Building Community at Scale: Jennifer Jeronimo’s 5,000-Member Investment Revolution at Gaingels

Anthony Codispoti : Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codispoti and today’s guest is Jennifer Jeronimo, the Chief Executive Officer at Gangels. They are a venture capital group that invests in companies committed to advancing diversity and inclusion, collaborating with top tier firms to expand opportunities for underrepresented founders. Under Jennifer’s leadership, Gangels has supported over 2,500 portfolio companies and surpassed $900 million in investments.

Founded in 2014, Gangels focuses on co-investing with leading venture firms to foster meaningful representation in the startup ecosystem. She also launched the WAVE program, Women Achieving Venture Equality, empowering female leaders in the innovation economy. With over 20 years of finance and banking experience, Jennifer spent much of her career at JPMorgan in areas like prime brokerage and compliance operations. Known as a fixer and builder, she helped establish global teams and crafted enhanced due diligence procedures for high-risk clients.

Her passion for uplifting diverse voices in venture led her to Gangels in 2021, where she continues to drive growth. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, AdBAC Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company, and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at adbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, the CEO of Gangels, Jennifer Geronimo. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : Thank you for having me. I’m super excited to be here.

Anthony Codispoti : This is going to be fun. Let’s just jump right in. So before we talk about Gangels, I want to talk a little bit about some of your earlier work. You spent 19 years at JP Morgan. You were known as a fixer or a builder. What does that mean, and how did you earn that reputation?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : So after spending a lot of time in the prime brokerage space, and it was really through Bear Stearns, and then Bear Stearns had been taken over by JP Morgan during the credit crisis. I’d spent a lot of time in Prime Brokerage, and I did really well there. But I’m the type of person that likes to keep learning.

I like to solve problems, and I like to solve big problems. So JP Morgan went under consent with the OCC. It was a lot around enhanced utiligence or KYC. And so I decided to go in that route, even though working in Prime Brokerage was a coveted position. But I wanted to be part of a solution. And thereafter, I think people saw that, oh, wow. So I started in one area. I was able to fix that up.

And they just kept bringing me into other areas of the consent order. And so it was just one of those things where people realized I liked, I didn’t mind difficult problems. I didn’t mind challenges that may not be sexy or departments that might not be sexy. I just liked being part of the solution. And then after that, they just kept moving me around.

And plus every couple of years, I like to move into a new department because 19 years at one firm can get a little boring after a while if you’re not continuously learning new things.

Anthony Codispoti : So and you kind of sort of gently glossed over this, and I want to come back to it because it wasn’t always J.P. Morgan Chase that you were with. You were with Bear Stearns. And you were there during the transition. Tell us about what happened there for those folks who may not remember Bear Stearns back in 2008.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : Actually, Anthony, you froze. Are you back? Well, you’re I are you back with me? You froze for a second. I don’t know if that was me or you. I’m back. Yeah. Okay, good.

Anthony Codispoti : So let me ask the we’ll cut sort of the the blip out there. So let me ask the question again. So you kind of briefly touched on this, Jennifer, you sort of glossed over and I want to hone in on this. It wasn’t always J.P. Morgan Chase that you were with. You were there in one of the sort of predecessor entities, Bear Stearns, and then part of that transition. Now, not everybody may remember what happened to Bear Stearns back in 2008. So walk us through what that was.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : So there was a lot of news about us having liquidity issues over at Bear Stearns. And as a result of that news, we started to have a bit of a run on the bank.

And being in prime brokerage, right, where, you know, our clients are hedged funds and broker dealers and registered investment advisors. In those days, you know, our phones were lit up with clients trying to move their money out because they were concerned about our future. And I remember, you know, the day that there was and I think I told you this story once before, I had a phone that had like 20 lines on it. And I always thought it was ridiculous that I had a phone with 20 lines on it. But that very, you know, fateful day in March of 2008, every line was lit up. And that was because we had a lot of clients looking for their money.

And they wanted us to wire it out. And so it was one of those moments where I said, Jen, you’ve got an opportunity to actually show your stuff, right? I was, you know, a managing director at the time at Bear Stearns. And I wanted to show like my management and my leaders that like, regardless of how scary that time was, that I would be able to, you know, live up to the challenge. And so I remember sitting down with my entire staff saying, I’m going to ask everybody to, you know, I took off the TVs, right? I said, because everybody was glued to the TVs and we weren’t doing our work, right? Everybody wanted to know we were watching the stock price go down. We’re watching all the news. And I remember just saying, let’s take off the TVs.

Nobody goes to the Bloomberg terminal unless they need it for their job. And let’s just stay focused. Today, we need to stay focused and do the right job. Because we were just wiring out a tremendous amount of money.

Anthony Codispoti : So clients are calling in and you’re not stonewalling them. You’re not trying to talk them out of it. They want their money and you’re sending them out.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : Right. Okay. Yeah, you’re doing the best you can. I mean, some of them felt like it, you know, we were stonewalling them because so many were looking for their money and they were waiting in line with, you know, 10 other clients above them. But I do remember leaving on a Friday night thinking if JP Morgan wasn’t on the door by Monday, we would have an issue, right? And we may all be out of business. Okay.

