Chad Bown and Daniela Proske are senior venture principals at BP Ventures, UK-headquartered energy company BP’s corporate venturing arm.
Bown, who sits on the boards of Belmont, BiSN, SMG, Fotech and Stryde, said: “I really love the interaction with early-stage startups and bringing people’s passions to realisation. The challenge lies into taking these passions and putting a structure to them, from a technology roadmap, capital and governance perspective, and then nurturing the transformation from concept to hopefully a successful business.
“That is why I love what I do. To be clear, sometimes the process works and many times it does not. Either the technology is too early for the market or the team is not able to execute. But when a technology successfully comes to life, it can move the needle for a market sector or industry.”
Proske, who serves as a member of the boards of directors of FreeWire Technologies, RepairPal, Mendel Technologies and MaaS Global Oy, added: “Venturing plays a key role in BP’s strategy to tackle the dual challenge of meeting the world’s need for more energy, while at the same time reducing carbon emissions to achieve our ambition to become a net-zero company in 2050.
“At BP Ventures we look beyond a quick financial return from the investments we make. We want to see new technologies deployed into our businesses, and we recognise this takes effort, commitment and specialist skills.
“The chance to build new businesses or to support existing ones in BP through access to new technologies, products or business models developed by startups really excites me.
“Having an entrepreneurial background, I am thrilled to work for BP Ventures because we are very active corporate investors and portfolio managers, we often request a board seat with premise to help our companies to commercialise their technologies or products successfully.”
