Fiftyfaces Focus - The Last Frontier: Diverse Founders and VCs
29 episodes - English - Latest episode: 11 months ago -It has been said that "access to capital is the last frontier of the civil rights movement". This podcast series tells the stories of diverse founders and venture capitalists across the business landscape, their experience with accessing capital and growing their businesses and the networks that have enabled them to thrive.
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Episodes
Episode 23: Anthony Amunategui - On Leadership and Capturing the Factory of the Future
August 15, 2023 00:00 - 36 minutes - 33.8 MBAnthony 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 sto...
Episode 22: Isabella Mandis of Girls Who VC: Setting the Stage for A New Generation
July 12, 2023 00:00 - 24 minutes - 22.1 MBIsabella 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...
Episode 21: Courtney McColgan of Runa: Navigating Tech in Latin America and What they Don't Teach you in Stanford Business School
June 20, 2023 00:00 - 30 minutes - 27.8 MBCourtney 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 a...
Episode 20: Courtney Russell McCrea of Recast Capital: Moving Down the Capital Stack and Finding Gold
June 07, 2023 00:00 - 31 minutes - 28.6 MBCourtney 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 Alz...
Episode 19: Andy Ayim, MBE - Setting the Standard at Angel Investing School
May 17, 2023 00:00 - 28 minutes - 25.9 MBAndy 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...
Episode 18: Betsy Cohen of Cohen Circle: Creating Impact through Fintech and Beyond - a Life of Seizing Opportunities
May 10, 2023 00:00 - 32 minutes - 30.1 MBBetsy 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 E...
Episode 17: Bonus: Laura Sage - The Power to Chill Anywhere
February 04, 2023 00:00 - 25 minutes - 23.6 MBLaura 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 workpla...
Episode 16: Adam Demuyakor of Wilshire Lane Capital: on Ghost Kitchens, Self Storage and other PropTech opportunities
November 14, 2022 00:00 - 31 minutes - 28.9 MBAdam 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. O...
Episode 15: Constance Freedman of Moderne Ventures - A Modern Masterclass in Innovation through Networking
November 08, 2022 00:00 - 24 minutes - 22.9 MBConstance 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 Busi...
Episode 14: Adesuwa Okunbo Rhodes of Aruwa Capital Management: Investing Through a Gender Lens
November 02, 2022 00:00 - 26 minutes - 24.2 MBAdesuwa 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...
Episode 13: Frans van Eersel of dopay: On the Frontier of Empowerment and Impact
October 25, 2022 00:00 - 21 minutes - 19.5 MBFrans van Eersel is the CEO and Founder of dopay, a payments company headquartered in London but with a primary market of Egypt, where Frans lived for 4 years. He has had a long career in industry, and is also CEO of Driver’s Seat Investment. Our conversation starts with his upbringing in the Netherlands and the interesting coincidence that payments and banking played a role in his career from the very beginning. We speak about the genesis of DoPay, and the persistent disparity...
Episode 12: Ahryun Moon of Goodtime.io - Scheduling Efficiency and Analyzing the Female Founders Discount
October 18, 2022 00:00 - 30 minutes - 41.9 MBAhryun Moon is Founder and Head of Company Strategy at GoodTime.io a company designed to boost employee productivity by making scheduling meetings easier. This is not her first time founding a company – she also founded Etch Keyboard and previously worked as a financial accountant and financial analyst. We start with her upbringing and the hackathons that awakened her interest in tech and problem solving. When she noticed that recruiters were spending the bulk of their time on sc...
Episode 11: Ashwini Asokan of Mad Street Den - Demystifying AI through Anthropology and Insight
October 11, 2022 00:00 - 38 minutes - 35.1 MBAshwini Asokan is the founder and CEO of Mad Street Den, an Artificial Intelligence company, powering Retail, Education, Healthcare, Media, Finance & more with its image recognition platforms, Vue.ai and Blox.ai. Headquartered in the Bay Area, California, the company has offices around the globe. She previously worked at Intel, where she led IXR's Mobile Portfolio, which explored the future of mobile technology and designed compelling mobile experiences that people will love. While...