Anthony Codispoti : So there had been rumors that maybe JP Morgan was going to come in and sort of rescue the situation. And so you knew or you had this sense of, man, with everything that’s going on, if this doesn’t come through by Monday, we’re hosed. Okay. Right.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : And so, you know, we were all, you know, talking through all the management team was talking throughout the weekend to see, you know, what would happen. I think it was late on a Sunday night that they finally agreed to buy JP Morgan for a very for, I want to say it was $2 at the time. And I remember then going in that Monday and as you could imagine, people were scared. People were upset at the price and just standing in front of my team going, we answered the phone JP Morgan this morning, right? And let’s not sit here and talk about could it should have would have, if that was a good deal or not, we have a job to do.

Our job is to service our clients and that’s where we need to focus. And I always felt very proud of that because I never allowed my team to see me freak out. I think they’ve probably seen me freak out on less at less. But that was a moment where I said, Jen, you can’t, you can’t allow yourself. Can’t allow yourself and you can’t allow your team to spiral. You have to stay strong. Keep your chin up. And was there in front of the other?

Anthony Codispoti : Was there precedent for you stepping up in this kind of a giant situation? Or was this, did you almost surprise yourself? Was it like, oh, wow, I hoped I had that in me. But now I know.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : Well, what it was is, I was still, this is still early in my career, right? And I didn’t have too many war stories. But I did have lots of mentors, lots of managers who had tripped. Like we would spend lunch talking about all those war stories all the time. And in the back of my head, I always said, you know, when it’s time for my war story, am I going to rise to the challenge or am I going to buckle under the pressure? And so having not, you know, there was a little, there was the tech bubble, but I wasn’t like senior at the time when we start, when, when some of that happened.

When the tech bubble burst. So this was really the first time that I was at a, I was a leader during a really challenging time. But it was something that I was almost always looking for. Because I wanted my own war story. I wanted to be able to tell a story.

Anthony Codispoti : You wanted a war story. I did. You wanted battle scars.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : I wanted, when you talked to the people that I had worked with and everything that they’ve been through and how, and like, and how they, their genius came out. It was just something I always wanted, I aspire to be. So I wanted that war story. Yes.

Anthony Codispoti : You like being in the game. You’re not sitting on the bench watching from the sideline. You want to be in the action. No. Okay. So you had, you had this painful transition where you stepped up big. And then you developed a real, a reputation at JPMorgan Chase for being a, a fixer. And so you got put in all kinds of different situations where, you know, your leadership skills were able to shine. What was behind the decision leaving there to start or to join Gangell’s? Like, how did that sort of come about?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : So that was really a tough decision, right? I had, I had always said for the night, you know, well, you know, from 2008 to 2021, I bleed blue, right? I’m, you know, JPMorgan is, I loved it there. I mean, the, the management team was stellar. I think I always thought Jamie had, you know, knew how to like lead that, that company. He said the right things. They believed in their values and principles.

So I really enjoyed it there. I was not looking for another role. But one thing was, is that my purpose in life was always to help women take their seat at the table.

Now, I’m not working in an HR role, right at JPMorgan. How I sort of did that was I mentored lots of women. I sponsored lots of women. I was on the promotion panels, you know, trying to support women getting promoted and making sure we were treating them fairly. During the promotion process, I was part of the ERGs for women and Latinas.

What’s ERGs? Oh, employee resource group. So groups that were specifically put together to help support women or Latinas. And so I was a member of those, those groups.

And I really felt like I was feeding that purpose just in the four walls of JPMorgan. And I did love what I did. I like operations. I like solving problems. I like efficiencies. I like saving money.

Those things kind of, they may seem nerdy and geeky, but I like that. I decided to interview just because it had been 19 years since I’d been on an interview. And so, you know, I looked up the company. I met with the founders. And what really excited me was the mission of Gangells, which is where on a mission to show the world that accessibility and representation leads to positive returns. And how we do that is we, like, as you mentioned, invest at scale with the best through a community that measurably impacts diversity.

Right. So over a 60, I think it’s about 65% of my members are diverse. 50% of my dollars are diverse. So it’s, you know, a lot of what we’re about is providing that access of great deal flow to a broader community, democratizing, you know, venture capital. And also making it more accessible. And so for me, being able, and then we also have like a board access program or helping diverse folks get onto the boards or advisory boards of our portfolio company. So when the opportunity came up, it was really being able to step even further into that.

My particular purpose in life. It just excited me. And I, and I also enjoyed, you know, I enjoyed meeting the founders. They were, you know, they really wanted to, you know, I could feel the support from the organization that they were going to help me succeed. And so that’s why I made the jump. Like I said, I was surprised as anybody else that I ended up not retiring again at JP Morgan, because that was ultimately my plan.

Anthony Codispoti : So you said that roughly 60% of your members are diverse. What do you mean by member? There’s a membership platform here in addition to the investments that you’re doing?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : That’s right. So in order to get access to our deal flow, you have to become a member. You have to attest to the fact that you’re an accredited investor. And then, and then we establish a relationship with you and then we can share our deal flow. And so that’s what I, you know, that’s what a member is. We also have social memberships for people who aren’t credit investors where they can come to our events.

They can learn about the venture economy and the innovation economy. But, you know, our members are the folks that invest into the special purpose vehicles or the SPVs that we are either in for a particular portfolio company or, you know, LPs in our funds.

