Joining the NVCA Board of Directors
At the 2007 National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) annual meeting, I was elected to the NVCA board, where I now serve on the NVCA’s Education Committee along with Ira Ehrenpreis of Technology Partners and Terry McGuire of Polaris Ventures. In addition to Ira and me, six other venture capitalists join this year’s class of incoming board members– Jim Hale, FT Ventures; Paul Maeder, Highland Capital Partners; Kate Mitchell, Scale Venture Partners; Roger Novak, Novak Biddle Venture Partners; David Prend, Rockport Capital Partners; and Jonathan Root, US Venture Partners. Each of us will serve a four year term. In conjunction with the incoming directors, Ted Schlein of KPCB has taken the gavel from outgoing chairman Bob Grady of Carlyle.
Since this blog’s inception in 2005, a substantial portion of its content has been devoted to discussing questions of professional education, emphasizing director responsibilities and best corporate governance practices in venture capital. I’ve been writing about these issues in public since 1999, and Levensohn Venture Partners added podcasting as a tool to promote these professional education outreach efforts last year with the creation of the VC-InsideOut Governance Series.
Education in our industry involves educating regulators, legislators, and other public policymakers about the importance of venture capital to the U.S. economy, and I intend to use my new role in our industry association to extend the reach of the best governance practices work that I’ve driven through collaborative white papers, webinars, podcasts, and speeches at VC industry forums since "After the Term Sheet…" was first released in 2003.
Continuing to educate myself about the increasingly complex business and regulatory environment in which we operate is an ongoing process, and I am honored to have the opportunity to contribute to the NVCA’s leadership in this important area of professional development.
Related posts:
- Working Group on Director Accountability Releases “A Simple Guide to the Basic Responsibilities of VC-Backed Company Directors”
- PWC Podcast Interview of Pascal Levensohn and Stephane Dupont of NVCA on VC Board Governance
- Who are the Members of the Working Group on Director Accountability and Board Effectiveness?
- VC Board Education and the Implications of the HP Settlement
- Most Public Company Boards Conduct Full-Board Evaluations and Find Them Effective
2 Responses to “Joining the NVCA Board of Directors”
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About Pascal
I am a venture capitalist focused on investing in Security, Cleantech, and Digital Media. I have a strong interest in public policy issues and advocate public-private collaboration to protect our nation's critical infrastructure.
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May 9th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Having served on the selection committee for Venture Downtown, Venture Capital Conference in NYC along with being a small business dealing with VCs in our deal with selling our company to AOL, I completely sympathize with the need to educate those within and those seeking capital through those avenues.
I am here today to inquire about another side of education: educating the leaders of the companies in which the VCs have backed. HBR, January 2007 Special Issue is focused on “The Tests of a Leader” with articles such as “Moments of Truth: Global Executives Talk About the Challenges That Shaped Them as Leaders” and “Leading Change”. In the first article, they address the right stuff a leader needs to lead such as Humility, Energy, Intuition, Vision, Perspective, Passion, Conviction and Learning. My guess is you want all of your leaders to possess these qualities — all at once. That is a tall order — even for the most seasoned executives. I have seen grown men and women cry, literally, under the pressures VCs place on them without support.
Executive Coaching is one way in which the VC community can provide support/education for these executives or other leaders within the organization. Disclosure: this is my line of business, however, I am truly interested in understanding the VC’s POV on this topic: how they support the leaders they financially back.
May 9th, 2007 at 8:05 am
As on many topics, VC’s have a wide variety of opinions on the subject of Executive Coaching. Speaking for Levensohn Venture Partners, we value the skills of organizational development professionals and have retained OD/management consultants to work with our portfolio companies at various times on CEO development issues, post-merger integration challenges, and strategic/competitive analysis. Team building at VC-backed companies is all about addressing the issues outlined in your comment. Unfortunately, many VC’s view consultants as an unnecessary expense. It has been my experience, however, that, on the contrary, executive coaches can deliver value to a company that far exceeds their fees.
My white papers do point out the value of working with third party consultants during challenging times. Perhaps we should work with them before times become so challenging.