The Gender Index launches in Australia

Published by: The Gender Index Australia

Published: 2 September 2026

The Gender Index launches its first Australian report, with Equity Clear CEO Noga Edelstein joining Lucy Turnbull AO, Mundanara Bayles and Professor Naomi Birdthistle to discuss what the data means for women building and scaling businesses.

The inaugural Gender Index Australia Report 2026 establishes a new national evidence base for understanding women-led enterprise, bringing together business structure, leadership composition and commercial performance across Australia. Its findings point to a significant scaling challenge: women account for 42.2% of sole traders, but just 15.8% of micro companies and 13.3% of small companies classified by the Index are female-led. Closing the female business scaling gap is an overlooked opportunity for Australia’s growth ambitions, which could generate approximately $24.4 billion in additional government tax revenue every year - with the economic implications to employment, wages, productivity being significant.

At the Sydney launch, Equity Clear CEO Noga Edelstein joined Mundanara Bayles and Professor Naomi Birdthistle for a panel moderated by Lucy Turnbull AO, exploring what stronger gender-disaggregated data can reveal about the barriers facing women as they start, grow and scale businesses.