Female entrepreneurs and executives across Africa are more concentrated in consumer goods & services and hotels & leisure, where entry barriers are lower, and work structures are more flexible, according to a new report by the African Private Capital Association.
The Gender Diversity in African Private Capital report, which surveyed 218 investors and 1,900+ companies across 18 African countries, disclosed that the two sectors together account for more than one-third of all female-founded and female-led companies on the continent, far exceeding their 19 percent share of the overall portfolio.
It said the pattern reflects a global trend in which women tend to cluster in hospitality, tourism, and retail industries that the International Labour Organisation identifies as among the few sectors where women outnumber men.
“These industries likely offer comparatively lower capital barriers to entry, more flexible working structures, and a stronger alignment with gendered consumption patterns,” the report noted, adding that such conditions create “more accessible pathways into business ownership and leadership for women.”
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Capital-intensive sectors lag
In contrast, it said women remain largely absent from capital-heavy sectors such as industrial goods, telecoms, and energy & environment. Collectively, those industries represent nearly a quarter of all portfolio companies in the dataset but host less than 5 percent of female founders and only 9 percent of female CEOs.
The report said the disparity mirrors global employment trends in industry, where structural barriers persist. Across 187 economies tracked by the World Bank, men lead women by an average of 13.6 percent in such fields, though the gap narrows to 7.8 percent in Africa.
“These foundational industries are both capital-intensive and highly specialised,” the report stated. “They have historically been male-dominated, shaped by gender normativity and workplace cultures that can limit women’s access to networks, entry, and advancement opportunities.”
Tech sector shows unusual leadership trend
Africa’s technology sector presents a notable exception. Only 9 percent of female-founded firms in the dataset are in tech, while 12 percent of female-led companies operate in the sector.
The report described this as an “unusual reversal” of the typical founder-to-CEO pattern, suggesting investors may be recruiting women into executive roles even when they were not part of the founding team.
While the trend is viewed positively, authors of the report said it highlights the need to strengthen support for female founders during early-stage ideation and funding phases, when gender gaps are most pronounced.
“Globally, women hold fewer than one in four ICT jobs and are even scarcer in leadership positions, making the African pattern particularly significant,” it said.
Leadership diversity linked to hiring outcomes
The AVCA report also examined whether gender-diverse leadership translates into more inclusive hiring. Evidence suggests it does.
African companies with a female founder or CEO employ roughly half women, nearly 20 percentage points more than male-led peers and well above the industry average. Firms with mixed-gender founding teams report 44 percent female staff, while companies led solely by men hover around 30 percent.
Research cited from the Globe Women Research & Education Institute shows that the appointment of a female CEO typically increases women’s representation in senior leadership. In Africa, that “lift effect” averages +10.6 percentage points, comparable to gains in North America (+10.9) and Europe (+11.1).
Additional global studies reinforce the pattern. A survey of 140,000 companies across more than 40 countries found female-owned businesses average 43 percent female staff, compared with 25 percent in male-owned firms.
Similarly, a separate analysis of 90,000 venture-backed startups in the United States found that companies with at least one female founder hired 2.5 times as many women as all-male founding teams.
“European data points in the same direction: women make up 47 percent of employees in female-led firms, versus 30 percent in male-led firms, with even wider gaps in sub-regions such as Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia,” the AVCA report said.
