Award ceremony

Out of all participating companies in this year’s competition, we have reviewed and selected the impressive female founders and company leaders that qualified for the Female Founder Award.

Watch the award ceremony on the 4th November of 2021 at 13:00 CET where we will recognize all Future of Finance Challenge winners and announce the winner of the Female Founder Award.

In March 2021 our Chief Investment Office published a report “The Funding Gap - Investors and female entrepreneurs” which explored the challenge that female entrepreneurs continue to receive less funding than their male counterparts and highlighted the abundant evidence that female entrepreneurs who receive funding develop businesses that perform as well as, or even better, than those of male counterparts.  It also covered the attractive opportunity these businesses present to investors.

Our Female Founders Award is a definitive, actionable response to the report and we are delighted to have received 147 submissions for the award from businesses across the world.  The report also highlighted the practical support that female founders at the early stage need to mobilize their businesses with investor readiness training and network development.

All 16 finalists for the Award will receive our specially designed, modern approach to accelerating female and non-binary founders in their success through a holistic program of investor readiness training and a global ecosystem of support to build relationships and networks.  Working with Fortuna and SheEO (founded by Vicki Saunders, UBS Global Visionary), the finalists will receive a year-long program of support and mentorship, working closely with client advisers from our wealth management teams globally.  We will also support 19 additional further female founders as part of the program, a total of 35, for one year.  This approach reaffirms our commitment to supporting women with financial empowerment through our Women’s Wealth program within Global Wealth Management (www.ubs.com/women).

Meet the extraordinary female founders and entrepreneurs that are shortlisted for the Female Founder Award of the UBS Future of Finance Challenge 2021.

Auquan:  Chandini Jain CEO  

Duality: Rina Shainski Co-founder and Chairwoman and Prof. Shafi Goldwasser Co-founder and Chief Scientist  

Elas Bank: Dra Vanise Goulart Zimmer President ElasBank & Ph.D. Researcher  

Entelligent: Pooja Khosla Ph.D. Executive Vice President Client & Product Development  

Fairly AI: Fion Lee-Madan Technical Co-Founder, COO and Customer Success  

The S Factor: Bonnie-Lyn de Bartok Founder & CEO  

ValAI : Allys Todd Co-Founder

Vested Impact:  Kimberly Abbott Founder & CEO  

Worldfavor : Frida Emilsson Co-Founder & COO  

Congratulations to Kimberley Abbott of Vested Impact. She impressed the jury with her track record as well as her demonstrated leadership both within Vested Impact and in the wider female entrepreneur community.