Today, on International Women’s Day 2021, we join companies around the globe celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.

International Women’s Day #IWD2021 is an annual reminder to not only recognise and champion greater female representation but also to accelerate gender parity.

For this year’s theme #ChooseToChallenge, we believe Calculus leads by example. 50% of the directors of Calculus are female including our Chairman, Susan McDonald. Susan is a pioneer of the EIS industry, in 1999/2000 she co-structured and launched the UK’s first HM Revenue & Customs approved EIS Fund.

Over recent years there has been a spotlight on board diversity, and we are proud that all our independent, non-Executive Board members (Jan Ward, Janine Nicholls and Claire Olsen) for the Calculus VCT are female.

Calculus VCT Chairman – Jan Ward CBE

Jan brings strategic and operational experience gained from more than thirty years in the oil, gas, petrochem and power industries. She is a NatWest everywoman award winner, as well as IoD London and South East Global Director of the year. Jan was awarded a CBE for services to Business and Honorary Doctor of Engineering.

Calculus has many women in leadership roles across our portfolio companies. Please see the list below, where we have also highlighted three portfolio company female founders.

  • Clare Flynn Levy – Founder & CEO of Essentia

Prior to founding Essentia, Clare spent 10 years as a fund manager, both active equity (running over $1bn of pension funds for Deutsche Asset Management) and hedge (as founder and CIO of Avocet Capital Management, a specialist tech fund manager).

Professor Lindy Durrant – Founder & CSO of Scancell

Lindy is the Founder and CSO of Scancell. She is an internationally recognised immunologist in the field of tumour therapy. She has worked for over 25 years in translational research, developing products for clinical trials including monoclonal antibodies and cancer vaccines. She has a personal Chair in Cancer Immunotherapy in the Department of Clinical Oncology at the University of Nottingham. Lindy and her Scancell team are currently working on a potential mutation resistant Covid-19 vaccine.

  • Dr Sally Adams – Chief Development Officer of Scancell
  • Celine Rattray – Co-Founder of Maven

Celine has over forty independent films under her belt as a producer, including eighteen Sundance Film Festival selections, sixteen Toronto Film Festival, one Cannes Film Festival selection, and four Berlin International Film Festival selections. Celine co-founded Maven Screen Media with Trudie Styler in 2020. Maven is dedicated to increasing representation of female content creators and female-centred stories. Maven recognises that women are under represented both in front of and behind the camera.Their development slate across film, TV and digital content demonstrates their commitment to having strong female leads, with unique narratives that address social issues and inspire change.

  • Trudie Styler – Co-Founder of Maven
  • Dr Sarah Howell – CEO of Arecor
  • Susan Lowther – CFO of Arecor
  • Luciana Brot – CFO of Rotageek
  • Rosemarie Diegnan – CS&PO, Co-Founder of Wazoku
  • Eva-Lotta Allan – Chair of C4X Discovery
  • Lowri Cope – CCO of MIP Diagnostics
  • Lesley Reeve – COO and Co-Founder of Fiscal Technologies

Executives leaders play a significant part in advancing gender equality and driving positive change. To help forge a gender equal world Calculus Capital commits to creating a workplace where women’s careers can thrive and celebrating their achievements, speaking out against bias, and championing equality.