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17 Jun 2025, by Amy Sarcevic
In Australia’s biotechnology industry, women make up half of the entry-level workforce, but only 20 percent of leadership positions – an issue that has come under scrutiny in recent years.
Aside from the ethical implications, under-representing women at senior and board level can impact business outcomes.
According to a McKinsey report, companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 25 percent more likely to deliver above-average profitability.
Studies have also shown positive correlations between market value and higher female representation on boards.
What may be to blame?
With adequate proportions of women pursuing careers in biotech, the shortfall of female leaders does not appear to reflect women’s interest in this field.
Instead, Kathy Harrison, a Board Member at Havah Therapeutics (USA), believes unconscious bias is, at least partly, to blame.
“We can observe this across various aspects of business operations, including job advertisements, promotion shortlisting, and funding disparities for companies with female founders,” Kathy stated.
“Communications relating to a senior job opening may be unintentionally targeting men, for example. Or women may be hired but then viewed differently to men, throughout the course of their role. There may be different standards for them to achieve promotions.”
Indeed, studies show that venture capitalists (VCs) ask different questions when interviewing female founders.
Male founders often receive broad, visionary questions, while female founders frequently face negative queries and must justify their expertise.
In turn, women founders receive less start-up funding than men founders.
This is despite the impressive success rates of female-led companies.
Kathy says inequity in start-up funding should be addressed, by actively supporting female founder networks.
“We need to support female leaders from the ground up and improve the visibility of female success. In the short term, this will help women overcome the start-up challenges they are facing. And in the long term it will help alter perceptions and combat bias.”
Diverse approach
To achieve gender diversity, Kathy says companies need diversity of approach. This could mean a rethink of how board members are currently recruited.
“Female leadership often can look different to traditional male leadership and Boards need to get comfortable with people who approach things differently.
“They also need to expand their approach to engage new board members and C suite leaders beyond known networks,” she said.
Further insight
Sharing more of her views and recommendations, Kathy Harrison will present at the upcoming Bio Connections Australia Conference, held 28 July at the Crown Promenade Melbourne.
This flagship event will look at the acceleration of medical research into real-world applications, covering drug discovery and development, early-phase trials, and commercialisation.
Each year, the event brings together a diverse mix of senior decision-makers from across the sector, including pharmaceutical leaders, investors, local and international biotech companies, researchers, CROs, Phase 1 units, universities, government agencies, and regulators.
Register your interest here to stay informed of speaker announcements, early bird discounts and the official agenda release.
Informa Connect Australia is the nation's leading event organiser. Our events comprise of large scale exhibitions, industry conferences and highly specialised corporate training.
