Transpose Platform Maagement Diversity Day
About this event
Transpose Platform Management is proud to announce that tennis legend and pathbreaking venture capitalist Serena Williams will be the keynote speaker for our DEI Day event. Serena will be joined in conversation by Transpose Platform’s co-founder, Trang T. N. for a digital fireside chat about diversity and inclusion in venture capital.
Serena Williams already changed the game of professional tennis for good. Now she’s changing the profile of venture capital, leading the path forward to a more diverse and inclusive venture capital environment.
Welcome remarks
Welcome to the 2021 TI Platform Diversity Day Summit! TI Platform Management is one of the most diverse venture firms in the world. The firm was founded in 2015 by Alex Bangash and Trang Nugyen, both of whom immigrated to the United States. Since then, the team has grown to include members throughout North America and Europe. Our investment team is 50% female and majority-minority. At TI Platform Management, diversity isn’t just a priority: it’s who we are. We’d like to thank our early investors, University of Minnesota, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Sloan Foundation as well as the many other LPs who believed in us early on and gave us the opportunity to build a diverse firm and portfolio.
The Transpose Platform Mission
Transpose Platform is guided by two investment theses. The first thesis is to find and support the ambitious entrepreneurs who are creating today’s most disruptive venture structures, and to invest directly in tomorrow’s category-defining leaders. As a result of these efforts, our firm has been described as a “Y Combinator for proven entrepreneurs” as they embark on the next phase of their careers, whether that means starting a new business, incubating multiple startups through a venture studio, or launching a new venture fund. The second thesis is to assist institutional investors with off-market proprietary access to unique managers and
entrepreneurs before they become access-constrained. We work to identify LPs who share our values and our mission, and who can bring something unique to the managers and entrepreneurs we fund. Our investment theses have led us to the cutting edge of developments in venture structures. We have been backing and aiding in the formation of venture studios and network-based models since the firm’s inception. These represent a true innovation to venture development, one that adopts the principle of community to build
network effects and talent pools that will create tomorrow’s multi-billion-dollar startups.
The Transpose Platform Network & Community
Transpose Platform has built a unique network of founders who have collectively created $50 billion in value, $25 billion in company exits, and $830 billion in investment market cap. In total, Transpose Platform Management has deployed
about $475M among 57 entrepreneurs. There are 25 unicorns in our portfolio as of September 30, 2020. Our involvement with venture studios and other disruptive venture platforms, in particular, has generated a rich and exciting network of some of the industry’s most inspiring minds. Venture studios create companies by pairing business ideas with entrepreneurs and top talent in growth and engineering. By developing and incubating
multiple companies at once, they de-risk fund investments at the seed stage by pivoting to support only the concepts that prove viable and reallocating staff to those projects.
These strong, flexible teams have begun to attract seasoned entrepreneurs and the industry’s top talent. We have aided in the formation of several studios, and are eager to make introductions when we discover common goals or synergies between portfolio companies, entrepreneurs, and LPs. Transpose Platform Management LPs are some of the largest endowments, foundations, SWFs, pensions, and insurance companies in the world. Our relationships with many LPs in our network pre-date the formation of Transpose Platform.
Our focus is always on serving our LPs by connecting them to the opportunities that best match their needs and their missions.
Diversity and the Future of Tech
Both Transpose Platform and our network of LPs care deeply about diversity, equity, and inclusion. As a firm founded on the principle that diversity yields strength and resilience, we are honored to host this event dedicated to enhancing diversity as we work together to imagine and give shape to the future of the tech sector.
Sincerely,
Alex, Trang and Transpose Platform Team
Attendees
Serena Williams
Founder & Managing Partner, Serena Ventures
Joel R. Wittenberg
Former Chief Investment Officer & VP, W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Elizabeth M. Hewitt
Chief Investment Officer & Senior Vice President
Alex Bangash
Co-founder, Transpose Platform
Allen Huang
Director of Investments
Lisa Skeete Tatum
Founder and CEO, Landit
Samuel N. Gallo
CIO, University System of Maryland Foundation
Alice Bentinck
Co-Founder & GP, Entrepreneur First
Alyssa C. Rieder
Chief Investment Officer, CommonSpirit Health
Brian Neale
CIO, University of Nebraska Foundation
Serena Williams embodies style, power, beauty and courage. The longest ranked #1, the most successful female player of the Open Era and prized WTA player of all time, Serena has overcome insurmountable odds to win 23 career grand slams. Not only is she remarkable at tennis, her success with endeavors outside of the sport include film, television, and fashion. Her tennis ability combined with her off-court presence makes her one of the most recognizable names and faces in the world – an icon.
Serena has won a title in all four grand slam tournaments. She has won 73 singles championships, 23 doubles championships, and was also gold-medalist at the 2000 (doubles), 2008 (doubles), and 2012 (singles and doubles) Olympics. In 2015, Serena won four grand slams: Wimbledon, The French Open, The Australian Open, and The 2014 US Open, a feat affectionately known as the “Serena Slam”. With such accomplishments, Sports Illustrated named Serena their “2015 Sportsperson of The Year”. In 2017, Serena went on to clinch the Australian open to win her 23rd Grand Slam title.
Off the court, Serena has become a well-recognized in the business, fashion and entertainment space, In 2018, Serena has used her passion and savvy for fashion to launch her own clothing label, S By Serena, which was been featured at New York Fashion Week 2019, as well as her Serena Williams Jewelry line. On the small screen, Serena released a five-part Emmy award-winning docuseries on HBO titled “Being Serena.” In 2014, Serena began her foray into investing by creating Serena Ventures, her own venture capital firm focused on investing in companies that embrace leadership, individual empowerment, creativity and opportunity.
