5 Women to Watch in Venture - Summer 2024

In this summer's edition of Women to Watch in Venture, I'm thrilled to showcase five women in Venture who are making significant strides in the industry and beyond. Their successes and visions continue to inspire me deeply, as they reshape venture capital with their innovative investment strategies, passion, and dedication to impact.

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These remarkable women all come from varied backgrounds, enriching their funds and the industry with their unique insights. Unified by their drive to challenge the norm, creative approach to problem-solving, and unwavering support for founders and colleagues, they truly stand out.

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Let's celebrate their inspiring accomplishments and ambitious goals this season.

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Helen Abad

Helen Abad is the Head of Early-Stage Partnerships at Inflect Health. Inflect Health invests, incubates, and advises companies that are transforming the future of healthcare. They’re backed by Vituity, the largest physician-owned partnership in the US, with 6K+ clinicians across 450+ practice locations serving 9M+ patients annually. They are quick, nimble, and have deep industry expertise and access. 

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Helen is a true healthcare industry expert, having worked directly in healthcare as a patient coordinator, clinical research analyst, and in-house innovation and transformation leader prior to becoming an investor. She deeply understands the pain points that providers face and the historical operational inefficiencies that exist in many practices. Her experience working directly in a clinical setting seeking out solutions for their doctors exposed her to the healthcare tech world and she was hooked. Her passion for finding digital solutions and better ways to support their doctors is what inspired her to become an investor in the space. And that passion is truly irrefutable when you meet her.

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“Part of my passion is finding special founders. Of course the financials and business case need to make sense, but more than that, I am looking for founders who have ‘it’. Founders who can lead a company forward through the bad times and the good times. A founder who eats, sleeps, and breathes for the success of their mission.” 

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Helen hopes to impact the venture industry by acting as a model for other investors of someone who is confident and has real conviction in their beliefs. Imposter syndrome is real and she hopes more investors can overcome that and double down on their gut instincts. The industry trend she is most excited about is the consumerization of healthcare and its impact on telehealth solutions. How will providers deliver the lost cost, high value, and truly customized solutions that consumers are demanding at scale? 

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Helen’s career advice? 

Lean into your superpower. Whatever it is that you're good at, really figure that out, stay true to yourself, and capitalize on it.

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Stephanie Rich

Stephanie Rich is the Head of Platform at Bread and Butter Ventures. Bread & Butter Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm based in Minnesota, the Bread and Butter State, investing globally while leveraging their state and region’s access to strong corporate connections, commercial opportunities, and industry expertise for the benefit of their founders. While they invest across a broad range of industries, their primary areas of focus include Ag/Food Tech, Healthcare tech, and Enterprise SaaS. 

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Stephanie started her career in the film industry but realized, after a few years, that it wasn’t her passion. She went to business school in Cambridge and landed at an early-stage IoT startup, Particle, as employee #1 shortly after graduating. While she was at Particle, she started mentoring at Techstars. Her experience at a startup + mentoring startups is where she really fell in love with innovation and the venture industry. Through Techstars she met Brett Bohl, the Managing Partner of Bread & Butter Ventures, and he recruited her to join their fund. 

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“I think I can be truly empathetic to our founders because I've been there. I've been in the amazing moments, the scary moments, I’ve made mistakes and I've felt the same sort of pressure that they are dealing with. I’m able to recognize the reality of resources and understand the dichotomy of trying to grow while trying to conserve resources. Figuring out how to balance that with the true panic you can feel is very real.” 

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Stephanie hopes to impact the industry by showing others that there is immense value in having professional experience before becoming an investor and making life a little less lonely for founders. That real-world operating experience makes you an even stronger investor and gives you the capacity to be a better support system for the founders you invest in. The industry trends she is most excited about are the continued growth of companies outside of the coasts and innovation in food technology.

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Something she believes but wouldn’t say at the dinner table? There are too many moments where things go on for too long; people don’t acknowledge their failure soon enough and spend too much time spinning their wheels. 

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Stephanie’s career advice?

Get comfortable expressing your opinions and recommendations with conviction. Too often, women caveat or preface their advice, and we need to get better at owning our opinions and speaking with conviction. You can always change your opinion when you’re presented with new information, but don’t be afraid to own your opinions.

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Sandi Gilbert

Sandi Gilbert is the CEO of InterGen, Founder of DealPoint Capital, and a Board Member of several organizations. InterGen is a private ScaleUp fund whose founding funders are some of Calgary’s prominent families and engaged corporations and institutions wanting to re-design, re-energize and re-invent the Calgary economy. They deploy capital into post seed, pre-Series A companies led by extraordinary teams with proven solutions and big markets. 

