About a third of the near-700 people working as corporate venturers in the US over the past decade have changed their jobs, according to research by Global Corporate Venturing and US trade body the National Venture Capital Association. The list is by no means complete, but gives some insights into career development prospects in the sector.
Daniel Osmer, founder of recruitment firm Spectrum, said: "If the change in the corporate venturing (CV) market is only 30% over 10 years, this is 3% a year, which is tiny. Most corporates expect natural wastage – employees leaving – of 7% to 8%. The CV market appears very stable by comparison."
Although the data set is muddied by a large pool of people whose current occupation is unknown, where data from business network LinkedIn or other public sources is available it shows the most common career paths for a corporate venturer leads to a start-up or into an established corporation.
People moving to senior roles at the parent include Wesley Cole, chief of staff at Alcatel-Lucent, while Annette Finsterbusch, previously director of Applied Ventures, left for a relatively short stint at clean-tech start-up in Firefly Green Technologies.
These routes were more than twice as popular as people switching CV units – such as Harshul Sanghi from Motorola to American Express and Ralf Schnell from Infineon to Siemens – or leaving to join independent venture capital (VC) firms.
William Pescatello moved from Peacock to Lightbank and Paul Bricault from Mailroom to Greycroft after both were closed or merged, while Christoph Westphal left GlaxoSmithKline’s SR One to start his own VC firm, Longwood.
The senior positions held by CV heads, as well as a skill-set often broader than simple minority equity investment, has made a number of high-profile venturers attractive to independent leveraged buyout firms, with Charles Carmel going from Cisco to Warburg Pincus and Richard Sarnoff from Bertelsmann to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in the past year.
However, the number of corporate venturers choosing to join independent firms has been boosted by a number out as independents over the past decade, such as Volition Capital from mutual fund manager Fidelity, Flybridge Ventures from publisher International Data Group and New Venture Partners from Lucent. Analysis of hires by CV units in the US over the past year has shown a preference for recruiting people from established VC firms as the independent sector continues to shrink, and for those with industry experience – usually from parent firms.
The roll call of senior hires from independent to CV firms include Intel Capital’s hire of Carey Lai from IVP, Ken Elefant from Opus Capital, Alexandre Villela from Stratus and Christine Herron from First Round Capital; SAP Ventures’ Gaurav Tewari move from Highland Capital Partners; Jens Eckstein taking the top job at SR One after working at TVM Capital; Kaiser Permanente’s Sam Brasch joining from Frazier Healthcare; Singtel Innov8 picking up Jeff Karras for its Silicon Valley office from Levensohn Venture Partners; Max Straube moving from OCG Ventures to Alcatel- Lucent; and Citi Ventures’ adding Ramneek Gupta after five years at Battery Ventures, and Arvind Purushotham, who joined in January after a decade at Menlo Ventures.
Citi has also boosted its team with a number of internal moves to its overseas offices and recruitment of Debra Brackeen, former vice-president of corporate ventures at computer maker Hewlett-Packard. Moves from corporate business units, often after some entrepreneurial experience, has also been a popular way into corporate venturing.
Google Ventures’ Rick Klau joined to manage the Google University relationship with portfolio companies after working at the company and externally, while Amy Banse was an internal move to the top job at Comcast Ventures, as was Diane Scott, former head of marketing, to president of Western Union Ventures.
The creation of new CV units, such as that at Western Union, has often featured a senior internal representative to ensure the cultural integration between the venturing team and the business units remains strong.
For example, Chad Gardner moved internally to join US oil major ConocoPhillips’ Alternative Energy Investments team after nearly three years at business development for the group. This move came as Conoco moved into venturing for the first time by becoming a limited partner in the $300m Energy Technology Ventures fund, alongside General Electric and NRG Energy.
The need to understand venture finance, start-ups and corporation operational dynamics requires a narrow skillset, with Scott Levine moving from start-up MyYearbook with prior experience at private equity firm General Atlantic to Time Warner. But a number of firms have spread the net more widely to pick up talented venturers. Renee DiResta became an associate at O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV) in June after working as a trader at hedge fund Jane Street Capital when she saw a blog post requesting more applications from women.
Bryce Roberts, co-founder of OATV, in March blogged that his firm was seeking an associate but had yet attract a female applicant.
As Roberts said by email after she joined: "We simply wanted to hire the best person for the job. The process was smooth and she is an absolute star."