Fiftyfaces Focus - The Last Frontier: Diverse Founders and VCs

Anthony Amunategui is founder of CDO Group, a women owned business that provides general Contracting and Construction Management.  He now spends most of his time as podcast host of The Future Factory Podcast, a podcast focused on diving into conversations about what the future holds for us personally and professionally and the adventures that shape that journey. Our discussion starts with Anthony's upbringing in Florida and how he got his start - painting houses, and then as a stockbroker.  We speak about how he learned to grow his sales technique, and the mentor who taught him about using his language to convey images. We hear about the relentlessness needed to make 300 calls a day, and how he processed the rejection and the no. We jump then to his work in construction management and how he devised the concept of outsourcing construction management and how the business achieved its growth. We hear about mindset - about letting go of some of the baggage that weighs us down, weighing on our confidence and outreach.  Anthony is the founder and host of The Future Factory Podcast - which you can find here: https://www.futurefactorypodcast.comHe tells us what drove him to gather this collection of leaders and the sparks that unite them. We hear about the importance of working on oneself as an attribute of leadership - of pushing oneself to learn and change. He touts the benefit of coaching in many aspects of life including in business, relationships, personal development and leadership.

Isabella Mandis has just finished her freshman year at Harvard College and the founder of “Girls who VC” an industry affinity group which offers resources, content and community to women interested in pursuing careers in Venture Capital. Isabella came to my attention through the industry grapevine and it is a fitting end to the first 2023 Diverse Founder and VC series to amplify some of the extraordinary work that she is doing in this field. Although still very early in her career, Isabella has gained valuable expertise across entrepreneurship and finance.  It was in pursuing this interest that she realized that there were relatively few resources and affinity groups available to shine a light on VC investing and provide a vibrant career network in this area. She then did what every good entrepreneur does - she built one.Listen in to hear how the idea was born over a winter break and how it quickly grew to close to 1000 members. Hear about the content that it provides and the insights that budding VCs find particularly helpful.  Clearly the industry needs more initiatives like this in order to expose and amplify career choices that lie outside the traditional. It is exciting to see the ingenuity and promise that the next generation holds.You can read more about girls who VC here: https://www.girlswhovc.com

Courtney McColgan is founder and CEO at Runa, a Mexico City based firm that offers a complete cloud-based HR and payroll software solution designed for small to medium-sized companies in Latin America. She previously was Chief Marketing Officer of Cabify a transportation services platform with operations across Latin America, Spain and Portugal.  Prior to that she was CEO and Founder of Yellowsmith a venture backed start up based in New York. She has spent time at Y Combinator and as Entrepreneur in Residence at Morgenthaler. She started her career investment banking and venture capital. Our conversation starts with Courtney's journey into tech and her experience in various accelerators which taught her everything she had not learned at Stanford Business School.  We learn about the networks she developed, and her experience both as a founder and in capital raising. We speak in particular about the point at which it might be necessary to exit a start-up and start again, when the odds are actually in your favor depending on the stage you are at in your career. Given Courtney's deep experience in Latin America we dive in to the tech ecosystem there and she maps the largest markets, the regulatory backdrop and the state of the infrastructure and she speaks in particular about her own experience as a female founder within it. She also shares her experience as a mother and a founder and the choices that worked for her.

Courtney Russell McCrea is co-founder and Managing Partner at Recast Capital, a platform supporting and investing in emerging managers in venture.  She was most recently a Managing Director of Weathergage Capital a boutique fund of funds that provides its clients with access to premier venture capital growth equity and micro VC partnerships, where she also led the co-investing partnership. She is a Kauffman Fellow, class 3, and a member of the NVCA Forward Board of Directors the Alzheimer’s Association Board of Directors in Northern California and Nevada and Chair of the Episcopal Impact Fund Investment Committee. Our conversation starts with Courtney’s upbringing in Illinois and how she discovered venture capital as a career.  We then trace her path to striking out on her own at Recast Capital.  Moving then to discussing the world of venture capital today we look first at the value added by programs such as the Kauffman Fellow program, as well as many of the other affinity groups designed to get women to thrive.  We turn then to analyze the challenges facing emerging managers in venture, and what it is that is attractive about this piece of the capital structure. Courtney uses case studies to illustrate the different reception that female and male founders face when looking for capital – whereby female founders are often expected to validate their credentials, while for men these credentials are taken at face value. We examine disparities in funding and visibility and ask what interventions can change these.

