Innovate UK CEO finally speaks out following female founder row

The CEO of Innovate UK, Indro Mukerjee has finally spoken out, weeks after the organisation made a controversial decision to fund only half the projects in a female founder competition. Not that he had much to say about what happened.

In a veiled post shared on LinkedIn, Mukerjee – who will step down as CEO next Tuesday – wrote about the importance of inclusivity in UK innovation, saying that “more must be done” to improve the system and “increase visibility of women innovators”.

Earlier this month, the public body caused outcry when it emerged that it had only awarded 25 from a total of 50 promised grants for women-led businesses. Following the backlash, Innovate UK confirmed it would pay the remaining 25 grants, worth around £2m.

“We don’t always get it right”

Innovate UK had pledged to award the 50 funding grants as part of its Women in Innovation awards. According to the Women in Innovation website, the awards “support women at a critical stage with their business [and] enable them to take an important step forward.”

However, disheartened entrepreneurs began calling for urgent reform of Women in Innovation and Innovate UK at the start of this month, after it emerged that the 50 grants had not been paid out.

Over three days subsequent to this news, women entrepreneurs took to LinkedIn to vent their frustrations and call for more support to be given to female founders. Mukerjee’s post echoes their sentiments, appearing to admit that the awards had fallen short of their mission statement.

“Since starting this role 3.5 years ago, we’ve worked hard as a team to encourage and support greater inclusion across the UK’s innovation system; across business, academia, government and our broader society”, Mukerjee’s post reads.

“As a large organisation and system, we inevitably face challenges when working to be inclusive across such a broad system of communities, partners, people and businesses and we don’t always get it right.

“There’s a long way still to go and we owe it to our economy and society to continue to work for a better future.”

Three weeks too late?

Coming almost a month after campaigners first drew attention to the Women in Innovation awards chaos on LinkedIn, Mukerjee’s comments seem strangely timed.

On September 2nd, the organisation shared another LinkedIn post that confirmed it would pay out all 50 of the promised Women in Innovation awards. The move came shortly after the campaign group Let’s Fund More Women put pressure on Innovate UK to speak out.

However, apart from this letter, which apologised for “the concern and frustration that we have caused”, Innovate UK has largely stayed mum.

Mukerjee appears keen to sweep the issue under the rug. In his statement, published at Friday lunchtime (generally acknowledged as the graveyard slot for posting on LinkedIn) referring only to challenges “we’ve recently experienced”.

The post will likely disappoint founders who have been writing to the organisation on LinkedIn asking for an explanation of how the chaos occurred. “Who was it that made those prioritisation choices?” one posted earlier this month. “Innovate UK needs to reflect.”

A time for Peace

The female founder controversy has marred Mukerjee’s legacy at Innovate UK. At the start of this year, he confirmed he would step down as CEO after three years at the organisation.

Mukerjee’s successor will be Dr Stella Peace. She is currently Innovate UK’s executive director for healthy living and agriculture, and will take on the CEO title in an interim role from October.

Mukerjee confirmed that Peace will prioritise improving inclusivity in his LinkedIn post. “Over the next few months, we will be working with communities to co-design our Women in Innovation programme for 2025, using the feedback and experiences of past applicants and working in partnership to increase visibility of women innovators,” he pledged.

“There are many areas where we can create impact in building a strong, innovation led economy through increased inclusivity and better representation. Let’s acknowledge how far we’ve come on this journey, but also recognise how far we still have to go.”