These are the slides from my keynote at Kellogg’s PEVC conference in Chicago. The audience was Kellogg MBA students as well as investors from both the PE and VC world. They wanted me to talk a bit about my career path and how I became a VC. I always struggle with this because I think of it as a typical(ish) entrepreneur > tech co’ operating roles > investor kind of story.
But when women VCs make up only 7% of the industry and black VCs make up less than 1.5% of the industry and black women VCs — well, it’s is negligible — I guess there is some interest in how I got to become a venture capital investor.
But I really wanted to drive home the point that even though I might be a “unicorn” in some respects, there are no special snowflakes and any one of these MBA students could have a path that ends up on this side of the table.
I followed that up with some of the data points and demographic trends that inform my investment thesis and why multicultural consumers will make up the future of venture fund returns.