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Power Women

science, academia, and cur- sitates action through small, that for women to succeed as as the leader. This phenom-
riculum. All three women are incremental mindset shifts founders, they must be aware enon is best explained as the
investors and entrepreneurs resulting in huge personal of these biases, realize their Role Congruent Theory. The
themselves, having experi- transformation.” impact, and have the tools to partners at Ad Astra Ventures
enced firsthand the problems Awareness is the edu- neutralize them. have defined a superpower
Ad Astra Ventures is deter- cational component, where “It’s imperative to get this women can use to neutralize
mined to solve. founders learn about the im- information in the hands of all this bias: empathetic leader-
people impacted by implicit ship.

“Women can build better
teams by empathetically
Power of the Pause leveraging individual team
members’ assets for the success
“We wanted to create a plicit biases that exist as well as bias,” explained Long Pettine. of their companies,” explained
program that would enable about their own strengths and “In doing so, each one of us Mah.
founders to effect change from shadows. Impact is a time of can come up with our own
within,” added Dinamani. self-reflection and analysis, un- tactics and strategies to suc- 2. Men are expected to
“Although we’re an accelera- derstanding which factors may ceed based on our individual succeed, women are expected
tor, we encourage our female affect their ability to succeed strengths.” to not fail
founders to pause and to make and how they are either per- There are two remedies for From boardrooms to
decisions with perspective and petuating or neutralizing the unconscious biases that have classrooms, women are
without haste.” biases they may face. Finally, resounded particularly well viewed and critiqued dif-
In pausing, founders have action is putting education and with the founders who have ferently than men, which
time to unpack the uncon- self-reflection into practice. taken the Ad Astra training: impacts how much female
scious bias that’s ingrained in founders get funded – and
everyday life and entrenched Gender Bias 1. Female leaders need to how large the gap is between
in the business world, ex- be empathetic leaders. corporate women’s sala-
plained the trio. Whether they know it For female leaders to be ries and those of their male
During this time, partic- or not, founders are often perceived as effective, they counterparts. Women must
ipants experience Ad Astra evaluated based on their need to demonstrate both pivot to overcome the fact that
Ventures’ three-step “AIA” gender, explained the trio. This sensitivity and strength, al- they are viewed and reviewed
framework: awareness, im- implicit bias is an assumption though male leaders only need differently than men, to their
pact, action. or judgment someone makes to demonstrate strength. This detriment.
“This framework aims to about a person without having type of thought emerges from In a study on the interac-
neutralize bias by bringing any awareness of it. Often the the unconscious bias rooted tion between VCs and entre-
awareness to the research, bias is so subtle that the re- in society from the incongru- preneurs, it was revealed that
directly impacting leaders ceiving party doesn’t realize it’s ity between the traditional women are asked prevention
through self-reflection,” said happening to them. That’s why female role as the nurturer questions, like “How long will
Long Pettine. “It also neces- the three entrepreneurs believe and the traditionally male role it take to break even?”, while

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