Anthony Codispoti : Explain what an SPV is.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : So a special purpose vehicle is basically, so what we do is we invest in portfolio companies. So Madison Reed, for example, right? You know, that was one of our investments. And so what we do is we create a special purpose vehicle which pulls our members’ money together. And that is what actually goes onto the cap table, which is just a listing of who owns that private company. It’s that entity that goes onto the cap table of that portfolio company. Now, what’s cool about that is it allows us to take checks of all different sizes. So a person can invest a thousand dollars into a portfolio company. Or, you know, I’ve seen really large checks of hundreds of thousands or, you know, things of that. But they can put in what they’re comfortable.

Anthony Codispoti : So this is a way for a non-accredited investor to be able to participate in some of these deals?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : No, no, no. So you must be an accredited investor. You still

Anthony Codispoti : have to be accredited. You still have to be an accredited investor in order to participate, which is why you need to become a member first. Because you have to attest to the fact that you are an accredited investor.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : Now, it’s not to say that I don’t take non-accredited investors, but they can’t participate in deals. They can participate in my events and some of the programming we have, but I can’t present deals to them.

Anthony Codispoti : And so the people who are taking part in the deals, they’re contributing their own cash, what’s the, I mean, you’re saying they’re accredited investors. So, you know, they have at least some kind of, you know, financial backing behind them. But if you were to kind of paint a picture of the profile, are there institutional investors? Are these just, you know, people that have done well in their professions or they own their own businesses? Like what’s kind of the makeup?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : So it really is very broad, right? To be an accredited investor, just two of the prongs, right, is I think $200,000 that you make annually or $300 as a family, right?

That’s two of the prongs. So those folks could be, you know, employees of companies, right? They can be entrepreneurs who, you know, are not just the people who are doing the job. Who, you know, who have that sort of level of, you know, of money and wealth and receiving that. We also have family offices and larger individual investors, like qualified purchasers and qualified clients.

Those folks come into RSPVs all the time as well. But it really varies, right? But at the end of the day, so it’s, you know, it could be anywhere from an, you know, individual investor that, you know, works at a, you know, at a corporation and makes the sort of the minimum amount to an actual family office or institutional investor.

Anthony Codispoti : And then what are the types of entities that you’re looking to invest in? What’s the criteria there?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : So we are industry agnostic, but there are certain, but what we look to present to our members is deal flow that they really, that they want to take part in. So some of our sweet spots is like AI, which I’m sure you’re not surprised. People want to be in AI, healthcare, technology, and that’s inclusive of like FinTech Enterprise as software. You know, those are some of like the larger, the industries that do well with us. But we also do consumer products, future of food. Again, we look at each deal individually and we look at a handful of things like who is the lead investor, right?

Who is sort of setting the terms of the deal? What industry are they in? What track, what traction that particular company has, right? What is the experience level of the, of the founding team? Are they serial entrepreneurs? Do they have a lot of experience in that space? Understanding that, you know, diverse founders are not, you know, women only get to, solo women entrepreneurs only get 2% of funding, right?

That’s a stat that many people have known for a while and it really hasn’t budged, right? So we don’t always just look for serial entrepreneurs knowing that, but we may look to see if that woman or that, that person has been in that space for a long time or they’ve been in a company that is known to be, you know, experts in that space. So those are some of the things we look at when we’re assessing a deal. And then from there, we’ll present that to our membership and they can in, or put it in, or, you know, present it to the ICs of the funds in which that, that deal or that investment fits the thesis. And then we see, you know, what type of check we can write for the portfolio company.

Anthony Codispoti : So the funds are all coming from the members and you have some kind of a membership fee at Gangell’s and then probably like some kind of a like fund management fee on top of that, just to kind of understand the revenue model.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : So the revenue model is fees from the SPVs and your funds, right? That is where we get the majority of our revenue, right? And so on an SPV, it is a 6% management fee that we do take up front, but we are only permitted to use the first 2% in the first like 30 days. And then every year for the following four years, we pull in another percent. So should the investment die before then, we can return whatever is left of that management fee. If it’s, you know, if it, if the company shuts down before we’ve taken that last percentage or two. And then we have a $8,000 admin fee that is shared across the entire SPV and a 20% carry. And so that’s the on the SPV side and then funds, it’s, it’s, it’s specific to what the fees are for that fund.

Anthony Codispoti : And so the entities that you’re looking to invest in and bring to your members, all of them have a female minority in ownership position. No, that’s not a criteria.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : No, that’s not a criteria because at the end of the day, well, you know, our first priority is always to provide the best deal flow for our membership, right? What we do and end, we don’t believe, you know, originally when Gangell’s was started in 2014, that was the remit.

It was a small investment club of LGBTQ founders, investors investing into LGBTQ founders. And then in 2019 is when they changed it and they wanted to expand that, that remit, right? As I said, we’re talking in our own echo chamber and we’re not actually making an impact, right? So the thought process, if you’ve ever heard the term little people, little problems, big people, big problems, right? I always say little company, little diversity problems, big company, big diversity problems. So what we try to do is if, let’s just say that portfolio company doesn’t have any diversity on in their leadership team, we will ask if they need help to put diversity on their board. And I have a whole board access program that helps supply them with diverse candidates so that, you know, they could consider them for board or advisory board roles, right?

