These are the 100 most influential people who are influencing the corporate venturing industry.

The best of times and the worst of times for CVC
This is both the era of corporate venture capital power and a time of great challenge for this asset class. The number of corporations backing startups has tripled in the past decade and now stands at some 2,344. Corporate investors are part of one-in-six startup funding rounds globally. Investments in AI startups by companies such as Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon and SoftBank are setting new records on valuation. The $40bn funding found for AI-developer OpenAI, led by SoftBank earlier this year, was the largest funding round for a startup to date.
The GCV Powerlist, a list compiled every year by the Global Corporate Venturing editorial team to showcase the leaders of this industry, reflects this era of power. The size of the funds that many Powerlisters command is sizeable. Stefan Gabriel at Hitachi Ventures, for example, is one of the most recent to join the “unicorn” club of CVC units, with funds of more than $1bn. Aramco Ventures is one of the largest, with some $7bn across several funds, and SoftBank is an extreme outlier, with $170bn.
This year’s Powerlist also reflects the increasingly global nature of CVC, with investors from 20 countries represented. And the CVC sector is still growing: we added 36 new names to the list this year.
At the same time, the CVC sector has never been more vulnerable. Corporations are demanding more from their investment arms. Almost every investor we spoke to for the Powerlist was laser-focused on making sure the unit was providing strategic benefits for the parent corporation.
A few units have closed this year, and JetBlue Ventures, led by Powerlist veteran Amy Burr, was sold off to Sky Leasing, as parent JetBlue focuses on returning to profitability.
There is also some shifting in models. Venture clienting is gaining in popularity, alongside venture investing. Lars Roessler was ahead of the curve when he founded BSH Startup Kitchen to focus on this six years ago. Meanwhile, Piyush Puri, founding partner of Mercurius Media Capital, is pursuing an alternative media-for-equity investment model.
In short, CVC is powerful, but in flux. Where it goes next is still unfolding, but will be largely in the hands of these 100 leaders showcased in the 2025 Powerlist.
Powerlist 2025 (alphabetically in order of surname)
- Talia Abramowitz, Deloitte Ventures
- Jim Adler, Toyota Ventures
- Kitty Agarwal, Info Edge Ventures
- Shiri Ailon, Syngenta Group
- Sheshadri Amathnadu, SK Telecom Ventures
- Bruno Arcadier, Vale Ventures
- Murat Oğuz Arcan, Sabanci Climate Ventures
- Daniel Ateya, RTX Ventures
- Roy Bahat, Bloomberg Beta
- Marcus Behrendt, BMW i Ventures
- Paul Bernard, Amazon
- Gareth Burns, BP Ventures
- Amy Burr, JetBlue Ventures
- Eve Burton, HearstLab
- Alex Clavel, SoftBank Investment Advisers
- Adam Coccari, HubSpot Ventures
- Carsten Coesfeld, Bertelsmann Investments
- Anirvan Coomer, GM Ventures
- Jeanne Cunicelli, UPMC Enterprises
- Scott Darling, Dell Technologies Capital
- Michael Diem, Pfizer Ventures
- Terry Doyle, Telus Global Ventures
- Juergen Eckhardt, Leaps by Bayer
- Andrew Ferguson, Databricks Ventures
- Jenna Foger, Alexandria Venture Investments
- Jim Gable, Chevron Technology Venture
- Stefan Gabriel, Hitachi Ventures
- Lukasz Garbowski, BTomorrow Ventures
- Olivier Garel, Unilever Ventures
- John Glushik, HG Ventures
- Hakan Goker & Owen Lozman, M Ventures
- Allison Goldberg, Comcast Ventures
- Irene Gómez, Wayra Telefónica
- Frederico Goncalves, EDP Ventures
- Michelle Gonzalez, M12
- Kaz Hadano, Sony Ventures Corporation
- Jason P. Hafler, Sanofi Ventures
- Edgar Hardless, Singtel Innov8
- Ian Hathaway, OpenAI Startup Fund
- George He, Lenovo Capital
- James Ho, Animoca Ventures
- In Joon Hwang, Z Venture Capital
- Derek Idemoto, Cisco Investments
- George Kellerman, Woven Capital
- Mohamed Khalil, Mastercard
- Albert Kim, Samsung Venture Global
- Dong-Su Kim, LG Technology Ventures
- Seung-wook Kim, Lotte Ventures
- Takeshi Kodama, JERA Ventures
- Anja König, Novartis Venture Fund
- David Krane, GV
- Crispin Leick, EnBW New Ventures
- Peter Lenke, Atlassian Ventures
- Jacqueline LeSage, Munich Re Ventures
- Moran Levinovitz, HSBC
- Jeffrey Li, Tencent Investment
- Quinn Li, Qualcomm Ventures
- Anthony Lin, Intel Capital
- James Loftus, PayPal Ventures
- Barbry McGann, Workday Ventures
- Mads Møller, ABB Electrification
- Chris Moran, Lockheed Martin Ventures
- Kosuke Mori, Saison Capital
- Vuyo Mpako, Next176
- Mohamed Nanabhay, Mozilla Ventures
- Bruce Niven, Saudi Aramco
- Kei Onishi, Yamaha Motor Ventures
- Marinus Oosterbeek & Vincent Baillin, Opera Tech Ventures
- Sagi Paz, AMD Ventures
- Chris Picariello, Johnson & Johnson Innovation
- Piyush Puri, Mercurius Media Capital
- Arvind Purushotham, Citi Ventures
- Jeff Ren, OKX Ventures
- Lars Roessler, BSH Startup Kitchen
- David Rolf, Visa Ventures
- Doug Russell, MassMutual Ventures
- Nicolas Sauvage, TDK Ventures
- Craig Schedler, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures
- Elizabeth Gunner Schermer, Maersk Growth
- Jaidev Shergill, Capital One Ventures
- Yi Shi, Lilly Asia Ventures
- Mohamed Siddeek, NVentures
- Raj Singh, JLL Spark Global Ventures
- Mike Smeed, InMotion Ventures
- Jeffery Smith, Bristol Myers Squibb
- Jon Soberg, MS&AD Ventures
- John Somorjai, Salesforce Ventures
- Tamara Steffens, Thomson Reuters Ventures
- Matt Sueoka, Amex Ventures
- Tony Sun, GC Ventures
- Pradeep Tagare, National Grid Partners
- Bill Taranto, MSD Global Health Innovation
- Hoolie Tejwani, Coinbase Ventures
- Megann Watters, Labcorp Venture Fund
- Stefan Williams, Snowflake Ventures
- Ben Wright, 3M Ventures
- Shintaro Yamakami, Colopl Next
- Jun Yasumoto, NTT Docomo Ventures
- Raymond Zheng, Honda Xcelerator Ventures
- Franz Zöchbauer, Verbund Ventures