Andy Ayim, MBE is an investor and founder based in the UK, and runs an Angel Investing School designed to “teach people how to invest small tickets in start-ups effortlessly." He has run the School since January 2020, and is a venture partner and board member of numerous technology companies. Passionate about financial education and entrepreneurship, he has held been entrepreneur in residence at accelerators such as Entrepreneur First, and OneTech and spent time as Managing Director at the London Accelerator Backstage Capital, which focuses on supporting underrepresented founders.  He was awarded an MBE in 2020 for services to diversity in technology.Our conversation starts with Andy's early interest in finance and investing and he describes how his family had to order the Financial Times specially to their local newsagent in Tottenham.  He became an entrepreneur at an early age and became fascinated by the business of investing and building a business. We trace this through his love of music and then hear about how he entered an accelerator program.  Andy describes what makes an accelerator program successful and he stresses the importance for him of building deep relationships and trust at the early stages of an entrepreneurial venture.We turn then to the Angel Investing School and bust some myths about what it is to be an angel investor and what the curriculum taught at the school entails. We conclude with a discussion of the upcoming London Tech Week and what it offers for entrepreneurs and budding angel investors. Learn more about The Angel Investing School: https://angelinvestingschool.com/Sign up to Andy's weekly newsletter here: https://andyayim.com/LTW: https://londontechweek.com/Connect with Andy on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyayim/ 

Betsy Cohen has built financial businesses for her whole career. She is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Cohen Circle, a growth stage investment firm focused on the fintech and impact spaces.  She was previously CEO at The Bancorp Bank, which she founded in 2000 and previously worked at Jefferson Bank for 26 years. She sits on numerous boards and has received several awards being named a Forbes 2022 Most Powerful Self-Made Woman, 25 outstanding women bankers and many more.Betsy is Executive Committee member and Secretary of Asia Society; Founding Member of the Asia Society Policy Institute; Trustee of The Brookings Institute; Honorary Trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and Treasurer, Managing Director, and Finance Committee member of The Metropolitan Opera.Our conversation covers the “series of opportunities” that have characterized Betsy’s arc, which she doesn’t define as a career, strictly speaking.  Therein lies the most vivid depiction of her approach to seizing opportunities throughout her career and building businesses where there was “white space”.We look at the fundamentals of financial institutions as well as the opportunity now in fintech, and how she developed an ability to go up and down the capital structure stack at Cohen Circle including launching a SPAC practice.  Our discussion then moves to her large number of Board roles and examine what it is that she brings to these roles and what it takes to be successful in them.We end with reflections on a remarkable and ground-breaking path that Betsy has forged through the world of financial institutions and then FinTech, her belief in needing to think on ones feet and not always waiting for the precedent and the ability to learn at every stage. 

Laura Sage is CEO at Chill Anywhere, and Co-Founder of the Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Foundation.  She has previously held a series of advisory and business development roles at different financial institutions including hedge funds. Our conversation starts with her financial career, and the grueling travel schedule that accompanied it.  She describes her pivot to wellness and what led her to think about a solution for employing a holistic approach to health and wellness in the workplace.That business was Chill Anywhere, which was initially conceived as an accessible meditation studio which would target busy professionals.  That was of course, derailed by Covid, and we speak about the pivot that Chill undertook then evolving into an online-based service, including an App, corporate programs and hybrid delivery solutions.  We hear about the evolution going on and the awakening of the importance of wellness to mental health in the workplace and beyond. Laura's other passion project is the Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Foundation and we speak about the work of that foundation and the awareness and education that that furthers. There is more information about Chill Anywhere here: https://www.chillanywhere.com/about and a taster video from that on our Fiftyfaces Hub here: https://www.fiftyfaceshub.com/chill-pause-for-your-mental-wellbeing/.This podcast is being released as a bonus to coincide with the month of February 2023 and our love and wellness series. It will also form part of Series 2 of the 2023 Fiftyfaces Podcast. 

