AAA Schroeder joins Tyson Foods

Schroeder joins Tyson Foods

Reese Schroeder has joined food producer Tyson’s new corporate venturing run by Mary Kay James.

By email, Schroeder, a member of Global Corporate Venturing’s Powerlist 2017 and winner of its Lifetime Achievement award for services to the venture industry, said: “I have joined Tyson New Ventures [as managing director] and am now working for Mary Kay James, our vice-president and general manager.”

James, formerly a managing director at DuPont Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of the chemicals company undergoing a complex merger with peer Dow Chemical, and one of the unit’s founding members in 2003, last year announced her move to US-based meat processor Tyson Foods to run its new $150m fund.

Tyson New Ventures invests in alternative proteins, food security and using the internet in the food chain. Its first deal was acquiring 5% of Beyond Meat, which has created a plant-based protein, in October.

For her own GCV Powerlist 2017 entry, James, who had been a GCV Rising Star in 2016, said in May she was looking to hire three or four people for the deal team.

In Schroeder she has hired one of the venture industry’s most experienced managers and deal makers. Having spent nearly 28 years at Motorola, Schroeder’s initial involvement with its corporate venturing unit came when it was set up in 1999. He assisted on the transactional side of the business until 2004, when he was made managing director of Motorola Ventures, seven years before the company split into Motorola Solutions and Motorola Mobility, subsequently acquired by Google.

For his Powerlist 2017 award, Schroeder said: “In 2016, we [at Motorola Solutions Venture Capital] made five new investments, four of which are public – SeamlessDocs, DevMynd, RapidSOS and Neurala. All these investments have a working relationship with Motorola Solutions. We also had a couple of great exits – API.ai and Eyefluence, both of which were sold to Google [for undisclosed amounts]. Finally, we instituted a project management process for post-investment portfolio company management, which we highlighted at the Canadian Corporate Innovation summit.”

As Paul Steinberg, chief technology officer at Motorola Solutions, said for Schroeder’s award: “Reese was in on the ground floor when Motorola formed its venture group in 1999 and we have done well over 200 investments since that time. This is one of the longest-standing corporate venturing groups in industry.

“The thing about Reese that makes him amazing is that there is very little he has not seen. He is very innovative in creating win-win situations with investments, he is very creative around deal constructs, and he is very thoughtful not only of what is good for Motorola Solutions but also for investees.”

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