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Category: Georgian Value-add

Team Profile: Samantha Taccone, Investor Relations

by Georgian Team
This post is by Georgian Team from Georgian

What do you do at Georgian?

As the newest member of the Investor Relations team, I’m responsible for developing and implementing Georgian’s marketing strategy to both existing and prospective LPs. That includes everything from managing the communications and events we develop for LPs to helping maximize brand visibility through our participation in industry conferences, PR initiatives, and road shows.   

What were you doing prior to joining Georgian?

I started my career in investor relations about a decade ago, initially working for one of the biggest IT and business consulting services firms in the world. After six years in public markets, I transitioned to a healthcare specialist private equity firm where I worked with an array of investors. Along the way, I also earned my Master’s degree in Investor Relations from the Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University.

While I developed a lot of practical expertise from those experiences, what I really came to understand was the value of connecting with LPs on a personal, one-to-one level. Forging those kinds of connections is critical for long-term success and is something I look forward to doing with Georgian’s growing LP base.

What drew you to the role at Georgian?

Beyond the job itself, Georgian has a wonderful reputation and I was eager to be a part of the culture they’ve created here. Everyone’s so good at what they do and brings so much passion to their work, and yet is totally grounded and down to earth. It’s great to be a (Read more...)

Team Profile: Sonia Lagourgue, ESG & Purpose Leadership

by David Poole
This post is by David Poole from Georgian

What do you do at Georgian?

My role has three components. First, I’m responsible for integrating sustainability into every aspect of how Georgian operates and making sure that we do so in an impactul and data-driven way. Second, I collaborate with our customers (portfolio companies) to support their adoption of ESG practices. Third, I work with our stakeholders, partners and peers to help the tech sector become more inclusive and sustainable. 

For me, sustainability means creating long-term economic value in a way that also meaningfully benefits people and the environment.

How did you get into your position?

I’ve always been interested in the intersection of social innovation and technology. Early on in my career I worked on diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives in talent consulting. After that, I spent over 10 years working in tech and innovation, including most recently at MaRS. 

When I joined Georgian’s Community team in 2020, I had the opportunity to work with many of our customers’ executives. In talking with them, it quickly became clear that environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues were becoming a major priority, just as they were for Georgian. As our focus on ESG crystalized, I was invited to lead the initiative full time.

How would you describe Georgian’s approach to ESG?

In many respects, ESG is a part of Georgian’s DNA. We prioritize long-term value over short-term wins, and we’ve always cared about people and the impact that technology has on the world. Over the past few years, we (Read more...)

CEO Testimonial – Noname – Oz Golan

by Ashley Basco
This post is by Ashley Basco from Georgian

In this video, Oz Golan, Co-Founder and CEO of Noname Security, discusses Noname’s experience with Georgian’s CoLab, and one of the best decisions he’s made as a CEO. 

Transcript

My name is Oz and I’m the Co-Founder and CEO of Noname Security. And what we are doing is to help organizations to secure their APIs, which are responsible for any piece of sensitive information or any type of controls that they might get in an organization. And it has become one of the most urgent challenges for an enterprise nowadays. 

What was your experience with Georgian’s CoLab?

Before our Series C, Noname and Georgian, we’ve been in touch for more than seven or eight months, with multiple discussions about the product, the category, the roadmap, and how the partnership could look like. 

One of the things that excited us the most is the idea that Georgian has an incredible, talented team that can help our R&D, specifically around AI, anomaly detection, traffic analysis and everything related to that. 

They’ve brought all their experience and walked us through how they can help us to scale the organization and to solve a very complicated challenge for our company.

Why did you choose to partner with Georgian?

We’ve chosen to partner with Georgian even though we have a lot of other offers from other VCs for multiple different reasons. It started from the fact that for Noname, the ability to detect attempts to abuse APIs and runtime is one of the (Read more...)

Team Profile: Nick Chen, Investor and Web3 Lead

by Georgian Team
This post is by Georgian Team from Georgian

What do you do at Georgian?

As a member of our Investment Team, I spend a lot of my time running deals and working with our portfolio companies. This often includes working with our R&D and Customer Success teams to execute on value-add projects that help our companies grow faster and more efficiently.

For the past year, I’ve collaborated with leaders across the organization to drive Georgian’s exploration into Web3 from a research, thesis-building and investment strategy perspective. It’s a natural evolution of the cross-functional thesis development process I’ve helped to shape over the years across our Trust and Applied AI theses.

What were you doing before you joined Georgian?

Before I joined Georgian six years ago, I worked in technology investment banking and economic consulting roles in San Francisco and New York. I also founded and sold an online radio channel and record label, which deepened my interest in understanding internet business models.

What matters most to you in your role? 

At Georgian we’re constantly learning new things and digging into how technology is shaping the world. Innovation is central to everything we do at Georgian, and I particularly enjoy the myriad opportunities to partner with and work alongside entrepreneurs tackling big ideas in new spaces. I relish the challenge and process of diving deep into disruptive technology trends like AI and blockchain, and building frameworks that institutionalize and apply this knowledge to give us a strategic edge.

You mentioned Web3 earlier. Why should it be on LPs’ radars?

(Read more...)

Team Profile: Qaid Damji, Product Manager

by Georgian Team
This post is by Georgian Team from Georgian

What’s your role at Georgian?

I’m responsible for Grow, a product we’re building that uses machine learning to help sales teams across our portfolio focus on the leads that are most likely to convert. That way they can be more effective and ultimately grow revenue faster and more efficiently.

What led you to this position?

I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit. I learned to code when I was 14 and built my first website not long after. I’ve always loved technology and the idea of simplifying life with automation and machinery — something I saw first hand as my parents both worked in auto manufacturing. Ultimately, this was a big reason I ended up attending Western University to study engineering and business.

After graduation, I became a consultant at Accenture, co-founded a couple of companies, and eventually served in a variety of product- and analytics-related roles at Axiom Zen, Element AI, and Google. Through these experiences, I learned a lot about how to optimize and amplify the work that sales and marketing teams do using machine learning and data science.

What are your core strengths?

Throughout my career I’ve developed a lot of technical expertise, but I’d say my real strengths are that I know how to understand what customers want and, when faced with a bunch of different opportunities, can help identify the best ones to pursue. Having been a founder myself, I also have a lot of empathy for anyone starting or running a nascent business. It takes (Read more...)