Because we believe that diversity starts at the top. And so, you know, they may want to participate there. We also ask, we don’t require, but we ask our portfolio companies to sign what we call the Gangell’s letter. And in that letter, it says things like, I’m going to take the parody pledge and interview a diverse slate of candidates for every role I have. We are never mandating that, you know, I don’t believe in our company doesn’t believe in making mandates as to how many diverse folks you should have, but believe that a good practice is to interview diverse slate of candidates to make sure you’re hiring the absolute best candidate. In that Gangell’s letter, we also ask them to say they’re going to have anti-discriminatory policies that are inclusive of the LGBT community or or diversity policies that they give 1% of their upside to, you know, whether it’s time or actual profits to their local communities that they, you know, interview or do mock interviews with our Gangell scholars, right? So it’s about very practical steps that a portfolio company can take that help increase inclusivity of all people working at that company.

That’s really what we’re, so if we can help them with that, then we feel like that’s really making an impact. And so we don’t require it for transparency purposes, but the majority of the investments we make, but, you know, whether it’s, you know, we call core on our paper, which is, you know, the SPV model or, you know, in our funds, the majority of the companies do sign the Gangell’s pledge.

Anthony Codispoti : Are you typically the lead investor on a deal?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : Never the lead. Never. Never. We are a high volume shop. And so as you’d imagine, you know, we’re not, we don’t want to spend a lot of time trying to set deal terms. We lead that up to the deal. We own the deal lead, we only follow on. Now we do perform a legal review in most cases, where we look to make sure that the terms are fair to us, but we’re not, we don’t look to lead deals. We’re just too high volume of a shop. We would never be able to do the type of volume we do if we were leading deals.

Anthony Codispoti : Why is it important to you to be so high volume?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : It’s to provide our membership with like that broad access, right, to give them enough opportunities to invest in companies that they believe in. And so, you know, Venture is a numbers game, right? You know, it’s a high risk asset class, as we all know, you’re tying up your money for a long period of time. And so, you know, investing in one, you know, company is probably not the best use of an investor’s money. Unless they, you know, unless they’ve done deep due diligence and they have deep, deep conviction, what we want to be able to provide our membership with is a wide array of selection so that they can, you know, they can create a mini portfolio for themselves of companies that they believe in.

Anthony Codispoti : So you’re, if I’m understanding this correctly, Jennifer, you’re largely relying on relationships that you have with the lead investors to sort of, I don’t know, do most of the betting for you and say, okay, hey, Jennifer, we’d like to bring you guys in on this now.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : And you trust that. Yes, that’s correct.

Anthony Codispoti : And so, who are some of those firms that you’ve typically worked with in that capacity?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : And before I talk through some of the names that we’ve done and some of the deals that we’ve done, I won’t maybe ask, get specific deals, but it’s important to note that we don’t always get the deal from the, from the deal lead other, right?

A portfolio company CEO may want to ensure they’ve got a diverse cap, a diverse checkwriter on their cap table, right? And they may reach out to Ganges and say, we’d let, you know, are you interested in participating? Our members, right? You know, we have close to 5,000 members now, right? They may be part of portfolio companies and say, I’d love to, I’d love if Ganges could get on the cap table and they’ll make an introduction that way.

Or it could very well be the lead, right? The other thing is, is that once you make, you know, we do everything from, you know, early stage to later stage. So once you sort of get in a deal, you’ve now built that relationship with the portfolio company.

And it is our hope that when they do follow on rounds, they are reaching out to existing investors to do those follow on rounds. So we’ve done over 35 deals with Sequoia. We’ve done over 75 deals with Greycroft. General, we’ve done a lot of deals with General Catalyst and they would say that we’re probably one of their top co-investors.

Excel, NEA, I mean, we’ve, we’ve, you know, think about it, it’s a portfolio of 2,500 companies. There’s, there’s been a lot of relationships that we’ve built throughout the years. And so we really do have a lot of investment experience with some of the big VC firms.

Anthony Codispoti : I’m going to guess with the number of investments that Ganges does, it’s difficult for you to form a close relationship with the founders at those companies. I mean, you know, over 2,000 deals, it’s, you probably can’t keep names straight, let alone, you know, have one-on-one conversations with them. Just, I mean, sort of the nature of the beast, you know, and being able to invest at that kind of scale.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : Well, we’ve got, you know, we’ve got partners, right? And each partner is bringing in their own deal flow. And so typically, the partner is that, that is brought in that deal has established a relationship with that particular portfolio company. So usually every portfolio company has one point of reference of someone, you know, you know, one person that really understands that company. I think you’re absolutely right to say there’s no one partner or person that knows every single portfolio company. But it is, you know, we, you know, each person who ran that deal, so owns that relationship. And we do really try to build relationships and be a resource to our portfolio companies. I mean, listen, we write a lot of checks, we don’t, you know, but we don’t write huge checks all the time.

I mean, sometimes we write larger checks in the millions of course, but sometimes those check sizes may be smaller. So we may not be getting like information rights or we’re not asking for seats on the board, right? You know, but what we do tries to be a resource for them, you know, if they want connections to another VC when they’re doing their follow-on round, or, you know, Ganges is also very much a community, right? And so the other, you know, sort of unique is, you know, when I think about Ganges, right, we have three uniques, right? One is the access, right? And getting into some of the deals that we’ve gotten into, right, and being able to give that access to our members, the accessibility, meaning people can invest, you know, a lot smaller amount of money than if they were in, you know, some of these larger funds, and some of these funds, by the way, are closed or oversubscribed, so they couldn’t get the deal otherwise, right? But the third unique is our community, and what we hold over 70 in-person events across the country. And that’s for our members and hundreds of webinars, right? And that’s for our members, for our portfolio companies, for our venture partners.

