Vanessa Colella (pictured), who has been Citi Ventures’ global head of venture investing and strategic growth initiatives since 2013, will replace Deborah Hopkins as chief innovation officer (CIO) at US-listed bank Citigroup and as CEO of Citi Ventures from the start of January.
Hopkins confirmed the move by email after Global Corporate Venturing (GCV) said in June she planned to retire at the end of this year. Colella, who had been ranked third in the GCV Rising Star 2016 awards, had been seen as heir apparent for the CIO role but the final confirmation could see a number of other personnel changes, insiders said.
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia University graduate, Colella had worn a number of hats before coming to Citi. She said for her Rising Star award: “Over the course of my career, I have been a partner at McKinsey, entrepreneur-in-residence at US Venture Partners, senior vice-president of insights at Yahoo, a seventh and eighth grade science teacher and an author of a book on agent-based modelling.
“In hindsight, not having a typical corporate venture capital (CVC) background has been an advantage in leading the teams I do now. I have always said that one of the major perks of my job is its panoramic scope and breadth – which means keeping an eye on the big picture while having my finger on the pulse of hot trends and driving new ideas forward.”
With a similarly wide-ranging prior experience, Hopkins joined Citi in 2003 as head of strategy, becoming chief operations and technology officer two years later. In 2008, she was given the new role of chief innovation officer – one of the first with the title globally and for which she won the GCV award in January – and Hopkins has served as Citi Ventures’ CEO since it was launched in Palo Alto, California, at the start of the decade as a way to connect Citi to the entrepreneurial and high-tech ecosystem in Silicon Valley.
This pioneering combination of chief innovation officer and head of ventures has become a model peers across industry sectors and beyond the US have looked to for inspiration, according to the description for the GCV Powerlist 2016, which said: “Hopkins will be able to look back on more than a decade at the bank with great pride.”
In discussing her retirement in June, Hopkins said: “The skill in the role is being insanely passionate about the outcome. To keep pivoting, tweaking to be most relevant for our audience, which is nearly a quarter of a million of very bright people at Citi. We have to be accelerating impact and having the potential to scale.”