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Sandi started her career in capital markets helping oil & gas companies raise capital. After that she went on to found a company in the document processing space, and raised capital for that business before exiting it to Pitney Bowes. During her time helping other companies raise and raising capital for her own company, she observed how inherently challenging it was. The process is fragmented and inefficient from identifying investors to negotiating terms sheets across multiple jurisdictions. She knew technology could solve these problems, and DealPoint was born, a SaaS technology that securely automates the execution of private placements in a compliant and efficient manner. Sandi was then recruited to serve as the CEO and Managing Partner of InterGen, an early stage investment fund focused on regional investments in Calgary. Her combined background of banking experience and operating experience positioned her well to lead the fund and support their founders. 

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“My parents were farmers, so I definitely grew up in an entrepreneurial world. I've never known a “paycheck world” and that makes a big difference in how I evaluate and run companies.” 

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Sandi hopes to impact the industry by creating more innovative investment models for venture capital; more democratized and flexible models that will support the reduced liquidity of the current environment. She’s most excited about the growth of emerging managers and believes they will play a big role in the continued evolution of the industry by exposing more people to the asset class. 

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Sandi’s career advice?

Get involved. Hunt people down and build a network. And know that it’s hard work because venture is too often glamorized. You have custody of other people's money, and you need to ensure that you're doing the best you can to give them a good ROI on that money. 

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Courtney Trunk

Courtney Trunk is a Senior Associate at Motivate Ventures. Motivate Ventures invests in pre-seed and seed-stage fintech and B2B startups. They love to invest in the un-sexy legacy industries in desperate need of a glow-up. 

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Courtney started her career in financial consulting and valuation services, primarily serving businesses facing litigation, disputes, or investigations. During her time as a consultant, she supported several private equity-backed companies and became intrigued by the private equity industry. She left her consulting role and went to business school at Kellogg, where she was further exposed to the world of venture capital and startups, and she was hooked. Her experience in financial services prior to her MBA solidified her interest in fintech innovation and led her to seek out funds that where focused on fintech from an investment thesis perspective. Courtney interned at several well-known Chicago venture funds before making Motivate her more permanent home. 

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“Working at huge financial services companies and seeing all the clunkiness and the red tape made me realize there's so much opportunity for innovation. That and also having friends not talk about money or not really knowing what to do with their money. The lack of financial literacy and education, or even interest at times, is something I want to help change. A big part of our thesis at Motivate is the democratization of everything, including information. How do we get more people involved in the financial system overall? That’s always been a big personal and professional area of interest for me.”

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Courtney hopes to impact the industry by being a really good investor and an ally to those who want to enter it. When she makes good investments, there is a ripple effect of helping other people win, helping to solve really big problems, helping to create more jobs and economic impact, and so on. She hopes her investments can have the kind of ripple effect that the venture was initially created to do. As she perfectly said, the most exciting thing about venture is seeing so many people win from all sides. 

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Something she believes but wouldn’t say at the dinner table? It’s ok not to be the loudest person in the room. Listening is an important and often underrated skill. 

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Courtney’s career advice?

Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. Ask questions, ask for help, ask for advice. VC is more friendly than you may think. And do your homework. Spend the time to study and learn the industry lingo, economics, etc. If you want to be an investor you’ll need to understand how to quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate a startup. 

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Brittany Clements

Brittany Clements is a Managing Director at American Family Ventures (AmFam). AmFam invests in innovation in all insurance product lines, adjacent vertical markets, and enabling technologies from seed to early-stage growth. A singular voice at the heart of insurtech. 

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Brittany started her career in audit at Deloitte and then transitioned to venture banking at SVB in their Life Science practice before joining Allianz to build out their corporate venture arm from the ground up. After 6 years at Allianz CVC, she joined the team at AmFam. Her passion for entrepreneurship is undeniable, and her audit and venture banking background provided a strong foundation for her ability to evaluate early-stage companies. 

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“Accounting is the language of business and being able to understand how things flow, paint the picture from the financial statements, and understand what's happening within a business and what they're trying to do. As you continue to mature as a company, it becomes more and more important to support the narrative that you're building at the earliest stage.”

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Brittany hopes to impact the industry by backing companies that aim to improve the world. She has a deep appreciation for entrepreneurship and is truly inspired by their grit and passion. Brittany was raised by entrepreneurs, and she brings that firsthand experience and empathy to her investment approach. Some of the trends within venture she is most excited about are the massive generational wealth transfer that's transpiring right now, the longevity economy and the current state of retirement, aging in place; and the infrastructure needed to support caregiver support. 

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Something she believes but wouldn’t say at the dinner table? Most companies shouldn’t raise venture capital. 

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Brittany’s career advice?

Be undeniable. Pursue things that you genuinely care about, embrace your own unique background and perspectives, and then just work your a** off. 

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If you found these remarkable women inspiring, you can explore the full list of Women to Watch in Venture that we've curated over the last two years here. We thrive on connecting with influential women who uplift and empower others. If you have someone in mind who deserves to be featured in the future, nominate her here!