COMPELLING GLOBAL SPEAKER
Sarah is a sought after speaker and an active commentator on venture capital, innovation, and women in leadership, having been featured amongst others on Der Spiegel, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. Sarah is a compelling speaker and moderator with hundreds of high-profile engagements under her belt and close to two decades of media experience. Some topics she has covered are:
Beneath the recent headlines of the movement for gender equality, is the true business case for investing in women. From increased innovation and improved returns, against the backdrop of a changing landscape of wealth, Sarah draws upon her work in venture capital, and as Co-Founder of The Billion Dollar Fund for Women, providing unique insights into the largest arbitrage opportunity of our lifetime.
In the midst of turbulent times, with public market volatility and heightened geopolitical tensions, the key question remains: how do we continue to invest in diversity not as an afterthought, but as a core pillar for driving returns? Why does this matter now and how can we actually implement diversity within venture capital? Sarah shares her insights from building the world’s first and largest global consortium of venture funds, Beyond The Billion, investing over $1 billion into women-founded companies.
Even pre-crisis, the gender venture investment gap was worrying: less than 3% in 2019 of global venture funding to all-women teams, and 10% to gender-diverse teams. Why do we care? The venture-backed technology industry is already a key driver of the innovation economy in the U.S.: 43% of U.S. public companies, comprising 57% of the market capitalization, are VC-backed—what does this mean if we exclude women? What does this mean in a time of crisis? What are the dynamics we will see evolve – what are limited partner investors thinking in this time?
In all spectrums of investment, women are still underrepresented – only 7% of VCs are women, and women manage less than 10% of the hundred trillion of global institutional assets undermanagement. Meanwhile, research shows that women institutional money managers bring valuable perspective to investment decision-making. What does it take to change the game and why are institutions and larger brands now paying attention?
Venture capital has transformed significantly from a cottage industry in Boston and San Francisco to a global asset class driving over $600 billion dollars of investment in 2021 alone. As VC continues to evolve, as the industry sees the effects of the shift of wealth between generations taking a deeper interest in shaping our future powered by technology, what opportunities arise? Which strategies are most promising? What trends are we seeing across high growth markets? Sarah shares her insights from building the world’s first and largest global consortium of venture funds, Beyond The Billion.
With a particular obsession on high-performance, Sarah delivers a compelling keynote on mission and purpose, and her belief that our “why” finds us long before we realize it. Built for world leaders and C-level executives, Sarah hones into the power of leadership driven first, by, mission and purpose; inspired by her work and deep conversations with movers and shakers: from world class athletes to heads of governments and unicorn founders.
The global economic uncertainty and a shift in focus towards sustainable growth are widely expected to impact the fundraising prospects for new vehicles, especially those focused on emerging markets or launched by new managers. As the markets evolve and continue to present key growth opportunities, how are dynamics between LPs and GPs evolving? In the current environment, how should emerging managers approach LPs? Will the going be tougher for first-time fund managers raising debut vehicles? Will operating across different cycles prove to be an advantage?
speaker & host
Named World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and Forbes 30 Under 30, she is a recognized speaker, commentator and advisor on venture capital, innovation and women, having been featured amongst others on Der Spiegel, the Wall Street Journal and Forbes.
Sarah is a compelling speaker and moderator, moderating challenging topics with Ministers, Senators and other corporate leaders, inspiring global audiences at the World Affairs Council America (DC), the Financial Alliance for Women Annual Summit (Paris), the World Bank THK Blended Finance Forum (Bali), the Asia PE-VC Summit (Singapore), Forbes Under 30 Summit (Hong Kong) et al.
PRAISE
“Sarah Chen is such a dynamic, engaging speaker and she was the perfect opener for our stage at the April 2019 4GameChangers in Vienna, Austria. She truly has a strong presence, and her material truly resonated with our audience of senior technology leaders, entrepreneurs and investors, many of whom told us how inspired they were by her message on investing in women as a business strategy. In her lively, energizing session, Sarah provided clear tips – and most importantly, actionable suggestions – dreaming big, but starting small. Further, with her media background, she was a naturally enthusiastic guest on our talk shows and post-event interviews, ultimately scoring our event a full spread on Forbes – which gave us additional exposure!”
Nina Kaiser
Founder, 4GAMECHANGERS, Prosienbat 1 PULS GMBH
“Sarah is one-of-a-kind: her work in venture and women in leadership, her depth of knowledge in her areas of expertise, and ability to present an argument to a large international audience and immediately win them over, truly impressed us at the Goethe-Institut. Beyond being an excellent speaker, she was also an engaging facilitator at our Kultursymposium, a gathering of over 500 thought leaders from the world of science, culture, politics, economics and journalism. She has character, wit and presence – and is the speaker you’d want at your event.”
Daniel Göpfert
Goethe-Institut e.V.
CATCH SARAH IN ACTION: KEYNOTE, PANELIST, MODERATOR
- SHE'S DONE IT ALL
TATLER ASIA: FEATURE ON SARAH CHEN
