Ahead of the 2X Global Summit, Verod Partner and Chief Operating Officer Nieros Oyegun Soerensen shares more about our approach to gender smart investing.

Africa’s private capital industry leads globally on fund-level gender diversity. Women represent nearly half of the workforce across African private equity and venture capital firms, and hold around a third of investment committee seats – nearly three times the global average.

However, the data breaks down at the portfolio level. Only 7% of portfolio companies are female-founded while 12% are female-led. Gender diversity inside fund management firms isn’t translating into how capital gets allocated or how companies are built. This is despite female-led portfolio companies growing revenue by 32% in 2023-24, compared to 14% for male-led peers. At Verod, our portfolio numbers sit well above these baselines. This reflects our structured system and purposeful approach to gender-smart investing.

We integrate gender into the operational fabric of our portfolio companies through structured workplace assessments, pay equity policies, safety infrastructure, and performance management systems tied to gender-disaggregated data. In 2024, Verod became the world’s first private equity fund to earn the Best-in-Class 2X Global Certification – the highest standard of gender performance in the market.

Across our portfolio, 55% of employees are women. 36% of senior leadership at portfolio companies are women. And 100% of our portfolio companies meet at least one 2X gender criterion.

Our approach operates across three integrated stages. First, gender risks and opportunities are identified during due diligence, and gender-related initiatives and targets are established during deal execution. Second, we work closely with portfolio companies post-investment – conducting gender assessments, developing gender action plans, and providing technical assistance programmes. Third, monitoring and evaluation frameworks track gender impacts and feed learnings back across the portfolio and the broader ecosystem.

These examples illustrate how this process works in practice.

iSON Xperiences

When we carried out our social due diligence with iSON Xperiences, the inclusion gap, including at senior level, was stark. With support from FMO, we worked with Value for Women to implement gender inclusive practices and policies, improve women’s representation at senior levels and provide gender-sensitivity training. As a result, the executive team moved from having zero women to three, internal promotions surged and women’s representation in management rose. This work was recently nominated for a Principles for Responsible Investment Award in the Human Rights category.

Daystar Power

When we invested in Daystar Power, a solar energy business operating in West Africa, in 2019, the company had 28 employees in a sector where fewer than 10% of engineering students are women. We set an inclusion target of 40% women within five years and helped launch the Women in Power Training programme to recruit and train female engineering graduates. By the 2022 exit, Daystar had grown to 163 employees with women holding 40% of executive roles and 21 young female engineers enrolled in the programme.

Medplus

Medplus, Nigeria’s largest retail pharmacy chain, is female-founded and women formed a large part of the workforce when we invested in 2022, but there was no structured approach to career development. We designed and rolled out a gender action plan covering sensitivity training, managerial development, transparent career progression, and gender-equitable recruitment and performance management. In the year after the gender action plan was implemented, 83% of promoted employees were women and training budgets increased by 15%.

We measure gender equity against specific KPIs, which are connected to the same value-creation thesis that drives financial performance. This means our partner companies are built with gender integration as a core operating principle.

As we develop our Fund IV, we’re deepening our commitment: Best-in-Class 2X Criteria in deal selection and value creation, portfolio-specific gender action plans, disability inclusion, living wage standards, and a forward-looking lens on the risks and opportunities created by AI and technology.