscribe and keep up to date with all our episodes.

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