And so we will hold coaching webinars for our entrepreneurs. We will, you know, go to, you know, we will speak about diversity to their C-suite. We will make connections, like I said, to other VCs, to other divers, you know, to other investors. We try to, you know, not only be, not just be a check, but to add value to the portfolio company without adding a whole lot of pressure.

Anthony Codispoti : Tell me more about these in-person events. Are they, like, all in just kind of a handful of locations? Do you kind of spread them around?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : So the majority, I mean, we do have, you know, we have critical mass in a couple of key areas, like New York, LA, San Fran. So we do hold a large amount of, you know, a large number of them in those three locations. But it really is across the country, right? One of my partners, Lorenzo, is in Chicago, so we hold lots of events in Chicago. Another partner is in Miami, so we do, you know, lots of events in Miami. We’ll be at South by Southwest, you know. We try to go to, you know, we try to meet our members wherever they are, and they are all around the country, so we will hold events in, you know, in Utah, and, you know, Texas, and, you know, Florida. But critical mass, honestly, and like the majority will be New York, San Fran, you know, LA. But we do hold them across.

Anthony Codispoti : And what takes place at these events? Are they just kind of like mixers? Like, hey, you never know who you’re gonna bump into kind of a thing? Are there like more structured presentations and courses?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : So it’s a little, we try to shake it up all the time. Like, just earlier this week, we did a book signing where we brought Aminal Tai just launched. She’s an executive coach. She just launched her book about ambition.

It’s called The Ambition Trap. We had her speak to our members, talk about, you know, purposeful ambition versus like, you know, toxic ambition, and do a book signing. We’ve done, you know, obviously we do a fair bit of just, you know, fireside chats about or panel discussions on a particular topic. Like, you know, always at the start of the year, we talk about the big, what are the big trends that we expect to see in 2025? We obviously, AI is a really hot topic. So oftentimes we talk about, you know, where we see the future of AI going.

Lorenzo, the partner I mentioned earlier is absolutely a thought leader in that space. And then we try to do different things like, you know, Breckwork classes for our entrepreneurs, right? Or we’ll have small dinners with some of our portfolio, with the CEOs of our portfolio companies. We may have a dinner of like 15 entrepreneurs that may be in different industries, but all at the same stage. Cause what we find is, regardless of what your company is, it’s more, you’re more aligned by stage than you actually are by industry, right?

Anthony Codispoti : So we will bring- You’re going through the same sort of growth problems, whatever those might be.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : That’s right. So we’ll hold those sort of entrepreneurial dinners where we bring them together to talk about problems, help them expand their networks, help them meet people, you know, doing similar things that they’re doing. So it really runs the gamut, our events. And, you know, we work really hard at trying to make sure our members feel engaged. And that from a membership perspective, we’re, you know, we’re providing value outside of just our deal flow, right? You know, you mentioned at the start of the call, the WAVE program, that’s part of our community, right?

Anthony Codispoti : You know, WAVE is- Say more about what that is. Yep. So WAVE, as you mentioned, stands for Women Achieving Venture Equality. And we believe it’s important for women investors to start, you know, coming to the table in venture, because that’s when you’ll start seeing more products in the innovation economy that are geared towards women. I mean, we are half the population, right? But because women historically have not been in the venture space, we need to educate them.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : So we created a six month program that is geared to de-mystifying the asset class. So we, you know, of course, we kick it off with just what is venture? What are the different stages of venture? How should you be thinking about venture as it relates to your portfolio? But then we start getting into topics like how to read a term sheet, or how to cap tables of all from angel, friends and family, seed, you know, pre-seed, seed, you know, all the way up to pre-IPO. You know, how to create your investor thesis, because we don’t think that, you know, necessarily investing with FOMO is the best, approach to take when investing in venture.

That could be a little exhausting if you’re looking at every single thing, every single industry and stage out there. How to think about due diligence. What questions to ask a portfolio company? You know, one thing we always do is we have Q and A’s with every portfolio company we run. And so helping our members know what type of questions they should be asking those CEOs, right? When they go into the room with that.

Anthony Codispoti : You mentioned that one of your partners is a real thought leader in AI. And you guys put on a number of events or topics at the events about kind of where you see the future of AI going. Enlighten us. Like what are some of the directions that you think it’s heading that maybe the average Joe isn’t in tune with?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : Well, it’s not my area of expertise. I’ve really, these are questions I typically ask Lorenzo around it.

Anthony Codispoti : So what would Lorenzo tell you?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : So what I think he would say, right, is, you know, right now, well, one thing that him and I did to talk about was, you know, AI is so broad that you should really think about if you’re, if you want to invest in AI, kind of bring it down to what kind of AI are you interested in because, you know, there are companies that can say they’re AI companies because they use AI, right? And there are companies that are actually, you know, creating something like their actual companies based on AI.

