Blue Haven Welcomes New Venture Associate
Blue Haven Initiative is excited to welcome our newest Associate, Sarah Alexander. Sarah will work on Blue Haven’s direct investment team, sourcing and diligencing new companies and working on portfolio management and post-investment support for the existing portfolio. Sarah sat down with Blue Haven Venture’s Managing Director, Lauren Cochran, to discuss how she got here and what she’s most looking forward to in her new role.
Lauren: Sarah, welcome to BHI! So you quit your consulting job to work with a tiny team investing in startups across Sub-Saharan Africa. Tell us how you got here?
Sarah: The transition isn’t quite as crazy as it sounds. I have always been drawn to the intersection of business and social impact, particularly in the realm of sustainability. I started a small-scale biodiesel venture in India out of college, but decided I needed more structured business training and joined Oliver Wyman (OW), a global management consulting firm. At OW, I got exposure to solving difficult business problems across a variety of industries, from financial services, to energy, to hospitality. I also got the opportunity to do a fellowship at Acumen, my first foray into impact investing. As a post-investment associate at Acumen, I was able to leverage the skills I had built at OW and apply them to social enterprises. I loved the vantage point of being an investor and the opportunity to develop and share learnings across our portfolio companies. So, when the BHI Associate role opened, I knew it was a rare chance to work at a high-impact organization with an amazing team.
Lauren: You founded a biodiesel startup in college. What was that experience like?
Sarah: Yes, I did! I spent time in college living in urban India, and I often watched my favorite street vendors fry delicious samosas and pakoras, then dump their used cooking oil down the public drain. I knew there had to be a better use for this waste product, so when I got back to the States, I teamed up with my friend, a biodiesel enthusiast, and together we created Street Food Biodiesel (SFB). SFB collected and purchased waste cooking oil from street food vendors in Delhi, converted it into biodiesel, and then sold the biodiesel as a cleaner-burning fuel. We got funding to return to Delhi to conduct a formal feasibility study, and after many weeks wandering through markets, probing street vendors about their oil use and testing logistics models, we realized that we had a potentially profitable business on our hands. Before long, we were flying back and forth to India, entering pitch competitions and setting up collection routes across the city. Without a doubt, SFB was one of the most formative personal and professional experiences of my life, and it sparked my obsession with proving that financial and social bottom lines don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Lauren: That. Is. Awesome. How will that experience make you a better investor?
Sarah: I know firsthand the mind space of starting a venture — how it is alternately exhausting and stimulating, how it becomes the thing you think about all day and dream about at night, how moments of doubt are as common as moments of confidence that you are creating something truly revolutionary. When we meet new entrepreneurs, I find myself looking for this obsessiveness. Are they committed to the problem, not just to the solution? How will they pivot when their initial ideas go wrong? What drives them? What have they had to give up for their success?
Wearing my investor hat, I always appreciate when entrepreneurs can give us clear-cut answers and roadmaps for the future. But my SFB experience reminds me that even the best entrepreneurs are still learning, still figuring out the nuances of the problems and tweaking solutions. The grit and sacrifice of teams and founders is not always highlighted in investor meetings or fundraising pitches, but I have a deep respect for the commitment of our entrepreneurs solving some truly difficult problems.
Lauren: We just shipped you to Kenya and Nigeria for a three-week trip. What did you learn?
Sarah: The trip was great! I got the chance to meet many of our companies, and though I studied our investment memos and their financial statements from afar, the trip allowed me to see beyond an alignment with BHI’s portfolio strategy. A few characteristics in particular came to light…
1. A willingness to share learnings and mistakes — At BHI, we strive to be open about our successes and shortcomings as investors, and our portfolio companies exhibit a similar sense of transparency about their growing pains. I appreciated their honesty in discussing their roadblocks as openly as they discussed their achievements.
2. A focus on building strong teams — Our entrepreneurs are impressive, but meeting their teams was inspiring. “Founder burnout” is a challenge for startups, so it was great to see our founders building skilled, trusted, enthusiastic teams and fostering a shared culture of success.
3. A collective vision– I was particularly struck by how our entrepreneurs have been able to mobilize their teams around a collective vision, from the top of their organization to the bottom. Whether talking to managers or entry-level roles, I was impressed at how the teams were driven by a cohesive mission and clearly saw their place in transforming that vision into a reality.
Lauren: What are you most looking forward to at Blue Haven?
Sarah: Honestly, I can’t think of much that I’m not excited for about the job! Since we’re a lean team, I’m looking forward to being deeply involved in all parts of the deal process, from pre- to post investment. I’m also excited to work closely with our entrepreneurs and their teams — I had a blast meeting them in Nairobi and Lagos, and I’m looking forward to supporting them as they build their businesses.
Lauren: What gets you most excited about the work Blue Haven is doing?
Sarah: The coolest thing about the Blue Haven team is that we are all learning as we go. I’ve come to realize that there are rarely “right answers” in this line of work. Of course, we try hard to make informed decisions given the knowledge and experience we have access to, but the reality is that impact investing is seldom straightforward, and we are all getting smarter on how to do it together. So, I feel lucky to be on a team that is transparent about what we don’t know and open to sharing what we do!
