A top place to be a woman in tech? Cincinnati
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The Queen City is ranked No. 9 in the SmartAsset Best Cities for Women in Tech – 2022 Edition, released June 29.
Other Fast Future cities in the top 15 were: Durham, N.C. (7) and Nashville (tied for 11), though Cincy was the only city considered to be in the Midwest.
With perfect timing, Cincinnati is also hosting Black Tech Week July 18-20, and its keynote speaker is tennis superstar Serena Williams, who is also the founder and managing partner of Serena Ventures, a tech investment firm. Williams is a longtime angel investor, and her firm already has a portfolio of more than 60 companies, including Masterclass, Billie and Daily Harvest. The new fund was built to champion diversity: 76% of founders in the Serena Ventures portfolio come from historically underrepresented backgrounds. Women are 53%, and 47% are Black. Latinos make up 12% of founders in the portfolio.
When Williams visits Cincinnati, she’ll likely see that Cincinnati women in business are better off than many in other cities. Women in the Queen City beat the national average for women as a percentage of the workforce and the gender pay gap, according to Cincinnati Business Journal and SmartAsset.
Nationally, women make up 26.1% of tech workers and earn 84% of what men do, according to SmartAsset. In Cincinnati, women make up 30.5% of the workforce and earn 91.9% of what men do.
After deducting housing costs, women tech workers’ income is $48,670, SmartAsset said. Overall tech employment in Cincinnati has increased by 24% between 2017 and 2020, SmartAsset’s report said.
A quick look at Cincy’s female tech landscape showed lots of supportive organizations, including Women Who Code Cincinnati, Girl Develop It Cincinnati, and the University of Cincinnati Women in Technology Club. In August, the city will host Cincinnati WITCON 2022, a conference for women who work in technology.
Between Black Tech Week, a plethora of technology support organizations, Serena Williams’ keynote speech and Cincy’s rank by SmartAsset, women and people of color are poised to take Cincinnati’s tech environment by storm.
For more information about women in technology in Cincinnati, see: