Lifetime achievement award 2017: Claudia Fan Munce

“Can you help us innovate?” Senior executives are increasingly turning to corporate venturers to provide an answer to this critical question, a testament to the consummate skill of the professionals who built the industry.

Claudia Fan Munce, former head of US-based technology corporation IBM’s venture capital unit, has helped lead the corporate venturing (CVC) industry from its early years, when it was effectively a footnote in the financial venture capital story, to its current levels of mainstream appreciation.

In a previous interview for Global Corporate Venturing’s Powerlist 100, Fan Munce said: “From the days of having to explain ourselves to having people calling on you, asking: ‘Can you help us innovate?’ – that is the biggest change.”

Answering the question, however, requires a CVC leader who is passionate about innovation, entrepreneurs and co-investors.

For those who have this passion, Fan Munce said the job was thrilling. “If you are a geek at heart, it is like being a kid in a candy store – every day you learn about a new entrepreneur, a new technology, new disruptions, new paradigms, new business models.”

But enthusiasm must often be coupled with the political savvy required to ensure disruptive ideas are heard by senior management and acted on, particularly within the bureaucracy of a large corporation.

For CVC industry professionals who are just starting out, Fan Munce advised: “Now that CVCs have increasingly high-profile roles in corporations, it is all the more important to find champions who can really back you to do what you are doing. Make sure the CEOs and the business line managers understand the strategic value of venturing in filling the gaps they are seeing in the markets today, and be prepared for the new markets of tomorrow.”

A business leader with an international background, Fan Munce was born in Taiwan, grew up in Brazil and moved to the San Francisco Bay area in 1983 to further her education.

After earning a master of science in electrical engineering and computer science from Santa Clara University, and completing a summer internship at IBM, Fan Munce joined the company in 1985. She said she chose IBM over its rival Hewlett-Packard because IBM “paid less than a dollar more – for a poor student, a dollar per hour was a big deal”.

A variety of technical and business leadership positions followed, including head of commercialisation and licensing at an IBM Research Lab. She was a founding member of IBM Venture Capital Group in 2000, was named managing director and global head in 2004, and then took on the role of vice-president of corporate strategy and corporate development.

At IBM she led a team that worked with more than 300 venture capital firms across 41 countries to develop innovations worldwide, including setting up a $100m Watson Fund to take equity stakes in startups supporting the ecosystem around machine learning. Her leadership drew the admiration of her peers.

Dan’l Lewin, who, as corporate vice-president, set up software provider Microsoft’s worldwide engagement efforts with the venture capital and startup community, including BizSpark and related Microsoft Innovation Centres, said: “Claudia brought clarity and purpose to the why and how IBM engaged [with entrepreneurs] and created value to the venture capital community. Without her leadership and guidance the elephant would have stomped and not danced.”

The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), the industry’s advocacy group in the US, invited Fan Munce to join the board in 2012, creating a board seat for a corporate venturing leader for the first time in its 43-year history. “It was the proudest moment of my career,” Fan Munce said, “to have received the unanimous nominations of my peers to represent corporate venture on the board of the NVCA.”

More broadly, Fan Munce was the first chairman of the board of Global Corporate Venturing’s Leadership Society, adviser to the American Association for Advancement of Science, and advisory board member of several global venture capital organisations, including the Latin American Venture Capital Association, Women in Leadership in Private Equity in China, Canadian Innovation Exchange, Savannah Fund in Africa and others.

Worth Magazine named Fan Munce one of the 20 most powerful players in Silicon Valley, alongside tech CEOs such as Marissa Mayer and financial venture capitalists such as Marc Andreessen in 2015.

In the same year, Fan Munce retired from IBM after 30 years of service, and promptly stepped into several new roles – venture adviser to storied VC firm NEA, and board member of financial services provider Bank of the West/BNP Paribas Group and consumer electronics retailer Best Buy, as the two companies added top innovation expertise to their decision-making.

Scott Sandell, managing general partner of NEA, said: “I have worked closely with Claudia as a board member while serving as the chairman of the NVCA board. I am delighted to have her now as part of the NEA team.”

Still devoted to the corporate venturing community she helped to build, Fan Munce also lectures at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where she earned a master of business administration degree, and recently joined Broadway Angels, a high-profile angel investment network for women.

Indeed, since retiring, Fan Munce is as busy as ever, and she joked that she had not even had time to accept invitations to speak at corporate retreats in exotic locations. Instead, she prioritises time with family and friends over business trips.

George Ugras, who took over from Fan Munce as head of IBM Venture Capital, said of his predecessor: “Claudia has been a pillar in the corporate venture community for over a decade, and played a critical role in establishing the segment as a key one for the venture capital industry. Veterans and newcomers into our industry continually seek her advice and benefit greatly from her generously sharing her experiences. We are all grateful to her.”

As a keynote speaker at the Global Corporate Venturing Symposium 2016, Fan Munce said demand for top talent had reached “an all-time high thanks to growing recognition of the importance of corporate venture capital”.

There is no higher talent than her own.