Catherine Gray: Changing Who Gets to Fund the Future
Some systems remain unequal because too few people can see how they work.
The barriers are embedded in relationships, networks, assumptions, and decisions made behind closed doors. For those standing outside the system, the outcome can feel personal. But the problem is often structural.
Catherine Gray has built her leadership around making those structures visible and using storytelling to create change.
Growing up in Virginia during school desegregation, Catherine witnessed inequality at a formative time in her life. She also grew up during a period when women were only beginning to gain rights and freedoms that younger generations might now take for granted. As an LGBTQ woman who could not initially live openly in every part of her life, she developed a deep conviction that rights, visibility, and opportunity should not depend on identity.
That conviction became action through media.
After coming out to her family, Catherine helped launch a gay cable network and produced I Can’t Marry You, a documentary about the rights and protections denied to same-sex couples. When people told her marriage equality would never happen, she continued. She raised the funding, secured Betty DeGeneres as narrator, found sponsors, and brought the film to public television.
The experience reinforced something Catherine had already begun to understand: film and television can help people see lives, challenges, and possibilities that were previously hidden from them.
Years later, she turned that same lens toward another inequitable system.
Catherine saw that women entrepreneurs were building companies, solving problems, and creating innovations, yet were receiving only a small fraction of available venture capital. She also recognized that many women had never been introduced to angel investing or venture capital as a path for building wealth and influencing which ideas reach the marketplace.
Her response was to build platforms that could change both sides of the equation.
Through She Angel Investors, Catherine connects women with resources to grow their businesses, build wealth, understand investment, and develop the relationships that make funding possible. Through her Invest in Her podcast, she has created space for accomplished entrepreneurs and investors to share their experiences and resources with others.
Her film Show Her the Money carries that mission to a wider audience.
Catherine raised more than one million dollars for the film by bringing together over 30 women and several men who believed in its purpose. The project went on a 100-city tour, reached audiences through hundreds of screenings, and became part of a broader effort to educate people about the funding gap and the role women can play as investors, founders, and decision-makers.
This work reflects the ICONIC Leadership pillar of Open Access.
Catherine is not only asking why women receive less funding. She is helping more women understand how capital moves, where investor relationships are formed, and how they can enter the system themselves. Her belief is that women must be present not only as entrepreneurs asking for capital, but also at the tables deciding where that capital goes.
For Catherine, fundraising begins with relationships. Entrepreneurs must show up, know their businesses, communicate their passion, and build trust with people who believe in their vision. But she also knows that the system itself must become more representative. Investors often support people and ideas they recognize, which is why diverse decision-makers are essential to a more equitable funding landscape.
Her chapter offers a view of leadership that combines purpose with visibility and conviction with action.
Catherine does not wait for an inequity to correct itself. She gathers people, creates a platform, finds the resources, and moves the issue into public view.
Because a changemaker does more than recognize what is broken.
A changemaker helps others see it, then gives them a way to participate in building what comes next.
Learn More & Get Involved
✍️ ICONIC Leadership Assessment – https://womenincloud.com/iconicleadershipassessment/
▶️ ICONIC Leadership Podcast – https://open.spotify.com/show/6EizaFqN8adxa6WcWPJV0e?si=b442899535694682
📖 ICONIC Leadership Book – https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=owAAc4hbwh8riSosnpCgvnssQZ0ryWU9ZritStkw3F3
