Beth Ferreira has left her role as managing partner at WME Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of talent agency William Morris Endeavor, to return to venture capital firm FirstMark Capital as managing director.
Ferreira, who was featured in the 2017 edition of GCV’s Powerlist, first joined Firstmark Capital in 2011 as a venture partner while also working as chief operating officer of e-commerce company Fab at the same time.
WME Ventures brought Ferreira on board in 2015 as one of its founding partners and she helped launch its $50m first fund, which closed in November 2016. In her time at WME, she managed investments in beauty product brand Glossier, digital learning platform Masterclass and pet food delivery service Ollie, among others.
Ferreira worked at Fab between 2011 and 2014 and prior to that spent three years at e-commerce platform Etsy as vice-president of operations and finance.
FirstMark was spun out of hedge fund sponsor Pequot Capital Management in 2008 and is led by Rick Heitzmann and Amish Jani.
In a blog post announcing the hire, Heitzmann said the firm wanted to bring Ferreira back into the fold due to her investment experience, operational expertise, reputation as a startup advisor and her connections in the New York technology ecosystem.
Ferreira herself said in a separate blog post: “My experience in the trenches as an early-stage operator, as well as a scale architect, has taught me that empathy is more powerful than prescription. I have seen firsthand how hard it can be to get to product market fit, raise capital and ultimately scale.
“Embracing change, particularly in the dark periods, is critical and that lesson has proved invaluable in working with my portfolio and making investment decisions as I built WME Ventures.”
– Photo of Beth Ferreira courtesy of LinkedIn.