Meet Alpaca’s New Head of Investor Relations — Brittanie Gethers
Hi, I’m Brittanie, and I recently joined Alpaca as Head of Investor Relations. I’m excited about this chapter in my career. I am grateful for the opportunity to be a part of such a dynamic and innovative team. Most of all, I’m grateful to join a team where I’m encouraged to stand firm in who I am and use my voice.
My career has been one where I’ve always focused on providing clients with a top level of service and a great experience. I started my career at Invesco writing RFPs and DDQs. While tedious and a little boring at times, the role taught me the ins and outs of the due diligence process and helped me understand what information is important to potential investors.
From there, I moved on to BlackRock, where I worked on the due diligence team managing home office research relationships for actively managed products. From this team, I had the opportunity to help launch the alternatives business within wealth advisory. I was excited to take on the role because I was looking for ways to get closer to private equity and venture capital. It allowed me to build and scale something new and innovative for the firm.
As I learned more about the private equity and venture industry in the role, I learned about the lack of female and underrepresented investors, which ultimately resulted in founders from those groups receiving less than 2% of capital. As a woman, underrepresented minority, and the first woman to graduate college in my family, that didn’t sit right with me. I realized that, in order to impact some level of change, I needed to get closer to PE/VC funds.
In 2020, I joined Capstone Partners, a global private capital advisory firm, where I oversaw origination and fundraising for a large portion of the eastern U.S. and eastern Canada. We specialized in advising emerging managers. I looked at the role as the perfect opportunity to help those teams understand the importance of building diverse teams early since it was becoming important to LPs. As I continued my journey in the role, I still saw that the industry was forgoing the missed opportunity to invest in diverse founders or build diverse teams. I was getting further away from what I cared about. I wanted to work with innovative teams who understood the importance of creating positive change and outcomes in an evolving world. Although I was learning a lot, there was this growing sense of emptiness. I wasn’t excited about the work I was doing, and I never felt I fit into that world.
As I looked for the next role, I knew I wanted to work with a diverse team from different backgrounds who were smart and always looking to evolve. When the opportunity to interview with the Alpaca team came up, I was intrigued. The firm had all the strengths and unique aspects I’d look for when assessing a firm as a placement agent. Alpaca’s approach to investing was different. They were thematic investors, allowing the themes uncovered in their unique field studies to guide their investment focus. They also had a female GP, Aubrie, who after my initial meetings, seemed down to earth. I remember going through the presentation with Daniel in an early interview and stopping on the slide where they discussed diversity. Alpaca could point to steps they’ve taken to improve diversity in the industry. They tackled the problem by not only investing in diverse founders, but also by investing their own capital into other diverse GPs. I told Daniel I had never seen that in a presentation. I was sold. I remember walking out of their office and telling my mom that I finally found the right place for me. Thankfully, the team felt the same way.
So here I am, a first-generation college kid from Tennessee who found her way through massive Wall Street firms and landed at a firm that finally feels like home. I’m still getting used to the fact that the team encourages me to use my voice to share my thoughts on the industry and areas I care about. It took me a million rewrites to get this post right. So, bear with me as I get used to sharing my thoughts and opinions on social media. When I’m not focused on investor relations, I’m enjoying life in Colorado, snowboarding or trail running on weekends, enjoying time in NYC with close friends, or plotting the next marathon or ultramarathon I’m going to tackle.
I am truly grateful to have found this team and excited to see where the future takes us at Alpaca VC. If you’d like to connect, you can reach me at brittanie@alpaca.vc or on Twitter @brittgethers.
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