John Glushik, managing director at HG Ventures, is one of the 100 leading corporate venturing professionals in our 2025 Powerlist.

John Glushik brings more than 25 years of venturing experience to his role at HG Ventures, the corporate investment arm of the Heritage Group. He began his venturing career at VC firm Intersouth Partners in 1999, followed by a stint as managing director of Duke Angel Network.
The Heritage Group is a 95-year-old family-owned business in its fourth generation of leadership, which has allowed for a distinctive corporate venture model. The team is able to be patient with long-term investments, “because we have one very supportive and active LP, our corporate parent, who is patient, has a history of success and is focused on long-term value creation,” says Glushik.
“We develop our individual investment professionals along a set of skills to establish as a venture capitalist, but more importantly, developing the relationships and the experiences they need to effectively support entrepreneurs.”
Glushik joined the company in 2018 and helped set up HG Ventures, together with Kip Frey. The duo worked closely with the family to design the unit, ensuring buy-in from the top. They also leaned heavily on learnings from other CVC units they had observed, mixing and matching the strengths of these programmes without the typical drawbacks.
The HG Ventures team has a strong ethos of personal development, says Glushik. “We develop our individual investment professionals along a set of skills to establish as a venture capitalist, but more importantly, developing the relationships and the experiences they need to effectively support entrepreneurs.”
The emphasis on relationship-building has worked well. “Building trusted and supportive relationships always helps you in the long run,” says Glushik. “Many of the deals I have done in my career have been with entrepreneurs I have met previously and did not invest in,” he says.
The unit’s investment focus spans environmental services, including circular economy technologies, construction materials and speciality chemicals. HG Ventures has been very active during the first seven years in all of these sectors, including some supporting software technologies.
The Heritage Group has a large construction business so HG Ventures explores new technologies relevant to this area. “That is something that we see as an ongoing opportunity, finding new ways of doing things, new materials and new technologies that can help that business and overall safety within the construction world.”

The Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist represents the 100 individuals spearheading the future of the corporate venturing industry.
These individuals excel in terms of their venturing approach and structure, number and quality of portfolio companies and in their contributions to the corporate venturing profession.