Sue Siegel, CEO of GE Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of US-listed industrial conglomerate General Electric, found it hard to choose from her strong team but was pithy in her praise of Marianne Wu: “Rock star.”
Siegel went on to add: “Marianne is helping lead GE’s digital industrial transformation through energy, intelligent environments and internet-of-things investing. Her breadth of experience in venture capital, startups, management consulting, engineering and marketing make her a force to be reckoned with. She is a strategic thinker and respected leader. Outside of the office, you will find her outdoors, in our national parks.”
Wu, a senior managing director at GE Ventures, leads the eight-strong energy and internet-of-things (IoT) investing team, the largest sector for Siegel’s unit. Wu has been at GE (and GE Ventures) for almost three years after working as a partner alongside Siegel at VC firm Mohr Davidow Ventures from 2005.
Wu said: “I was drawn to GE (and CVC) by the enormous opportunity to transform industry leveraging the breadth and scale of GE to bring innovation to the industrial economy. In particular, I am passionate about the potential for digital technology to transform industrial processes and markets, including energy. GE is so committed to leading the digital industrial transformation – it was a perfect fit.
Wu has certainly had an impact with flotations of GE Ventures portfolio companies SolarEdge, which raised $126m on the Nasdaq stock exchange in March 2015, TPI Composites, which raised $68.75m in July last year also on Nasdaq, and Emefcy, which listed on the Australian Stock Exchange through a merger with listed holding company Savcor.
She has also overseen the sales of portfolio companies Sensity Systems, acquired by Verizon in September for several hundred million dollars, and, most recently, Bit Stew, acquired by GE for $153m in November. GE’s purchase of Bit Stew was part of a transformation of the company into digital, and the corporation has turned to its ventures unit to help develop new business units and spinouts.
Wu said the team had partnered GE operating businesses to launch GE’s newest business unit, Current, at the start of last year. Current, which uses data and intelligent environments to bring energy to commercial and industrial customers and save them an estimated 10% to 20% on their energy bills, said it combined GE’s light-emitting diode, solar, energy storage and electric vehicle capabilities with its Predix software platform to create a unit with $1bn in revenues in its first year.
Aside from “trying to keep up with” her two daughters skiing, biking or hiking, Wu admitted her biggest challenge and opportunity was in coordinating with the business units across the breadth of GE and making sure that all relevant and interested constituents were “first, exposed to all the tremendous startup innovation and, second, that we capitalise on the interest to drive great, mutually beneficial partnerships”.
And this opportunity was open to all in the industry. Wu said: “CVC and innovation programs are becoming much more common across large corporates. It is important for corporates to build a strong network with each other to share best practices as we build our capabilities and define our role in the overall innovation ecosystem. We also need to show endurance and show consistency to build strong, trusted relationships with financial investors and entrepreneurs.”
It is something the former McKinsey consultant has had to show herself investing in the energy sector for more than a decade.