Episode 2: 2022 Diverse and Frontier Founders and VCs - The Road Ahead
October 07, 2022 00:00 - 5 minutes - 5.13 MBIn our second series focused on founders, allocators and investors on the Frontier – we hear from a diverse group of professionals who share their vision for investing, impact and change. From venture capitalists focused on the burgeoning world of Prop-Tech, to investing with a gender lens, developing a network to change the black narrative in the professional world, to harnassing the power of music royalties, to payment platforms - we share insights from the coalface. Our gue...
Episode 10: Sherrese Clark Soares of HarbourView Equity Partners: Keeping a Steady Beat in Private Capital and Life
October 04, 2022 00:00 - 11 minutes - 36.6 MBSherrese Clarke Soares is the founder and CEO of HarbourView Equity Partners, a global investment firm focused on niche markets and esoteric investments in the media and entertainment space. She previously was the founder CEO and Board Directly of Tempo Music. Sherrese has had over 20 years experience in leadership roles across corporate finance with a particular focus on the communications, media and entertainment sector. She has been recognized in the Billboard Top Women in Mus...
Episode 9: Kike Oniwinde Agoro: Taking Flight - From Javelin Throwing to Network Building
September 13, 2022 00:00 - 23 minutes - 21.3 MBKike Oniwinde Agoro is the Founder and CEO of BYP Network, a platform that connects Black professionals to each other and corporations. She is a BSc Economics graduate of The University of Nottingham, a University of Florida MSc scholar, and an ex-Great Britain javelin thrower. She previously worked in investment banking, and then in Business Development at a fast-growing financial technology company for two years because she realised ‘tech is the future’. Kike was a member of the ...
Episode 8: Yvonne Bajela - Innovating through Impact
September 03, 2021 00:00 - 18 minutes - 16.5 MBYvonne Bajela is an investor in early stage companies at Impact X Capital, which invests in start-ups across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. She has worked across the globe in investment banking, corporate venture capital and in academia, and is a frequent speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and female empowerment. She was listed as a member of the Forbes 30 Under 30. Our conversation covers Yvonne's early interest in markets and finance, her career journey, and how she i...
Episode 7: James Norman - A Collective Response to Piloting Change
August 27, 2021 00:00 - 33 minutes - 30.9 MBJames Norman is CEO at Pilotly, a market research platform for creative content, based in the Bay Area. He is a Partner at Transparent Collective, a group of founders dedicated to increasing exposure and access to Silicon Valley for African-American and Latino/Hispanic men and women. He is a serial entrepreneur, who built his first company at the age of 16. Our conversation traces James's exceptionally early entry into running his own business, which started with baseball cards an...
Episode 6: Shruti Van Dyke Gandhi - Navigating an Array of Opportunities in VC
August 20, 2021 00:00 - 22 minutes - 20.3 MBShruti Van Dyke Gandhi is General Partner and Founding Engineer at Array Ventures which invests in enterprise deep tech early-stage companies. Shruti is also a professor in the computer science department at Columbia University. She spent her early career as a developer on mainframe security, collaboration tools, and data analytics. Post engineering, she invested in early-stage companies at True Ventures and Samsung's venture fund. She is also the recipient of Chicago Booth 2021 Dis...
Episode 5: Mark Mwangi - Backing up the Truck and Seizing the Opportunity
August 13, 2021 00:00 - 22 minutes - 21 MBMark Mwangi is the founder of Amitruck, a Kenya-based company which connects transporters (whether a motor-bike, pick ups, van or even a large articulated truck) directly to clients, and aims to ensure convenient pricing and cut out a large part of the costs of goods. He is also co-founder of Dalwyn, a natural gas exchange, based in London. He was previously a senior investment manager at Pictet Asset Management in London, and prior to that worked in Equity Research at Bluecrest. O...
Episode 4: Austin Clements - Blending vision and execution to seed the next generation
August 06, 2021 00:00 - 33 minutes - 31.1 MBAustin Clements is a partner at Slauson & Co., a Los Angeles based venture capital firm that provides pre-seed and seed funding to a range of founders. He's a Kauffman fellow and has a strong interest in economic empowerment. He was previously Chair of Pledge LA, and alliance between LA's venture capital community, the Annenberg Foundation, and the Office of Mayor Eric Garcetti. He also holds a number of board roles. We start by talking about his upbringing in LA, his time at More...
