Last week I started a new role as Legal Counsel at GV (formerly Google Ventures), the venture capital arm of Alphabet Inc. with more than $5 billion under management. I point that out not as self aggrandizement but to emphasize my own journey from a small coastal town in southern Africa to working for one of the most recognizable brands in the world. This journey would have been unimaginable at the time I started my formal schooling in 1995, one year after the fall of apartheid in South Africa. I was part of the first generation of individuals educated in this post-apartheid era, where the consequences of decades-long, overtly racist policies are still present. That experience informed the lens through which I view the world — to dare to go where my parents, legally, could not.
As I walked off of the graduation stage at Harvard Law School, through tears in her eyes my mom whispered to me that my grandmother — a woman who worked all of her life in the kitchen at an all-white high school during the height of apartheid — would have been so proud. Believing in the power of education, my mom herself, a single black woman, banged down doors of a resistant establishment to put me on the educational path I eventually followed: I went on to pursue both my Bachelors and Masters degrees in Law from the University of Cape Town, and a Masters degree from Harvard Law School. However, I came to the realization that education was a path (not the path, but a path) to mobility.
Great education is not enough — it can get you to the stairs, but it will not help you climb them. To thrive and succeed in any career, you need people in your corner who are invested in your professional development and I’ve been fortunate to find amazing mentors, often in the most unlikely individuals. But, I know that is unfortunately not everyone’s experience.
Only 1.2% of total venture capital funding went to black startup founders in 2020, which is not surprising given that only ~3% of investment professionals in the industry are black. It’s of utmost importance for people of color to be included at all levels of the ecosystem, and for these spaces to be rebuilt with us in mind.
It is for this reason that I believe it’s important to highlight my new role as legal counsel for a prominent VC firm in the heart of Silicon Valley. This is not the typical path for a black, gay immigrant from a third-world country — but it should be. So many parts of me — my race, origin, sexual orientation — are barriers to these spaces of power and influence, and I so badly want to see that change as quickly and as dramatically as possible. I believe that the pendulum is swinging in the right direction but there is a long way to go to ensure equity and inclusion in the VC industry.
Personally, I got here by working hard at all times. Not everyone will always recognize your hard work. But success goes beyond hard work for people of color. I realized the importance of understanding the unspoken rules and backstairs to mobility. I want other historically underrepresented folks to have the audacity to shamelessly take up space in the ecosystem. We have to dare ourselves to step into those uncomfortable spaces, to sit in the awkwardness and not let that scare us. This is of course easier said than done, but I stand as an example that it is possible, and now I pledge to work to open doors to these types of spaces for others who have been traditionally excluded. As the saying goes, it takes a village.