Adam Demuyakor is the founder and managing partner at Wilshire Lane Capital, a venture capital and private equity firm that focuses on PropTech solutions based in Los Angeles California.  Born in the US to a family originally from Ghana, Adam started out on Wall Street in investment banking and held a number of private equity and venture capital roles before found in Wilshire Lane.  He also holds a number of Board roles and is a Board of Trustee of the education nonprofit 9 Dots.Our conversation starts with his family roots, and the expectations that accompanied his schooling and career choices. We hear how he came to be interested in real estate and how he gained experience in both the private and public side of the business, and ultimately the vision with which he launched his own firm.  This is an opportunity for our discussion to dive into PropTech and discuss what the technology that is transforming real estate looks like, and how these theses are playing out.  Among some of the concepts discussed are Ghost Kitchens and the new look Self Storage outfits, and we discuss some of the business models that are exciting him most at this juncture.As an early stage venture capital firm, Wilshire Lane Capital, is highly focused on the entrepreneurs and their vision that they support, and many of them are diverse founders themselves.  In fact in an industry in which female and black and brown founders are poorly represented, Wilshire Lane is breaking the mould – 36% of their companies are led by women outright, 29% of their companies have a black founder on them, and 79% of their companies have an underrepresented minority or a female in the C suite.Wilshire Lane Capital recently entered into a strategic partnership with Nile Capital which sponsored our original diverse founders and VCs series, and we speak about how these ideas came together.We speak about 9 Dots (see: https://www.9dots.org) , a nonprofit, based in Los Angeles, that focuses on providing subsidized computer science courses for the poorest students in the city.  Adam shares why this is one of the most fulfilling of all of his roles.  Finally, we discuss some highs and lows of his career so far, what Adam looks for in a founder and what it means to pass the “Shower Test”.

Constance Freedman is Founder and Managing Partner at Moderne Ventures as well as Moderne Passport – an early stage investment fund and industry immersion program which is focused on investing in technology companies in and around the multi-trillion dollar industries of real estate, finance, insurance, hospitality and home services.  It has just closed its (over-subscribed) second fund at over $200 m. She sits on numerous boards and has received several awards including Crain’s Business 40 under 40 and Chicago Top Tech 50 (on three occasions). Our conversation focuses on her professional journey and the fascinating world of Proptech – technology that is related to real estate and other property. This has been an area of expertise for Constance for some time, and we start with describing the opportunity in the area and then how Constance moved from working within another venture firm to starting Moderne Ventures.  One of the most fascinating aspects of Moderne Ventures is the Moderne Passport program, which creates an ecosystem for over 700 founders as well as industry members to network, work together and create synergies.  It is also about creating network effects and enriching the social capital of founders, as well as enabling innovation to flourish through a system of pilot programs and providing feedback. There is more information about Moderne Ventures and the Moderne Passport program on: https://www.moderneventures.com

Adesuwa Okunbo Rhodes is the founder of Aruwa Capital Management, a growth equity impact fund investing in untapped opportunities across Nigeria and West Africa.Founded when she was only 29, Aruwa Capital Management aims to change the narrative for women as capital allocators and entrepreneurs by investing in businesses that make an impact on addressing the gender gap. She previously was Partner and Managing Director at Syntaxis Africa and prior to that JP Morgan, and also holds a number of director roles as well as volunteer roles in groups such as Gaia Africa, Sponsors for Educational Opportunity and Rising Tide Africa.In this fascinating discussion we discuss Adesuwa's early years in finance and what prompted her to start her own fund.  We analyze what it means to invest with a "gender lens" and learn how it is not just about creating more seats at the table, but creating more tables.Adesuwa is a visionary and empowering role model on the African financial scene and the vision for gender equity established by Aruwa Capital sets the standard for women-led equity everywhere.There is more information on Aruwa Capital Management here: https://www.aruwacapital.com