As corporate venturing has begun to garner more and more headlines over the past five years, the people on this list have made this happen.
This magazine is our second look at the biggest names in the industry, and we have attempted to reflect who the most important players are.
Perhaps a mark of the solidity of the list is that of last year’s top 20, only one left corporate venturing, with Chevron Technology Ventures’ Trond Unneland being replaced by Kemal Anbarci. We have expanded the top rankings to incorporate 25 people and we have also provided a list of five new entrants to watch.
We now track more than 1,100 corporate venturing units and whittling down the list to only 100 individuals is a tricky task. Given this challenge, we have limited those put forward to the most senior people in their function, although many great people make these organisations effective places to work.
This year we decided to move Intel Capital’s Arvind Sodhani to the top of the list, to reflect its success, even garnering plaudits at its summit this year from Intel Corporation’s incoming chief executive Brian Krzanich. Such praise is important indeed, as many a corporate venturing unit has found the handover from leader to leader is a potentially tricky moment in its history.
Intel Capital itself has now made more than $11bn of investments, and Sodhani has helped cement the unit as part of Intel having been at the head of the group since 2005. He also expanded the group to have four additional investment sectors this year and they have secured 28 exits globally.
However, many on the list could equally have won the top spot. We chose South Africa-based media company Naspers’ Charles Searle last year, and he secured the number-two slot this year, given his investment unit’s investment picking prowess, which saw it back China-based internet giant Tencent early on, and has remained strong with banner deals like backing Russian portal Mail.Ru.
Our top 10 also included Nagraj Kashyap, of Qualcomm Ventures, US-based media company IDG Capital Partners’ Hugo Shong, Siemens Venture Capital’s Ralf Schnell, IBM Venture Capital’s Claudia Fan Munce, Junlian’s Zhu Linan, Google Ventures’ Bill Maris, Citi Ventures’ Deborah Hopkins and GM Ventures’ Jon Lauckner.
The global backgrounds of the Powerlist 100 and their interests in numerous sectors and regions underlie the importance they bring to bear on creating the future – not just for their own companies but also for the entrepreneurs striving to make the world a better place.
We are pleased to continue to recognise the people on this list for their significant contribution and skill in helping to shape a bright future. Many of those on the list will be speaking at our fourth annual symposium in London on May 20 and 21, which has now been opened for registration. Join them there: gcvsymposium.com