And that’s the product they’re selling to their, to their clients. So, but I think it’s containment of AI, right? With all of this, how are we going to identify deep fakes? You know, so I think that kind of excites us, you know, when we look at AI is just, you know, how, how can we ensure AI is safe in a lot of ways, right? I also think seeing AI, not as just a chip, right, but actually now creating value for companies is something that we’re seeing. And, you know, it was one of the things that we said in the beginning of this year that we’re looking forward to seeing now, not just the chips, but how are healthcare companies using AI to create efficiencies? How are companies using AI to improve, improve the product or service that they are providing their clients?

Like really making a difference now. Go beyond that chip and actually seeing AI make a difference. But on the flip of that, there’s a lot of competition in AI right now. There’s a lot of companies going out and, you know, using that banner and the valuations are high, right? So those are things that, you know, we ask investors to consider when they’re looking at AI as well.

Anthony Codispoti : So one of the things you said is, you know, how can we make sure that AI is safe? And I think that’s a question lots of people are asking. Is there money to be made in answering that question?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : Absolutely, right. I mean, think about it, you know, there’s with AI, there’s so much sharing of data now. How do we make sure that data doesn’t get shared too broadly or the wrong or incorrect data gets shared? You know, again, I don’t claim to be the AI expert at Gangels, right? But I mean, it’s what we’re going to need as we sort of, you know, continue to expand in this, you know, in the asset class. I mean, at one point, you know, AI though, will be like investing in the internet because it’s going to be so broad.

So like I said, containment actually gives you sort of a level of detail beyond that that says, this is like sort of, it’s a way you can sort of build that funnel a little bit more as you look at your investments in AI.

Anthony Codispoti : You know, early in the conversation, we talked about how you developed a reputation that bears and then JP Morgan as being a fixer or a builder, kind of your superpower, if you will. How are you putting those superpowers to use now at Gangels? Where do you really see your strengths kind of coming into play?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : So I think, you know, right from the start, like when I came in, right, Gangels was already, I think, you know, already had quite a bit under management, already had a lot of portfolio companies that we had invested in. And it was about ensuring that we could continue to scale because when you make an investment into a portfolio company, you know, that investment is out there, it could be out there from anywhere from five to 10 years, right? And that, you know, you need to service that investment. You need to do tax on that investment.

You need to do updates and update your members that invested in that portfolio company. And so I think the first thing, you know, I did when I came here was like, how do we do this in the most automated way? Because we can’t, you know, with the type of volume we were doing at the time and the type of volume that we knew we would get to, we couldn’t be throwing bodies at it. We had to work smarter, not harder. We had to, and that is something that J.P. Morgan has, like has taught me, you know, I definitely couldn’t have taken this job without having all the experience that J.P. Morgan of, thinking about how do I make this process less cumbersome, less prone to errors, more automated, less hand touching, but still a quality product. It was something that was drilled, it’s drilled into every manager’s head, right? Is thinking about, you know, it’s that old saying that I felt was very true for J.P., right? If you’re doing what you were doing, you’re doing what you were doing last year in the same exact way, you’re not only not moving forward, you’re actually moving backward, right? And so that sort of mindset is what I brought to Gangell’s. And so, you know, quickly working with my team, we were really able to scale up this company to, I mean, we are really closely approaching a billion dollars. We’re at $991 million at this point, right? And I haven’t doubled my staff. So it was being able to continue.

Anthony Codispoti : You doubled the investments in the time that you’ve been there, but not doubled the size of your staff.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : That’s correct. But, and we keep improving, right? We improve our reporting. You know, our members want to see that Gangell’s is constantly innovating and thinking about how we can service them better, you know, at one point. You know, we brought in our taxes in-house, right? We deliver our K-1s directly to our members. And I think we do a really good job of it, right? And we do it in a really scalable way. Everything at Gangell’s must be scalable because of the volume that we do. And I think that was, you know, my area of expertise. That’s just from working at Gangell’s. I mean, J.P. Morgan.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, sorry, we’re able to bring a lot of those skills and those experiences over. As you kind of think about the growth that you’ve seen, both in terms of members, and it’s closely tied to, you know, being able to invest dollars into deals, but, you know, getting access to those deals and getting more members, what would you think is sort of the number one biggest lever in terms of growth that you’ve been able to pull while you’re there to increase the number of members, increase the deal flow?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : Well, so I think deal flow, I have to be truly honest, you know, my partners, Paul and Lorenzo, they really do the majority of the deal sourcing and they do a phenomenal job of sourcing those deals. They have built the relationships with the portfolio companies and the leads and things of that nature. So I’ve got to give all the credit to my partners for the sourcing. Paul and Lorenzo.

Paul and Lorenzo do the sourcing. But as far as bringing in new members, right, it’s about creating that platform, right, so making sure that people are aware of Ganges and, you know, our events do a lot of that, right? We, you know, people not only, you know, we invite our members and we tell our members to bring others. I mean, the greatest source of bringing in new members is just referrals, right? We do get some folks who have seen us on LinkedIn or have seen us on a lot of cap tables and they want to learn more. But the vast majority of the time, it just comes from other referrals. Our membership growth has been organic.

But that doesn’t mean that we didn’t have to do something in order to get those referrals, right? What we try to do is to ensure that our members feel engaged. So it’s holding those events. It’s providing them, you know, with value, whether it be access to our open board positions or, you know, access to a very cool company, right? It’s, you know, or providing them with really great network by all of the events we have, or just knowledge share, right, from the programs we run. It’s about not only providing value with deal flow, but providing value in multiple ways for our members so that they can go to their friends and go, oh, you’re interested in investing in Gangell.

