Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2017: Therese Jordan

Therese (Terri) Jordan is director of new business development at Japan-based materials and healthcare group Asahi Kasei’s US subsidiary America and works as part of its corporate venturing capital group in Menlo Park, California, to identify and develop seed investments.

She said: “This is my first position in corporate venturing at Asahi Kasei Ventures]. I became interested in this line of work following Asahi Kasei’s acquisition of a startup that I was working in, Crystal IS.

“Following the acquisition in 2011 I stayed on at that company as a senior vice-president of business development and after four years was looking for a new challenge.

“I was intrigued by the possibility of helping to shape the company’s investment strategy, particularly when it came to cleantech and especially water purification, which was topically what I was involved with at Crystal IS.

“I came to this role only in January 2016 and am just getting started. One of the challenges we have is how to monitor and evaluate our minority investments once we have made them.

“I have spent some time this year developing a methodology to help us to do this with discipline and attention to both strategic alignment and financial return, while also engaging with stakeholders across our company.”

Jordan said she sat on one board as an observer. Asahi Kasei Ventures’ portfolio includes Trevi Systems and Axine Water Technologies as water-focused deals, as well as Mirexus in nanomaterials, Envia Systems in batteries and Aryballe Technologies in industrials and Steripen and Chrono Therapeutics in healthcare.

And she added: “Identifying startups that fall in our sweet spot is of course always a challenge. And, frankly, trying to understand which investments are the right ones to inspire a ‘yes’ vote from our investment committee as things change in the business all the time.

“Another challenge for me is being in a role which is sometimes peripheral to the core business interests. My entire career, beginning at GE [until 2004] and later at other medium sized and smaller companies [Victrex and Konarka] I have been in operational leadership roles.

“The CVC task is something quite different from this and requires a degree of patience and influencing skills that I am still learning. I do find that it is critical to have a cultural value that embraces a spirit of play and experimentation in making these investments.

“Living in possibility means needing to let go of the illusion of certainty and low risk. I think we are doing this fairly well. But we could always do better.

“In my spare time I am a triathlete and am an avid hiker. I also have raised three amazing children who are now all in college and beyond.”