Lei Qi, venture principal at Alliance Ventures, is one of our top 50 Emerging Leaders in corporate venturing for 2026.
Silicon Valley-based Alliance Ventures invests as a three-way partnership between European and Asian automotive manufacturers Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, and venture principal Lei Qi embodies that international reach.
“I specialise in cross-border investments, so I really can help companies launch internationally,” she says. “Most of my portfolio are either US companies, where I am helping to launch their business in Europe, Japan and China, or Chinese companies looking to expand in Europe and sometimes Japan.”
Qi was a management consultant at Bain & Company before trying corporate strategy, only to find the pace too slow. When she found out Chinese carmaker SAIC was putting together a corporate VC arm in Silicon Valley, she jumped at the chance to get involved.
“It is really about how you help the company grow, how you do post-investment management, how you help them get into the corporate and to IPO trajectory”
“Corporate venture is a combination of corporate strategy, corporate development and venture capital, so it was a natural fit for me at the time,” says Qi. “And my consulting background helps a lot when I look at different founders and projects.”
Qi stayed at SAIC Capital for three years, before joining Alliance Ventures in 2018.
The unit was building a global mobility platform and wanted someone with US, Chinese and global experience in CVC. The role has allowed Qi to improve her AI knowledge as the mobility sector evolves.
She has been in automotive CVC for more than a decade and her network includes some of the best-known founders in the sector. If she ever moves on, she would like to launch a CVC partnership fund inspired by the Alliance structure, but for now, the portfolio reaps the benefits of her experience.
“It is really about how you help the company grow, how you do post-investment management, how you help them get into the corporate and to IPO trajectory,” she says. “Those things are the hidden knowledge you have to go through the VC cycle to really understand.”
The Emerging Leaders are mid-career corporate venture professionals who are making an outstanding contribution to their teams and the industry.
See the full list of Emerging Leaders here.
