Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, and his wife, Pam, established Omidyar Network (ON) (Linkedin, Crunchbase) based on the belief that every person has the potential to make a difference. We make venture capital investments and grants to innovative organizations that create opportunities for individuals.
The firm invests across 5 key initiatives: Education, Emerging Technology, Financial Inclusion, Governance and Citizen Engagement, and Property Rights. In addition, ON has begun investing across the following new domains: Digital Identification, Technology & Society and Energy Access. This role will have the opportunity to work closely with investment leads across each initiative with the goal of maximizing both social and financial impact for all for-profit and non-profit investments.
Investment management serves an instrumental role within ON. The group is responsible for all investments and grants issued by the Company and to that end, has a unique perspective across our five investment sectors, current portfolio and prospective opportunities. The IM team leverages its deep investment and industry experience to provide active guidance to investment professionals. In parallel, the team is responsible for holding the firm accountable to achieve its impact and return targets through its role in Investment Committee decisions, portfolio monitoring and board governance feedback. In addition to its investment oversight and advisory roles, the IM team leads our experimental investment efforts. There are very few roles at an investment firm that provide such investment and analytical depth and breadth.
POSITION SUMMARY:
This position will be based in Redwood City and is responsible for advising ON’s global investment team. In addition to driving key firm-wide deliverables and board reports on portfolio analysis and key investment trends, this individual will be responsible for the oversight across all ON investments and grants. This individual will work closely with our legal team, finance department and our investment initiatives to ensure optimal investment decisions, thoughtful portfolio management / governance and strategic exit engagements.
Success in this role means the following:
- Ensuring that the Investment Management function runs efficiently and effectively to ensure that ON makes well-considered, high-quality investment decisions
- Detailed review and input on large and complex transactions and portfolio material events
- Building out the portfolio management capabilities
- Being a thought partner to the initiative investment professionals and ensuring a high level of professional proficiency across the investment teams
Responsibilities include:
- Supporting the pipeline of investment opportunities
- Evaluating proposed investments
- Driving the investment decision-making process
- Facilitating the negotiation, closing and funding of new investments
- Assessing and managing the firm’s investment portfolio
- Setting standards for all aspects of the firm’s investment functions
- Providing direction and mentorship for the investment team
- Reporting on the firm’s investment activities
- Training the firm’s investment professionals
- Spearheading select experimental investments
- Contributing to the firm’s overall success
Desired Skills and Experience:
- 15+ years of business experience, with 5+ years in one or more roles managing an investment process (in a private equity, venture capital or other investment firm); in addition, some operational experience in a company or nonprofit is desirable
- Strong process skills – ability to evaluate and manage large volume of transactions
- Deep strategic and analytical skills – ability to evaluate proposed investments from multipleperspectives (strategic fit, market opportunity, impact potential, operational capability, business model, financial performance and valuation)
- Appreciation of analytical rigor and clarity
- Sharp communication skills – excellence in writing and presenting
- Strong interpersonal skills – ability to work collaboratively with global colleagues
- Solid knowledge of investment execution – experience in all phases of investment execution (sourcing, analyzing, negotiating, documenting and closing)
- MBA or equivalent desired; JD degree useful
- Prior demonstrated interest in creating positive social impact desirable
- High level of comfort with ambiguity and working in a dynamic, rapidly evolving organization
If interested, please apply here.