I mean, an adventure, let me, you know, you should look at Gangell’s. They’re a really, you know, they’ll hold your hand. They have lots of deal flow. You can learn more about the asset class. You know, there’s more than just deals. There’s a whole community behind us.

Anthony Codispoti : When your customers are sending you customers, you know you’re doing something right. Jennifer, what’s a serious challenge that you’ve overcome in your life, personal or professional? How’d you get through it? What did you learn?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : So being fully transparent, I think, you know, being a first time CEO, right? I’ll never forget, you know, when you go on guard and leave in between, you know, the previous job to your current job, right? And I looked up all the lists of top books that CEOs should be, you know, reading. And I spent like those three weeks just reading, right? And educating myself and trying to figure out like how, you know, I read the first 90 days or the three things the CEOs should be focused on. I was educating myself on the venture asset class, right? And I felt really confident going into that first day, right?

And then you walk in and like, you know, you don’t realize, I guess, until you’re in the seat that it can be a little bit lonely, right? You know, my partners who are, you know, who are essentially my bosses, they hired me to run the company from a day to day perspective, right? So they don’t wanna hear about the challenges. I mean, they always, I will say, I’ve got phenomenal partners, they want to help, but it’s not really their job to help me through challenges, right?

And I can’t really talk to the team about some of my challenges or frustrations, right? So I had to quickly learn other ways. You know, being from J.P. Morgan, there was always like 10 other people that had done my job, maybe in another line of business, but, you know, I always had somebody you could go to your manager, you know, now all of a sudden I’m the CEO and I felt like very vulnerable.

And so I had to really think about, I got, you know, what am I gonna do here, right? And so I got a coach, you know, Amina, which I mentioned, we did her book signing just earlier this week. She was phenomenal in helping me navigate through certain challenges.

Like I’d give her very specific issues and she’d help me, not even solve it, but she would tell me the right questions I should be asking myself in order to get to the solution. I also realized how important my network was. So I immediately knew I had to really hit the pavement and meeting as many people as I could, fund managers in venture space, going to events, like really building that network so that I had a group of people to go to when I was questioning myself or when I needed to understand how other people solved it. And like you really learned very quickly, like I think being a CEO is sink or swim, right?

You either figure it out really quickly, your, what your toolkit looks like, or you let yourself drown. And so, you know, I didn’t wanna drown. This was really, really important to me. So I built out that network.

I got a coach. I continue to read a lot about the asset class. I asked the partners questions and stuff, but not to be to burden them because that wasn’t their job, but really like building that network that could help me be successful.

Anthony Codispoti : I appreciate you giving voice to all that because, you know, I would surmise that as people heard the first part of your story, you know, you’re a fixer, you’re a builder, you kind of moved into all these different roles, solving all these different big challenges at a giant company and, you know, Bear Stearns and then J.P. Morgan Chase, like, oh, you know, she’s got that thick skin.

She’s just got, you know, the stuff that it takes, like water must roll off her back, everything comes easy to her. And now, then, you know, a few years ago, you’re put into a, you know, your first time as a CEO and they think, oh, yeah, of course, she’s just gonna fit right into that. And it’s like, well, no, now all of a sudden, you’re alone at the top.

There’s pyramid, there’s one of you, right? You used to have, you know, J.P. Morgan, there were more of you or people around you. Now you’re the person that everybody turns to.

And that was initially felt very lonely, probably still feels lonely at times, alienating. Like, who do I go to? Who’s my support system? And great that you found peers, right? That you’re able to connect with and talk to and share the same stories. And then also great that you found a wonderful business coach.

And I think what was really remarkable about the approach that they took that you mentioned here is that rather than just trying to give you the answers, be like, hey, this is what you need to do, they gave you the questions. That’s right. Jennifer, here’s what you need to ask yourself. Yeah. Because nobody knows the situation better than you do. You can give all the details to your coach and bounce some ideas around, but all the fine minute details and the gut feeling for how this person fits into the structure and what’s going on with this deal.

You’re the only one who knows that. So being able to give you sort of more of the framework to help you make the decision seems like it, that was a lot more helpful to you.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : Oh, and like, it goes back to that saying, you could either, if you teach a person to fish, you feed them forever, right? And so, I am so blessed. And I will say the partners were also, the partners at Ganges have been truly supportive too, but it was really important for people to teach me how to think as a CEO, as opposed to giving me the answer, so that when a similar challenge came up, I had that framework to use to sort of get to my solution. And then, before I knew it, I would reach out to my coach and say, here is the problem, here is how I thought about it, here is what I came out with, let me know your thoughts, right? And she would say, no, this is great, you’re thinking about this in the right way. And I would do the same with the partners, the same with my mentors.

Again, I still use them, I still use everybody. I’m a continuous learner, I will be learning until the day I retire, and probably well beyond that, I don’t, you know, because nobody knows everything, and not only that, but we’re in such changing times that there’s gonna be so much new information tomorrow. At Norder for me to stay on top, I’m just gonna have to keep learning. So like I just, that’s why I think learning frameworks is more important than just getting bad answers.

