NVCA’s James sets out objectives

Our objective for the year May 2014- May 2015 is to assure that the NVCA CVG remains the global leader and “gold standard” organization for corporate venture investors.  I am very grateful to have the chairpersonship opportunity at such a pivotal time for corporate venture investors as our numbers have significantly increased and many of the strategic investors are becoming a more important part of funding syndicates including taking on the role of lead investor.  I think this puts more pressure on the CVG to meet the needs of an organization that is both fast growing and one that is more demanding as the members feel the need to adapt to this larger role.  Today’s members are interested in extracting very specific benefits from the CVG and it is really important now for us to make sure we are addressing the critical needs of our membership. Elaine Jones, Pfizer, the out-going CVG Chairperson, had the foresight last year to make sure we understood our members needs that we validated through an interview process which determined that the most important needs are 1) networking; both peer-to-peers as well as making connections with the VC industry at large, and 2) education; by sharing best practices and industry insights, and 3) communication; to make sure are informing our membership about what is happening within the CVG and the industry.

We have close to 100 CVG members from a list that mirrors the top Fortune companies that have venture investing initiatives.  The CVG connects directly with the NVCA Board through two excellent Board representatives, Claudia Fan Munce, IBM Venture Capital Group and Sue Siegel, GE Ventures.  We have a 16 member advisory board and each member serves on one of three committees.  The committees are designed to meet the critical membership needs we identified as well as work on a “special challenge”:

• The Education Committee is chaired by Matt McElhattan from Chevron Venture Capital, who is also the CVG in-coming Chairperson.
• Events and Outreach is chaired by George Hoyem from In-Q-Tel
• Communications is chaired by Reese Schroeder, Motorola Solutions Venture Capital

The Education Committee is focused on providing group discussions for our membership on topics that will address industry insights and CVG best practices.  We are calling them “Coffee Pots” and in fact our inaugural conference call is today and is called Inches, Fathoms or Fluff: Measuring Corporate Venture Capital Performance.  The Education Committee’s “challenge” is to develop a baseline of understanding about CVG educational courses / programs that are currently available and determine which ones are important to recommend to the membership.  We are also thinking that if there are education gaps we can develop a plan to address.  We are also thinking about the potential for a CVG Investment profession certification.

The Events and Outreach Committee will continue to organize and sponsor regional gatherings across the country to provide networking opportunities for the CVG membership.  We also use the opportunity to invite potential new CVG members so they can get a first-hand view of the organization.  We have plans for NYC, Boston, Washington, DC, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle and San Francisco.

As we have become a more significant force in the industry a lot of other groups trying to cater to corporate venture investing community have sprung up.  At this point I would say there is some confusion within the CVG constituency about all of these other groups and their potential value.  The NVCA CVG considers this an opportunity to make stronger connections with the best of these groups and help guide our members to these groups based on their specific need. The Events & Outreach Committee has been “challenged” to lead the charge in making these connections.

Additionally I want to highlight the annual CVG Fall Summit which will be held in Huntington Beach, CA on Nov 6, 2014 which will be hosted by Intel.  This is a special meeting for our members and is by invitation only.

The third committee is our Communications Committee.  It is a new committee for this year as we respond to the needs of our membership who would like to have an easy way to know what is going on corporate venture investing arena, as well as what else within the NVCA is relevant to our membership.  We are anxiously awaiting the “challenge” for Reese and his team to issue our first communication to our membership in the mid-Sept timeframe.

Another important element that we will take a look at is to see if we can land on a legislative agenda that is supported by the corporate membership and will benefit the innovation ecosystem as a whole.  Over the past few years we have become aware of actions taken in the UK, Japan, France and others who are passing legislation that encourages corporations to invest in startup companies.  We want to determine what would be effective, as well as supported, by our government.

Finally, I so respect the hard work and dedication from our committee leaders and core advisory board team.  I would not be throwing out all these challenges unless I was also challenging myself.  As we look at the demographics of our membership today we have good representation across many sectors, however one we seem light on is the Consumer Products sector.  We have some illustrious members already, and my personal challenge is to work to bring more consumer products corporate venture capital groups in around the CVG table.