01/11/2017 Rent the Runway CEO: Gender discrimination is larger workplace issue than sexual harassment | ZDNet

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Rent the Runway CEO: Gender discrimination is larger

workplace issue than sexual harassment
Jennifer Hyman runs a fast growing startup and helps women become
successful in their businesses through Project Entrepreneur accelerator
programs

By Tom Foremski for Tom Foremski: IMHO | October 20, 2017 -- 23:26 GMT (04:56 IST) | Topic: Tech & Work

Jennifer Hyman (center) CEO of Rent the Runway at Project Entrepreneur Summit in San Francisco.

Jennifer Hyman, CEO of Rent the Runway clothing service said that she was the victim of sexual
harassment but that gender discrimination is the larger issue and it's not being addressed.

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01/11/2017 Rent the Runway CEO: Gender discrimination is larger workplace issue than sexual harassment | ZDNet

Hyman was speaking to 200 female startup CEOs at the Project Entrepreneur Summit
(http://projectentrepreneur.org/events/) in San Francisco. The conference had to turn away more than
500 applicants.

Project Entrepreneur is a joint venture between Rent the Runway and nancial services giant UBS
with the goal of creating a pipeline of highly effective female startup CEOs with the skills to build
fast growing companies.

Sexual harassment can happen at anytime, she said. "It happened once when I had already raised
$8m and I had revenues. He then went to my board and tried to get me red. He tried to destroy
me and my business."

She had immediately reported the incident to her board. "I was lucky in that I had great relations
with my board and they supported me completely."

She advised female CEOs to speak about such incidents from the very beginning. They should
not feel trapped or alone. She said that gender discrimination is the larger issue and urged her
audience to pay attention to it within their companies.

The gender pay gap is substantial and discrimination is rampant even in the latest tech jobs. A
report in 2016 (http://www.zdnet.com/article/big-gender-bias-in-us-tech-jobs-reports-glassdoor/) from
Glassdoor found that many tech jobs have wider gender pay discrimination than other
professions.

She said that male CEOs are treated with more respect by investors and by their own staff. And
male CEOs have a greater margin to make mistakes. She also criticized the lack of female
visionaries quoted in the media.

Some organizations such as Silicon Valley Forum do name female visionaries in their annual
awards which honor four recipients. Over the 20 year history of the SVForum Visionary Awards the
majority have been male but in 2017 the majority were female.

Three women were named a 2017 Visionary (http://siliconvalleyforum.com/article/20th-anniversary-visionary-

awards-speeches-and-panel-talk-are-published): Linda Rottenberg - CEO and Founder of Endeavor; Neri
Oxman professor at MIT's Media Lab; Megan Smith U.S. CTO. The fourth is Steve Jurvetson
partner at venture rm DFJ.

Hyman co-founded Rent the Runway with Jennifer Fleiss and launched in November 2009. The
company has funding of more than $176 million (https://crunchbase.com/organization/rent-the-runway) --

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01/11/2017 Rent the Runway CEO: Gender discrimination is larger workplace issue than sexual harassment | ZDNet

the latest Series E raised $60 million in December 2016 followed $60 million in December 2014.

Project Entrepreneur organizes half-day conferences for female founders of very early startups.
They are taught many skills such as: how to pitch their ideas; the metrics that investors want to
see; how to recruit a board of directors. Most of the teaching is done by female executives.

The organization also hosts a startup competition with 200 applicants and ve winners offered
$10,000 each and a ve-week intensive accelerator program in New York City in April. Application
deadline is November 27 (http://projectentrepreneur.org/) and the startups must have one woman
founder, be at least 50% female-owned with less than $100,000 in funding.

---

Please see: Big jump in women on tech company boards (http://www.zdnet.com/article/big-jump-in-

women-directors-on-tech-company-boards/)

Crunchies Awards for Silicon Valley startups focus on diversity (http://www.zdnet.com/article/crunchies-

awards-for-silicon-valley-startups-celebrate-diversity/)

Large gender bias in US tech salaries reports Glassdoor (http://www.zdnet.com/article/big-gender-bias-in-

us-tech-jobs-reports-glassdoor/)

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