Anthony Codispoti : What advice would you have for somebody who is either going through or about to go through a similar kind of transition? They have been a fixer, they’ve been a builder, they’ve been a doer, they’ve gotten stuff done, and now they’re stepping into the ultimate leadership role for the first time. How do you think like a CEO?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : So I would say number one, do it scared. Did you say do it scared? Yes. Okay. And it’s a, I’m a big fan of Jennifer Lopez, and she says that all the time. She was like, it’s not that I’m not scared, I just do it scared. So the first thing I would say is don’t sell yourself short. You know, when the role came up, I could have looked and went, I’ve never been a CEO before, I don’t know venture.

I’ve not been in that venture space, I’ve been in the banking space. I can’t do this, right? Or I don’t know if I can do this.

I just go, all right, number one, I think I really want this opportunity, I’m gonna do it and I will figure it out. Right. So the first thing is like just recognize that you’re gonna walk into that, you’re gonna be scared, you’re not gonna know everything, and that just, and have faith in your abilities that you’ll be able to figure it out.

Right. That would be advice number one, advice two is read, you know, read books on topics that you want to learn, you know, immerse, like it’s sort of like learning a new language and they say, yeah, dual language was great, but you’re not gonna learn the language unless you immerse yourself in it. And I would say whatever role that you’re about to take, you’ve got to take that time to really immerse yourself in it. Understand the product or, you know, what it is that you’re, what kind of company you’re going into.

Find people who have done it before you and ask them questions. And again, you know, I probably was so annoying in the beginning when I was at networking events, like, you know, talking to, you know, waiting online for a fund manager or waiting online to talk to somebody and, you know, build that rapport. But I knew I needed that, right. And then I’d say it just be, you know, and then not, and then I also think the first 90 days, that book, I loved it, right. It really gives you, the first 90 days. Yes, it gives you a framework of how you go into a company.

Like you should really spend your first, like, couple of weeks, like definitely the first week, just listening. You know, you know, I, and I remember this at JPMorgan, every once in a while, leader would come in, right. A new, you know, senior leader would come in.

And before they actually learned, because they wanted to make a mark on that department, they started changing things up really quickly, right. You know, the first thing is to just sit there. You know, if you’re going into a CEO role, talk to all the people you need to talk to that first week.

And, you know, know the question, you ask them all the same questions so that then you could see, you could sort of, you know, see where there are variations or where this company is really aligned, right. I learned that from the first 90 days. So I thought that was tremendously helpful. So if you’re going into a new company, I highly recommend first 90 days, regardless if you’re going to be the CEO or not. I think it’s a good way to think about how you approach the first few weeks of you going into a company.

But again, it is like really listening for the first couple of weeks, understanding what people’s concerns are, what their biggest pain points are, so that you can make that assessment. And then lastly is just like continue, always think about your network and level up your network. I will, you know, I’m always thinking about what’s the next thing I want to learn, who are the people that can teach me that and how do I meet them.

And, you know, what are the events I need to go to, what are the groups I need to join, just so that I can get that additional level of knowledge. But I mean, listen, and like I said, but most importantly, like don’t let being scared stop you. You know, just recognize, you know, get comfortable, beat another saying is get comfortable being uncomfortable in the beginning days. And just think as long as you’re doing, as long as you have like sort of a process and, you know, and you’re trying every day to like work through it, you know, eventually, I mean, I believe I will always eventually solve for it. Always eventually solve for it.

Anthony Codispoti : Jennifer, I’ve just got one more question for you. But before I ask it, I want to do two things. First, I’m going to invite everyone to go ahead and hit the follow button on their favorite podcast app. We’ve had a great interview today with Jennifer Geronimo from Gangels, and I want you to continue to get more great conversations like this going forward. Jennifer, I also want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you or to continue following your story. Yeah.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : Well, I mean, you could reach out to me on LinkedIn. You can become a member of Gangels and then reach out to me. Well, that’s if you, I mean, I don’t want people to come a member of Gangels just to meet me. But if they’re interested in venture and they’re, you know, joining Gangels, hit me up on LinkedIn. Those are sort of the two best ways to get in touch with me and tell me, you know, what it is that you’re interested in hearing. And I’m always happy to talk to anybody who wants to chat with me.

Anthony Codispoti : We’ll include links to both Gangels.com as well as your LinkedIn profile and the show notes for folks. The last question I want to ask you, Jennifer, as you look to the future, maybe the next two to three years, where would you like to take Gangels? Where would you like to see it be in the next 24 to 36 months?

Jennifer Jeronimo  : So I think, you know, really continuing to have the best deal flow, you know, I think, you know, continuing to increase our, you know, our membership and giving people access to venture capital to continue educating folks on the venture asset class.

I would love Gangels to be known as a really safe place for people to learn about the asset class, especially if they’ve never, you know, been in it before. Because I think it’s, you know, we make it accessible. We give lots of options and, you know, and, you know, we’ve got lots of deal flow. And, you know, and eventually I, you know, ultimately like to see that we don’t care about diversity because we live in Utopia and all companies, you know, have, you know, have diverse teams and things of that nature.

So that’s what I’d, you know, I’d love to get to Utopia at some point, but, you know, and I’d love to see women getting a lot more than 2% funding.

Anthony Codispoti : I love it. Good stuff. Jennifer Geronimo from Gangels, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Jennifer Jeronimo  : So it was a pleasure talking with you Anthony. Thank you for having me.

Anthony Codispoti : Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.