Bios of Female VCs and Entrepreneurs
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Heidi Roizen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Heidi Roizen (born 1958 in Stanford, California ) is a Silicon Valley executive, venture capitalist , and entrepreneur. She graduated from Stanford University in 1980 with a bachelor's degree in English and earned her MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business three years later. From 1983 to 1996, Roizen was co-founder and CEO of T/Maker Company, which made software for CP/M and MSDOS computers, and later for the Apple Macintosh . Her brother, Peter Roizen was the other co-founder; he had graduated from the University of California, Berkeley , and had written the original software named "Table Maker" that had launched the company.
After a few years away from venture capital as a partner at Mobius Ventures, Heidi Roizen re-enters the Silicon Valley elite group of VCs as she joins 27-year-old firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) as venture partner. In a way, she's come full circle as DFJ was one of the VCs that invested in Roizen's company she co-founded with her brother Peter Roizen, called T/Maker, in 1983. It was essentially the start-up that ushered Roizen into the high-tech entrepreneur ecosystem. I'm super excited for Roizen, not only because we carry the same last name (she's my aunt through my husband Ezra Roizen ), but because there are a few women represented in the venture community, though DFJ has done a good job putting them in senior roles. Jennifer Fonstad is a managing director at DFJ.
News - Heidi Roizen joins DFJ as Venture Partner
Draper Fisher Jurvetson Team Member: Jennifer Fonstad
Jennifer Scott Fonstad is a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Considered one of the most senior women in venture today, Ms. Fonstad invests broadly in early stage companies with recent investments in mobile applications, consumer and enterprise application services, and energy management. Investment successes include Athenahealth (NASDAQ: ATHN), Lumenos (acquired by Wellpoint, NYSE: WLP), Achex (acquired by First Data, NYSE: FDC), and NetZero (NASDAQ: UNTD). In addition to her investing responsibilities, Jennifer sits on the investment committees for DFJ Frontier, DFJ's partner fund in California and serves as an advisor to DFJ Tamir Fishman, DFJ's partner fund in Israel, and the DFJ China and DFJ Vietnam teams. Jennifer joined DFJ as a Kauffman Fellow in 1997 becoming a partner in 1998.
Dana Settle | Greycroft Partners LLC
Dana Settle is a Founding Partner with Greycroft LLC, and she heads the firm's west coast office out of Los Angeles. Prior to Greycroft, Dana spent several years as a venture capitalist and advisor to startup companies in the Bay Area, including six years at Mayfield, where she focused on early stage companies in the mobile communications and consumer Internet markets. Dana currently serves or observes on the boards of Greycroft’s investments in Fanhattan, Gamersfirst, GameSalad, Joyent, Lucid Commerce, Maker Studios, Pulse, Sometrics, TrunkClub, uSamp and WideOrbit.
Ellie is a Senior Associate with Greycroft Partners and is a member of the New York office. Her responsibilities include evaluating investment opportunities, sourcing new deals, and working with existing portfolio companies. Prior to joining Greycroft, Ellie worked in a similar role during business school evaluating investment opportunities at Lowercase Capital with investor Chris Sacca. Before working with Lowercase, Ellie worked at Cisco in Corporate Development doing acquisitions, investments, and strategy within the communications, collaboration, and video verticals. Ellie’s past experience also includes working briefly at the London-based venture capital firm DN Capital, focused on early stage ecommerce companies. She began her career in growth capital private equity at Summit Partners in Boston.
Ellie Wheeler | Greycroft Partners LLC
Menlo Ventures
Sonja joined Menlo Ventures in 1994. Prior to Menlo Ventures, she was in business development for Symantec Corporation and was an investment analyst for TA Associates. Sonja focuses primarily on Internet, communications and software investments.
Lisa Suennen is a co-founder and Managing Member of Psilos Group, a healthcare-focused venture capital firm with over $577 million under management. Ms Suennen has headed Psilos' West Coast office since the firm's founding in 1998 and focuses on the medical device, healthcare information technology and healthcare services sectors. She serves as a Director on the Board of several Psilos portfolio companies, including AngioScore (chairman), PatientSafe Solutions, OmniGuide and VeraLight (chairman). Ms.
Psilos
Lucy P. Marcus | Marcus Ventures
Lucy is the founder and CEO of Marcus Venture Consulting Committed to fostering sustainable success for funding organisations, Marcus Venture Consulting works with venture capital and private equity funds, institutions and corporations to build strong funding businesses. She is also Professor of Leadership and Governance at IE Business School focusing on corporate governance, ethics and leadership. Lucy also writes a column for Reuters on the intersection of boards and leadership. Lucy serves as non-executive chair of the Mobius Life Sciences Fund , chair of the Mobius Life Sciences Fund Investment Panel, and is non-executive director and chair of the board audit committee of BioCity Nottingham . She is a CIBAM Cambridge Associate at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for International Business and Management ( CIBAM ).
The search continues at Yahoo! for new directors. Who will they be? The battered media company is preparing to add some fresh blood to its board as the company’s new CEO Scott Thompson, who was lured away from PayPal, seeks to turn around the firm’s poor financial performance and strengthen its weak governance practices .
Do you have what it takes to be on Yahoo!'s board?
Scale Venture Partners
Canaan Partners
Theresia focuses primarily on Internet and software investments with specific interest in social commerce, vertical media, security, and consumer internet/mobile apps. Theresia was responsible for several of Accel's investments which have had successful acquisitions or IPO exits including AdECN (MSFT) , CRS Retail Systems (EPIC), Interlace Systems (ORCL) , Imperva (IMPV), Kosmix (WMT) , PeopleSupport (PSPT) , Xoopit (YHOO) and Zimbra (YHOO) . Theresia was part of the Walmart.com (WMT) investment team, and she currently serves on the board of directors of several private companies in both the consumer Internet ( Birchbox , Glam Media , Hotel Tonight , LearnVest , ModCloth , Trulia ) and security sectors ( Imperva , TRUSTe ,). Prior to joining Accel, Theresia was founding Vice President of Business Development & Sales at Release Software, a venture-backed company that developed products to enable digital rights management and payment technologies for the software industry.
Our People | Theresia Gouw Ranzetta