The rest of the 100 (in alphabetical order): Beth Ferreira, managing partner, WME Ventures
Wisdom comes from experience, which is often earned as much by challenges as successes.
Beth Ferreira, managing partner of WME Ventures, the investment unit of WME IMG, understands the entrepreneurial perspective from both sides, having previously been chief operating officer of fashion startup Fab.
Fab was sold in early 2015 for what news provider TechCrunch reported as a “fire sale price” of $15m compared with the approximate $300m it had raised at a $1bn valuation.
Ferreira had left a year before Fab’s acquisition by PCH International in February 2014.
During her time at Fab, she was a venture partner at Firstmark Capital, a VC firm co-founded by Amish Jani, an alumnus of Wharton who finished his MBA at the University of Pennsylvania’s business school two years before Ferreira.
WME Ventures is her first corporate venturing role after former financial and operational experiences at investment banks UBS and JP Morgan.
After leaving JP Morgan in 2002, she spent three years at management consultants Boston Consulting Group and then the same amount of time at crafts site Etsy.
WME Ventures is a new fund set up in July using money from the talent agency as well as third-parties.
As a new unit, Ferreira is kept busy. She said: “I am responsible for fundraising – we have outside capital as well – sourcing, deal execution and management of the portfolio, as well as the management of the fund.
“We have quickly put together the fund, had our first closing and started to build the team. We have started to make investments, including a seed stage investment in an exciting e-sports company, Forge.”
She said she was looking forward to “educating the technology and VC community about the new fund and WME’s new approach to venture investing and hoped the industry could become stronger through “more sharing and collaboration”.
