Welcome, New Blackbirds
In 2019, you might have seen us put the call out for a General Counsel, a Chief of Staff, a People Lead, a Portfolio Analyst, a Financialā¦
In 2019, you might have seen us put the call out for a General Counsel, a Chief of Staff, a People Lead, a Portfolio Analyst, a Financial Accountant and a Business Operator.
Itās with great pleasure that we can introduce you to the seven new Blackbirds that have joined us for 2020 and beyond.
Justine NangleāāāGeneral Counsel
Justine Nangle is joining us to oversee all of the legal and compliance aspects of running Blackbird. With more than 50 Blackbird companies, more than 100 Startmate companies, and multiple funds, Blackbird is becoming an increasingly complex organisation. At any one time between new investments, follow-on investments and new funds, we might be working with lawyers on 10ā20 transactions simultaneously, in multiple jurisdictions. Having Justine take the lead for us here is going to be a major upgrade to our team (and collective sanity).
Previously, Justine was Head of Legal & Compliance at CHAMP Private Equity in Sydney and Head of Legal at Pantheon Ventures in London. Justine studied Japanese in addition to law (Blackbird Tokyo, here we come!), barracks for the Parramatta Eels, and is Mum to two boys, 7 and 4.
Sophie TaylorāāāChief of Staff
Sophie Taylor is joining us as Chief of Staff. Her first big job is going to be acting as patrol captain for the fundraising process for Blackbirdās fourth fund. Which is handy, because on weekends, sheās a patrol captain at Tamarama Beach. As well as that, Sophie is going to be focussed on scaling Blackbird the company, ensuring the trains run on time for the Blackbird board, the management company, and the day-to-day of investing and operating Blackbird Ventures.
Previously, Sophie was Strategy Manager at Koala and an IP lawyer at K&L Gates. We were lucky enough to invest in Sophieās brother Scottās startup Perx through Startmate in 2018 so weāre already big fans of the Taylor clan.
Dani PinkusāāāPeople Lead
Dani Pinkus is joining us as People Lead, and weāve ambitiously set her the task of helping fill a quarter of the 500+ current job openings in the Blackbird portfolio (no pressure!). Blackbird is increasingly a magnet for Australiaās brightest minds in high school (First Robotics), university (we have a number of targeted sponsorships with STEM focussed university clubs), and the corporate sector (the Startmate Fellowship), and Dani is going to amplify our efforts in all these areas. If you want to work in startups, we think Daniās going to soon be the most helpful person you could connect with. (Email her right now dani@blackbird.vc if you want to make the jump).
Previously, Dani was Brand, Partnerships and Content Director at Future Women, and a journalist and editor at the Nine Network and Bauer Magazines. If you saw our most recent newsletter, youāll see her skills in this area shining through already. As well as becoming the most popular person in the Australian startup ecosystem, 2020 is going to see Dani get her driverās licence, and get married!
Clark CarterāāāHead of Productivity
We met Clark as part of our Chief of Staff hiring process and liked him so much, we created an entirely new role for him. Clark is our Head of Productivity, which means heās responsible for upgrading all our systems and processes, to ensure weāre all working to our maximum productivity. In Clarkās words, āI automate the shit out of everything.ā Clark is joining us from Atlassian where he automated the shit out of Mike Cannon-Brookesā day-to-day work life.
Clark lives in Hobart, is Dad to his 1 year old son, is studying Physics on the side at the University of Tasmania, and spent much of the last decade as an adventurer. And we donāt use that term lightly. He once carved his own canoe out of a tree in Papua New Guinea and then paddled for 6 weeks to his destination with only two weeks of food. The photo above is proof.
Dan DanilovāāāBusiness Operations
Dan is joining us in a Business Operations role. With a dedicated Ops team of just 3 people, in the second half of 2019, Blackbird returned $100M to investors as part of a GP-led secondary transaction, raised a new fund in New Zealand, and began preparations for raising its fourth fund. Dan, who joined us in August last year, was instrumental in upgrading our operational excellence for all three initiatives.
Previously, Dan was a Strategy Analyst at Accenture and founded a social media platform to connect global football fans while at university. He speaks Russian fluently and Hebrew not-so-fluently. Like Mason in Melbourne, heās a HUGE Liverpool fan and lover of all sports so you can direct all your sporting banter his way.
Hartini LestariāāāPortfolio Analyst
Hartini is joining us as an Analyst. Now that Tip has been promoted to Principal, and moved to NZ to launch our NZ Fund with Samantha, Hartini is taking Tipās place in the Sydney office. After Rick did his reference calls on Hartini, Rick said it was the most positive reference call heād ever doneāāāsample quote: āshe is the person I have enjoyed working with the most everā¦ she brings an energy to the office which makes people around her happier and enthusiastic.ā High praise indeed!
Hartini grew up in Singapore, Indonesia, and the US of A, hasnāt owned a TV in seven years, and speaks fluent Chinese, Indonesian, and Teochew (making Justineās Japanese and Danās Hebrew seem quite pedestrian in comparison!)
Lucia SalimāāāFinancial Accountant
Lucia is joining us part-time as a Financial Accountant. Justina Yap, Blackbirdās Financial Controller has been heroically leading our accounting efforts, and we are so glad to be calling in some reinforcements for her.
Previously, Lucia was at Palms Australia, and GE and we are thrilled to have her join us. Lucia grew up in Bali & Singapore, speaks Bahasa Indonesia and Mandarin, and is a Mum to 2 boys, 7 and 14 months.
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Back in September 2017, the SMH opened an article titled āBlackbird tries out a new tune for hiringā with this lede:
The ratio of male-to-female partners at Australian venture capital firm Blackbird Ventures: 4:1.
āItās embarrassingā, admits the Surry-Hills based companyās co-founder Niki Scevak but he also says thereās change on the way.
With this latest flock of new Blackbirds joining, weāll be 20 people across Blackbird and Startmate, and weāll have equal number of men and women in the team. With a Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland office, and two of the team remote in Hobart, and Orange, weāll also be a fully distributed workforce; which is why weāve embraced flexibility for our team in where and how we work.
Improving our culture to be more inclusive has been an important commitment from our whole team. Internally, weāve improved parental leave policies, blinded all of our hiring processes by using Applied, and improved data tracking on our investment dealflow. Externally, we created a Code of Conduct and the Women in VC internship program. Although we still have a long way to go, we are proud that incredible people from a variety of backgrounds are joining us to do the best work of their lives!
To the new Blackbirds, we say welcome!