US-based corporate venturing advisory firm Venadar has appointed its chairman, Keith Cowan, as chief executive.
Cowan has replaced Mark Kaiser, Vendar’s founder, who will remain in the firm as vice-chairman and adviser.
Founded in 2005, Venadar has helped more than 40 corporate clients to conduct corporate venturing through strategic and transactional advice.
Cowan has been CEO of strategic advisory firm Cowan Consulting since 2013, having come from telecommunications and internet conglomerate SoftBank’s US-based telecommunications business, Sprint, where he was president for five years.
His role at Sprint involved Cowan taking part in strategic planning and corporate development, and he was involved in SoftBank acquiring an 80% stake in 2017, and in Sprint’s acquisition of wireless broadband company Clearwire five years earlier.
Regarding his new role at Venadar, Cowan told Global Corporate Venturing: “The challenge is helping our corporate clients refine strategic objectives and pursue the most valuable opportunities, such as unlocking exponential growth and managing disruptive threats, while simultaneously offsetting risk through collaborations with and investments in innovators and entrepreneurs.
“The big opportunity for Venadar is to push beyond its current client base of Fortune 500 companies, and to position our alliance and strategic venturing services as a value-add to private equity firms and their portfolio companies, along with emerging groups of industry and ecosystem cooperatives.”
Photo of Keith Cowan courtesy of LinkedIn.
