Theodore Roosevelt’s well-known “Man in the Arena” speech resonates with Lisa Dolan, perhaps because she believes tenacity is necessary for a founder. It’s also a fitting sentiment for a venture capitalist these days. It takes a fair amount of energy and enthusiasm to withstand criticism, maintain a deal pipeline, and still find time to mentor founders.
The latter is essential to Lisa; she devotes time to it, whether in the form of a meeting or pitch coaching – marking up a deck or providing honest feedback on financials.
Lisa is a Managing Director with Link Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in early-stage, disruptive startups transforming traditional industries through the power of data science, machine learning, and AI technologies. She serves on the following Link Ventures portfolio company boards: Breeze as a Board Director and Canela Media, nsKnox, Intrinsic.us, Creatively, Anomaly, and Realfriend as a Board Observer. She’s also a new Board Member at alma mater Johns Hopkins’ A-Level Capital, a student-run venture fund.
She previously led business development and early-stage investments for Bullet Point Network (BPN) and its founder, Mike Ryan’s family office, MDR Capital. BPN is a fundamental research team that leverages a graph model to produce logical cash flow and valuation scenarios over time.
She’s been on the other side of the table, as well. While at Columbia Business School, Lisa founded Savile Row Society, a men’s shopping platform, and Lisa was responsible for product and business development. Before Columbia Business School, Lisa worked in finance at JPMorgan’s Investment Bank, American Express, and at Samson Capital Advisors (now Fiera Capital).
You can catch Lisa at SXSW at Grit Daily House on Saturday, March 11 – she’ll be onstage at 11:30 CT discussing women VCs and the current market, along with Danielle Falls of First Gen Law and Jaclynn Brennan, FYLI, during a panel moderated by Forbes Business.
