The winners were selected from almost 20,000 industry professionals tracked by Global Corporate Venturing and nominated by the heads of units and their peers. On stage after collecting their awards (from right to left) were: Chibo Tang, partner on Alibaba’s Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund managed by Gobi Partners, Andy Cao at Comcast Ventures, Ashutosh Sharma, head of India at Prosus Ventures (formerly Naspers Ventures), Michael Lohnert from Boeing HorizonX Fund, Kim Armor, chief financial officer at Comcast Ventures, Jonathan (JC) Charles at Samsung Catalyst, Amy Daniels Burr, JetBlue Technology Ventures, Nick Washburn (award sponsor), Frank Lee at Applied Ventures, Dave Johnson and Elana Lian at Intel Capital and James Mawson, founder of GCV.
Sharma was ranked first for the GCV Rising Stars category, which was awarded to those with less than five years in the corporate venturing industry, reflecting his work on India’s breakthrough venture exit last year when Walmart acquired Flipkart for $16bn. In picking up his award Sharma thanked the entrepreneurs.
Armor came first in the GCV Emerging Leaders category, which was awarded to those with more than five years in the corporate venturing industry, and praised her colleagues and GCV data and analytics for helping the unit’s success.
Nick Washburn, managing director at Intel Capital, the sponsor for the evening and a former GCV Rising Star winner, in his prepared speech said: “Intel Capital has been fortunate over its near-30 years to have had consistent and broad support by senior management. This has really enabled us to develop a very strong bench of investment professionals and support organisation partners, at all levels of our organisation. We strive to leverage this institutional knowledge to continue to invest in our new talent and focus on working with world-class entrepreneurs.
“Intel Capital has been delighted to sponsor these Rising Stars awards over the past two years, as the growth of professionalism within the broader CVC ecosystem has been incredible to watch. The Rising Star and Emerging Leader award winners truly demonstrate the incredible talent that runs deep within industry.”
Mawson thanked Intel for chairing its GCV Leadership Society over the past two years as well as the initial sponsors, GE Ventures, under Sue Siegel and the advisory board’s inaugural chairwoman, Claudia Fan Munce as well as all those put forward and within the industry.
