Gender Bias in Business: Lessons from a Female Founder

Angela’s lived experience as a woman, a founder and a neurodivergent learner shines a light on the gender barriers she’s faced in business and why it’s so important to remove those barriers, challenge bias and create equal opportunities for everyone to grow.

Angela Prentner-Smith, Founder & Managing Director of This is Milk and Founder of Neve Learning

Angela, our founder at Neve Learning, told us that she often walks into boardrooms and meetings where she is almost always the shortest person in the room and more often than not, the only woman.

There is always a presence of an unspoken power dynamic. Firmer handshakes, louder voices, and subtle signals about who is “important” based on where they sit or how confidently they fill the room.

These small cues may seem insignificant, but together they send a clear message about who belongs and who has influence. They decide, quietly and often unconsciously, whose voice carries weight and whose does not.

Then, if we all think back to when lockdown happened, for a while, those dynamics shifted.

Angela reflects on how, for the first time, everyone had the same square on the screen. On Zoom, there was no “head of the table.” No one was towering over anyone else. Status, stature, and physical dominance disappeared. Everyone was judged on what they contributed, not how they presented themselves in the room.

During this period, Angela ran countless user research workshops, and the realisation deepened further. Using online tools like Mural and EasyRetro created a genuinely level playing field. Everyone had an equal opportunity to contribute, regardless of confidence, authority, or personality type. And when you used them in a certain way, there was no more HiPPO bias (Highest Paid Person's Opinion), there was no loudest voice dominating the discussion, no hierarchy shaping whose ideas mattered most.

This shift revealed that when you remove unnecessary barriers, you create space for more ideas, more perspectives, and better outcomes.

But as we have returned to hybrid and in-person working, many of those old dynamics have crept back in. Physical spaces once again shape who feels heard and who does not. For women, neurodivergent professionals, and anyone who does not fit the traditional mould of authority, these barriers are still very real.

And it goes deeper than meetings. It is, unfortunately, systemic.

In 2023, only 2% of venture capital funding in the UK went to all-female founding teams. For female founders who are also neurodivergent, like Angela, the odds are stacked even higher. Running a startup like Neve Learning has meant experiencing this imbalance first-hand: pitching into rooms where the playing field is far from level and navigating spaces where assumptions and bias still shape outcomes.

This is another part of why building Neve Learning feels so important.

Too often, women are told to change the way they pitch, look, or act to fit in. Similarly, in workplace training, people are expected to squeeze themselves into a single way of learning, even if it doesn’t work for their brain. We wanted to challenge this. Too many workplace learning tools are designed for one type of learner and expect everyone else to “keep up.” Accessibility is treated as an afterthought, inclusion as a box to tick.

We wanted to build something different, a platform where everyone gets the same opportunity to learn and grow, regardless of their background, ability, or needs.

For us, accessibility couldn't just be an optional feature. It had to be the foundation of Neve Learning. Bite-sized content. Flexible pacing. Multiple formats to suit different ways of processing information. A platform that is accessible to all learners, not just some.

Lockdown for so many of us was a horrible time, but it managed to show us what happens when you remove unnecessary barriers. Conversations become richer. Voices that are often drowned out finally get heard. More perspectives come to the table, and the ideas are far better for it.

Because learning should not feel exhausting. It should not exclude anyone. And it should never be designed only for those who fit the traditional mould.

We are here to create something better, not just because inclusion matters just in learning, but because the inequalities we see in business, funding, and leadership will not change until we start designing systems that give everyone an equal voice.