DEGIRO & UN WOMEN | Pink Chip | 2024
Hit Bias with Data / DEGIRO & UN Women "Pink Chip"
When a woman becomes CEO, the stock price drops 2 to 3%. According to Harvard researchers, the reason is bias against women. Even though companies led by women perform better in both earnings and stock performance, the stock still falls. A tool was created to fight back against this contradiction with data.
The problem
Only 6% of CEOs at publicly listed companies are women. Even though women-led companies tend to have better profitability and stock performance, the stock price drops 2 to 3% every time one is appointed. Bias isn't just a moral issue, it's also an economic one that costs companies money. Europe's largest investment app, DEGIRO, decided to tackle this head-on.
The insight
Most investors are men, and appealing to emotion wouldn't move them. So the decision was made to hit them with data instead. The message: "proof, not bias" — invest based on evidence, not prejudice.
The idea
They created a weighted index called "Pink Chip" that tracks publicly listed, women-led companies in the US. An AI name-recognition model was used to identify target companies, which were then filtered by market cap and revenue growth to screen out "figurehead CEOs" and the glass cliff effect, making the index comparable to market benchmarks like the S&P 500. The index, company list, and methodology are all publicly available at PinkChip.org, and DEGIRO's app lets its more than 2 million users invest directly in these women-led companies. Proof of bias was turned straight into an investment product.
What happened
The campaign launched on International Women's Day 2024, joining the opening of UN Women NL and Euronext. Within two weeks, more than 14,500 people made new investments, the stock price rose 6.7%, and the index rose 9.48%, outperforming the market benchmark. At Cannes Lions 2024, it won three Gold Lions and two Silver Lions in total, including Glass: The Lion for Change and Gold in the SDGs category.
Afterthought
What makes this great is that instead of saying "support women leaders," it says "you're literally throwing away money." The moment bias turns from something invisible into a measurable loss, nobody can ignore it anymore. In an age where ad agencies are now building financial products, I'd better step up my game too.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2024