Episode 3: McKeever (Mac) Conwell, II - Why what is Rare is Wonderful
July 29, 2021 00:00 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBMcKeever (Mac) Conwell, II, is Managing Partner at RareBreed Ventures, a venture capital firm based in the Baltimore area. He has held various roles including as a software engineer, an entrepreneur in residence at the NewME Accelerator, a Fund Manager at Maryland Technology Development Corporation where he was a member of the Seed Investment Team and various advisory and consulting roles in the tech space. RareBreed Ventures is a pre-seed fund that aims to invest in exceptional fo...
Episode 2: Shalom Lloyd: From The Kingdom of Essan to Harrods: A Journey of Impact
July 23, 2021 00:00 - 28 minutes - 26.2 MBShalom Lloyd had a career of over 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry and then went on to found two businesses. She is the founder of Naturally Tribal skincare, a beauty line based on traditional remedies including shea butter, which she developed initially to cure her son’s eczema. She is also the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of eMQT, described as “the Bridge between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Africa” which facilitates clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies ...
Episode 1: Ezechi Britton - Opportunity Untapped
July 15, 2021 00:00 - 20 minutes - 34.5 MBEzechi Britton is a Founding Member, Principal and CTO in residence at Impact X Capital, which invests in start-ups across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He previously was the co-founder of Neyber, a financial wellbeing provider where he was also Chief Technology Officer. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Code Untapped, a digital skills accelerator, which runs ideathons, innovation labs, coding workshops and other events to give underrepresented and diverse technologists the op...
Episode 1: Fiftyfaces Focus - Diverse Founders and Venture Capital Investors - Series 1
July 08, 2021 00:00 - 4 minutes - 4.4 MBThe life of a founder of a business is riddled with hard work, hope, disappointment, failure and hearing the word "no". When that founder comes from a less well represented group, the process of building a business and capital raising can be even more challenging. Sometimes this is due to "distance travelled" to get to the starting line - less well represented founders may have less access to "friends and family" capital, to have less of a network and less social capital and may n...
Episode 2: Bonus: Shalom Lloyd - From The Kingdom of Essan to Harrods: A Journey of Impact
May 18, 2021 13:29 - 28 minutes - 25.9 MBShalom Lloyd had a career of over 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry and then went on to found two businesses. She is the founder of Naturally Tribal skincare, a beauty line based on traditional remedies including shea butter, which she developed initially to cure her son’s eczema. She is also the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of eMQT, described as “the Bridge between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Africa” which facilitates clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies ...
2. Shalom Lloyd - From The Kingdom of Essan to Harrods: A Journey of Impact
May 18, 2021 00:00 - 28 minutes - 38.8 MBShalom Lloyd had a career of over 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry and then went on to found two businesses. She is the founder of Naturally Tribal skincare, a beauty line based on traditional remedies including shea butter, which she developed initially to cure her son’s eczema. She is also the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of eMQT, described as “the Bridge between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Africa” which facilitates clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies in Afric...
Episode 1: Bonus: James Norman - Piloting a Course for Underrepresented Founders
April 27, 2021 11:13 - 33 minutes - 30.7 MBJames Norman is CEO at Pilotly, a market research platform for creative content, based in the Bay Area. He is a Partner at Transparent Collective, a group of founders dedicated to increasing exposure and access to Silicon Valley for African-American and Latino/Hispanic men and women. He is a serial entrepreneur, who built his first company at the age of 16. Our conversation traces James's exceptionally early entry into running his own business, which started with baseball cards an...
1. James Norman - Piloting a Course for Underrepresented Founders
April 27, 2021 00:00 - 33 minutes - 46.1 MBJames Norman is CEO at Pilotly, a market research platform for creative content, based in the Bay Area. He is a Partner at Transparent Collective, a group of founders dedicated to increasing exposure and access to Silicon Valley for African-American and Latino/Hispanic men and women. He is a serial entrepreneur, who built his first company at the age of 16. Our conversation traces James's exceptionally early entry into running his own business, which started with baseball cards and video...