Unlocking Entrepreneurial Progress with Vanessa Colella, Head of Citi Ventures

Miguel Armaza is joined by Vanessa Colella, Citigroup’s Chief Innovation Officer, Head of Productivity, and Head of Citi Ventures. Vanessa is focused on harnessing the power of Citi to help people, businesses, and communities thrive in a world of technological, behavioral, and societal change.

Unlike most senior bankers, Vanessa’s career started as a Teach for America high school science teacher in Brooklyn, New York. She taught science for five years and after obtaining her Masters and Doctorate degrees from Columbia University and MIT, she went on to join McKinsey, Yahoo! as a Senior VP, followed by a role as Entrepreneur in Residence at US Venture Partners. Vanessa recognizes her career has been a winding road and describes it as a jungle gym, rather than a straight ladder and she attributes her diversity of experiences as a strength that has allowed her to learn from various roles, in her own words “If you can manage 42 eighth graders, then you can manage a board”.

Putting Entrepreneurs First

Vanessa joined Citi in early 2010, just as the company was navigating some of the most challenging days of the last financial crisis and was undergoing a transition to become a truly client-centric organization. The crisis was a very tangible reminder for Citi of how important it is to constantly innovate and serve multiple client needs, which is why the company decided to strengthen and develop its venture investing arm with Vanessa at the helm.

When Vanessa took charge of Citi Ventures, she made sure to work with the existing team to shape the organization into something powerful, but also focused on hiring new people with VC experience who had previously worked with entrepreneurs. From day one, she established a culture that puts entrepreneurs first by helping them grow and commercialize their portfolio companies while leveraging Citi’s strengths.

Much like any VC, Citi Ventures is always looking for the next big thing, but only in areas where Citi can be helpful to enable entrepreneurs and companies to grow and flourish. Although some of the industries they invest in, like payments and commerce, are intuitive for a large financial institution, Citi Ventures also focuses on less obvious sectors like big data, cybersecurity, and customer service. Vanessa tells us these verticals are, in fact, very relevant to the core of the operation for a company like Citi and they are constantly learning from their portfolio companies as well.

Although they are stage agnostic, Citi Ventures prefers backing startups that have already found product-market-fit, and Vanessa considers backing the right founding team to be the most important factor. As a result, she has developed four traits to screen entrepreneurs:

• Curiosity. Citi Ventures is looking for people with constant curiosity about how the world is changing, who are interested in what can be done differently.
• Empathy. Can these entrepreneurs put themselves in their client’s shoes? An empathetic mindset will help you find problems that need solving and it is an entrepreneur's job to solve a problem.
• Diversity. Research has shown diversity leads teams to make better decisions and produce better results and Vanessa is looking for all sorts of diversity. Not just race and gender, but also a diverse set of experiences.
• Bravery. Last but not least, Citi wants to back leaders with a bold mindset who can think and carry their vision through execution. Bravery is important and is what ultimately drives change in our society.

Investing and Incubating from Within

While Citi Ventures spends much of its time backing external teams, Vanessa recognizes entrepreneurship also comes from within. This is why she launched D10X, a platform to integrate ideas from any one of Citi’s 200,000 employees from around the world interested in driving change for their clients. The program has been so successful, that some of the ideas have been spun out as independent startups to continue growing with Citi Ventures as their initial backer.

The Road Ahead

According to Vanessa, the COVID crisis has emphasized the importance for VCs to have a diversified portfolio. It is also a time to rely on strong leadership that can create stability for companies and help avoid knee-jerking strategies. Now more than ever, startups must rely on the kind of experience that understands companies will be impacted differently and ensures attention is in places that might need some extra assistance.

Going forward, Vanessa reminds us that people over-index on technology to drive changes in the world. While technology is important, she argues real long-term changes will be driven by behavioral shifts and structural reforms, rather than technological evolution. She is optimistic about the road ahead and is convinced we are living through an outstanding moment to be an entrepreneur. When everything is changing, founders are most likely to have success upending old structures and Vanessa hopes Citi will continue to be there helping many of these revolutionary companies drive economic progress for people, businesses, and communities.

Vanessa Colella

Vanessa Colella is Citi’s Chief Innovation Officer (CIO), Head of Citi Ventures, and Head of Citi Productivity. She is focused on harnessing the power of Citi to help people, businesses, and communities thrive in a world of technological, behavioral, and societal change.

Before assuming the role of CIO, Vanessa led venture investing and D10X for Citi Ventures, and previously ran marketing for Citi’s North American Consumer Bank. She joined Citi in 2010 from U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) after having held senior roles at Yahoo and McKinsey & Company.

Vanessa received her masters’ degrees from Columbia University and M.I.T. as well as a Ph.D. from M.I.T.’s Media Lab. She holds an S.B. degree in molecular biology from M.I.T. and currently serves as a member of the Corporation’s Visiting Committee for the Media Lab.