Serena is deeply committed to other philanthropic causes, supporting organizations such as UNICEF, The S.E. Tennis and Learning Center, The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, Race for the Homeless, Stop the Violence, The Special Olympics, and The Arthur Ashe Foundation.
Alex is the managing director of Transpose Platform, an anchor fund for the most disruptive venture funds of this decade. He is also the co-founder and former CEO of Trusted Insight, a machine learning–driven platform that hosts the world’s largest network of institutional investors. Prior to TI Platform, Alex managed capital for clients at premier endowments, foundations, family offices, insurance firms, sovereign wealth funds, and pension funds since 2003.
He has helped invest over $2 billion in 50 funds with a track record of investing over $1 billion in 50+ funds for institutional investors with an IRR of 30%+ and 2x NAV. He advised the first checks in Accel, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Emergence, Y Combinator, Khosla, SaaStr, Initialized, Crystal Towers, and Baseline. Earlier in his career, Alex was an engineer and executive at AT&T, Lucent Technologies, Bell Labs, and GE. Alex holds an MBA from the Wharton School (where he is a frequent guest lecturer); an M.Eng in Operation Research from Cornell; and a BS in Computer Science, English and Economics from Cornell.
Joel Wittenberg recently retired as vice president and chief investment officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan. He is now independently advising institutional investors as Managing Partner of Joel Wittenberg Consulting LLC and Lone Pine Investments LLC.
Prior to joining the foundation, Wittenberg was vice president at the Kellogg Company, serving as treasurer as well as heading up investor relations. Before joining the Kellogg Company, he was vice president and treasurer with Armstrong World Industries and held several key treasury roles with the Dow Chemical Company. Wittenberg earned his Bachelor of Science in accounting and finance at the Eli Broad Graduate School of Management at Michigan State University, and his Master of Business Administration from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan
Chief Investment Officer & Senior Vice President
Elizabeth Hewitt joined the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in 2015 as Chief Investment Officer and Senior Vice President. As Chief Investment Officer, Hewitt is responsible for managing the Foundation’s endowment, including asset allocation strategy, fund manager selection, risk analysis, portfolio performance valuation, and liquidity management. Prior to joining the Foundation, Hewitt was Managing Director of Public Investments at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation where she selected and monitored investments with managers, helped set asset allocation policy, and contributed to overall portfolio management. Earlier in her career, Hewitt was a Senior Vice President for Lazard Asset Management (2001-2006), a Hedge Fund Analyst for The Torrey Funds (1999-2001), and a Wealth Management Associate for the U.S. Trust Corporation (1998-1999). She holds an MA from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. She is also a member of the Investment Committee for The Madeira School, McLean VA.
Allen Huang is a Director of Investments for MSU. Prior to joining MSU, he led asset allocation, investment manager selection, and portfolio management for the fixed income asset class at the Indiana Public Retirement System (INPRS). Prior to joining INPRS in 2011, he worked at Barclays Capital and GE Capital in various investment capacities predominantly focused on the traditional energy and renewables sector. Allen has an MBA from the University of Southern California and a BS in finance from Northeastern University.
Lisa is Founder and CEO of Landit, a personalized career pathing platform created to increase the success and engagement of women and diverse groups in the workplace. Landit partners with Fortune 500 companies around the globe to offer a turnkey solution at scale that enables organizations to better democratize access and success with a clear and measurable ROI. She is a chemical engineer from Cornell, an MBA from Harvard Business School, a former venture capitalist, and sits on both public and private boards. She’s passionate about unlocking talent and dreams for everyone in the workplace.
As the Chief Investment Officer of the University System of Maryland Foundation, Sam is responsible for the investment of endowment and operating fund assets of 23 higher education institutions within the State of Maryland.
Sam’s prior experience includes leadership roles with financial service provider PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), investment consulting firm Ennis Knupp & Associates, and proprietary trading firm Goldenberg Hehmeyer & Company.
Sam earned a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and Bachelor of Science degrees in Accounting and Finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
Alice Bentinck MBE is cofounder and General Partner at Entrepreneur First. Entrepreneur First invests in top technical individuals to help them build world-class deep technology startups from scratch in six locations across Europe and Asia. Since 2011, Entrepreneur First has created over 200 startups worth over $1.5bn including Magic Pony Technology, Tractable and CloudNC. EF’s investors include LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman and Greylock Partners, alongside Mosaic Ventures, Lakestar and Founders Fund. She also set up Code First: Girls, a not-for-profit that has taught 30,000 women to code for free while at university. Alice started her career at McKinsey & Co. She was awarded an MBE for services to business in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours. Alice is also a member of the UK AI Council, representing the UK AI Sector on the international stage.
Alyssa Rieder, is Chief Investment Officer of CommonSpirit Health’s $27 billion investment program. Prior to joining in 2011, Alyssa spent time at UC Investments, Franklin Templeton Investments, Starvista, and McKinsey & Company. Alyssa holds an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business where she was an Arjay Miller Scholar, and a B.A. in Quantitative Economics with honors from Stanford University. She is a member of the CFA Society of San Francisco, the CFA Institute, and the CIPM Association and holds the Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting credential. Alyssa serves on boards for Sempra Energy’s Nuclear Decommissioning Trust and Castilleja School.