The MaC Venture Capital firm has made history by appointing its first chief operating officer, a Black woman.
The firm has appointed Jennifer Randle as the first person to take on this role in the company.
MaC Venture Capital has an extensive portfolio with investments in startups such as Spill, the Black-owned networking app and Twitter rival that launched in July 2023.
Marlon Nichols, co-founder and managing partner at MaC, spoke to AfroTech about the firm’s mission. “Part of our ethos is not to be a ‘diversity fund’ but to set an example,” he said. “If you truly invest without bias, you will end up with a very diverse portfolio and a high-performing one, because that’s what the world looks like.”
According to the outlet, Randle will transition from her position as executive vice president of finance and operations at The Chernin Group. Randle helped transform that company, which started as a family office, into a billion-dollar global investment firm.
With the same enthusiasm she held when beginning her career nearly two decades ago, Randle will now lead a company whose goal is to reflect the world as it is today
“I wanted to be able to take all the things I have learned over the last 20-plus years and help build a firm and be a part of something so amazing and special,” Randle told AfroTech.
A MaC representative highlighted the company’s commitment to diversity, saying over half of the company identifies as Black. Furthermore, more than a quarter of its members are women.
Although there is still progress to be made regarding the representation of Black women in the venture capital space, we’re seeing an increasing number of investors like Randle.