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Melissa Goh · · 16 min readLewd advances, unwanted touches: SEA women founders, execs speak out
Two years ago, Liyana Sulaiman was in a mall in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to meet a potential investor. Her startup – Pollen, a platform that helps businesses sell excess inventory – was taking off, and she had been seeking funding to grow rapidly.
She was meeting a “high-profile” entrepreneur after he was strongly referred to her by a friend. The potential investor, a former senior executive at a conglomerate, sat on the investment committee of a local angel investment network.
A #MeToo protest march in Seoul, South Korea in 2018 / Photo credit: Shutterstock
Sulaiman knew from experience not to attend such meetings alone. Her male co-founder was joining her, but he was caught in a traffic jam and running late. Armed with a business deck, she entered the restaurant and braced herself for the task at hand.
Not that she got a chance to use those slides.
“He didn’t ask me any questions about the business. I tried to pitch to him, but he asked me to put away my slides and to just have a conversation,” shares Sulaiman, who is also Pollen’s chief product and technology officer.
She recounts that when she sat down, the potential investor said: “I want to know more about you. You’re so gorgeous, where are you from? What mix are you? I’d like to have some of your mix.”
Sulaiman, who is of mixed ancestry, adds: “He put his hand on his chin, stared into my eyes and said, ‘Your mother must have been really beautiful to have made you.’”
When her co-founder arrived an hour later, the potential investor “suddenly changed his tone” and started criticizing the business. “It was a completely 360 [degree] turn from how he was treating me … He came up with all the excuses on why he shouldn’t be investing,” she says.
“With this angel investment network, it’s usually structured. They [set up] a call – you don’t meet outside of that,” Sulaiman shares. But this particular investor requested a meeting, and he didn’t know that her co-founder was tagging along.
It was not Sulaiman’s first brush with a potential investor who crossed the line, nor was it unique to her as a female founder.
Tech in Asia’s conversations with another female founder and two female senior tech executives in the region reveal the challenges faced by women as they climb a tech ladder that’s dominated by men.
Some of our source’s names have been changed out of privacy concerns, and none of them revealed the exact identity of their perpetrators.
Being a founder is tough as it is, but the hoops that some female founders have jumped through to score an investment or seek a mentor have made their journeys doubly hard.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Being out there is a risk”
When harassment occurs in a “safe” space
A “he for she” fight
Is a “Glassdoor for investors” the solution?
Stay ahead in Asia’s tech landscape
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A group of women in the startup community are speaking out, not to shame perpetrators but to warn other female entrepreneurs.
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