Already in her second year of being part of GCV’s Emerging Leaders list, Golnaz Borghei played an instrumental role in establishing PwC’s corporate venture capital unit in 2020. She brought a variety of experience and contacts from being involved in company building and investment in the Middle East, the UK and the Nordics.
Having the opportunity to build the venture unit from scratch has been a major highlight of her job at PwC. She has gone through the early steps of establishing the strategy, planning the trajectory and now leading it through a downturn in the market. She also constantly strives to make the unit more diverse, bringing in perspectives from people who come from different backgrounds and establishing a team that is 50% female.
Borghei says one of her challenges is being able to balance wanting to push the boundaries and think of the next five years, while contributing to the core business now. As a CVC you have to “bring the long-term venture horizon to the corporate world, which works often annually,” she says.
“You should maintain a consistent strategy and communicate that to all parties involved in venturing, be it the investor, the corporate or the startup.”
This leads to her main advice for CVCs: be transparent and consistent. You should maintain a consistent strategy and communicate that to all the parties involved in venturing, be it the parent company, co-investors or startups.
Borghei works with a core team of 24 in PwC Germany’s corporate development and innovation unit, which includes a pipeline unit that consists of analysts, an execution
team that conducts the deal, a portfolio management and value creation team and a marketing communications team.
With a PhD in biotech, Borghei is excited to see the developments in the deeptech sector and how upcoming transformational technologies, such as generative artificial intelligence, will change the corporate world in the next decade.
See the full list of GCV Emerging Leaders for 2024 here.