Metcalf matches with The Engine

Lara Metcalf joined The Engine, the tough tech venture firm set up by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as chief financial officer and chief operating officer on Friday.
The appointment marks a return to The Engine for Metcalf, who had been a fellow at the firm for 11 months in 2018. She has also been an adviser to MIT Solve, a social impact innovation platform, since May 2019.
Metcalf was previously managing director of early-stage impact venture capital outfit Social Entrepreneur’s Fund from late 2018. As part of that position, she also served as chief financial officer for its three funds and the related Maycomb Community Outcomes Fund.
Before this, she served as chief financial officer and chief operating officer of Social Finance, a social enterprise running a public-private partnership financing programme, from 2013 to 2018.
Having earlier had an 18-year-long career on Wall Street that concluded in 2007, she served as chief financial officer, chief administrative officer and senior associate dean for operations at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government from 2009 to 2013.
Metcalf’s appointment follows The Engine raising a $230m second fund last month, backed by MIT and Harvard, and the appointment of Sue Siegel as chairwoman earlier in October.
Metcalf will be responsible for overseeing organisational and fund operations, as well as financial aspects and the firm’s infrastructure projects. She will also work with LPs, the board of directors and assist portfolio companies with financial strategy, exits and M&A efforts.
She said: “What I find most compelling about The Engine is its emphasis on leveraging science to drive positive change in the world. My career has been spent at the intersection of finance and impact, finding ways to use capital markets in innovative ways to solve big challenges.
“I am thrilled to lend my experience to help The Engine’s founders gain access to the financial tools they need to commercialise breakthrough technology and make progress on important problems like climate change, address urgent health challenges like the current pandemic and move forward quantum computing and other advanced systems.”
– Image courtesy of The Engine